NOM President Brian Brown is deeply offended.

What has him clutching at his pearls and reaching for the smelling salts? The notion that giving gay Americans the right to have a legally recognized union is somehow a civil rights issue, akin to the struggle African Americans in this country had to not be treated as a second-class citizen. How dare those gays ask for equal protection under the law? Why, that's just a slur against all those right-minded voters who came out to vote against them.

Well, I think it’s a slur on the Americans, the majority of Americans who stood up to vote for what President Obama a year ago agreed to, what Secretary Clinton agreed to two weeks ago, that it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage.

It’s a slur on them to somehow say that opponents of redefining marriage are in the same boat as those who oppose interracial marriage. That is just a slur. It’s an assertion. What we are fighting about is, is there a civil right to redefine marriage? We say no. There is no such civil right. The laws against interracial marriage were about keeping the races apart. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman. It’s about bringing the sexes together. That is a good and beautiful thing, and I think it’s a slur to say that it’s bigotry to stand up for this truth.

The truth hurts, doesn't it, Brian?

I'm a little tired of these fallacious logic circles justifying a policy that creates inequality. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and you can't just redefine that? Bullpucky. Marriage is a legally recognized union, yes. But the legal definition of marriage has changed over time. Besides striking down anti-micegenation laws in 1967, this country has also changed and established legal rights of women within marriage as well, giving them more equality.

Thank the FSM that Al Sharpton was there to set Brown in his place:

It was a battle on interracial marriage of people saying that traditional marriage in this country was between people of the same race and that others that were supreme had the right to decide what the tradition was. They had the right to tell others they were inferior, they couldn’t marry who was superior. What we are fighting here is the rights of people to be protected. It is not the same thing as racial but it’s the same thing when you have others decide the prerogative of people’s lives and you cannot fight for one’s rights without fighting for everyone’s rights. And I think it is absurd for people to say we’re going to stand for people to have the right to determine their lives irregardless, rather, of race, but they can’t do it regardless of sex. And it’s a cop-out to have a civil union. Just shack up. Don’t get married. People have rights but they don’t have rights. They have the right as long as it meets your moral standard.

Previously on Hell's Kitchen my C&L blog, I cooked an absolutely stunning beef wellington wrote about the disturbing trend of Americans being arrested for filming cops.

I happen to be one of the unfortunate saps who's been put in the slam simply for pointing a camera at police. So without further ado, here's the second installment of my own private police state...

“They got me on some straight-up bull----, son!” exclaimed the kid sitting next to me in the bullpen at the Erie County Holding Center. “What they get you on?”

“I shot a cop,” I growled, shooting him an icy stare. “And I’d do it again.”

“Son?!” His face froze in delighted dismay. “Real? That f----- dead?!”

“I really doubt it.”

“Jablaow!” he mimicked a gunshot, aiming his hand at the mucus-encrusted, blood-smeared brick wall.

“What’d you use–a nine, forty-five…”

“A Sony Handycam,” I said with the unflinching nerve of a coldblooded videographer. “It’s the same kind James O’Keefe uses; he told me himself.”

“James who, f-----?” he balked. “Pfft! You on some f-----’ camera shit, son?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I shot a video of a cop.”

“Pfft! That ain’t no law, son. Somebody need to tell them motherfuckers!” he hollered, slapping the cold, metal bench. “We all in here on some bull----!”

***
Bunting swung by my place at about 2pm and we headed to the demonstration downtown. The New York Marriage Equality Act went into effect the previous evening, and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was protesting gay marriage throughout the state, for reasons of a religious and hate-filled nature. We wanted to cover the event properly, so we brought along a video camera, a couple bibles, and a massive latex dildo/microphone. The jiggly kind is best for serious journalism.

We circled the block a few times, parked and walked over to the growing crowd at Niagara Square. To our surprise (and because most had been bused in from out of state), the delusional NOM bigots totaled about 250. The righteous counter-protesters were only about a dozen strong. As press, we moved among both factions, asking questions.

“The bible says nothing about gay marriage,” I told a NOM supporter, “and marriage invariably results in less sex, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that, as a Christian, you should support gay marriage?” He was confused.
“Would it be fair to say that you’re doing The Lord’s work here today?” I pressed him. After much squirming, “Yes,” was his answer. I pointed to the bible, politely informed him that he shouldn’t be working on the Sabbath, and told him he was going to hell. It’s in the bible.

We also talked to this hayseed who subsists, ostensibly, on moneys derived from the Tooth Fairy. In a hill-folk whistle, he claimed to be “a low-level politician.” He had glossy, moonshine eyes. And dementia, possibly. “They took our rights!” he claimed. I didn’t bother to ask how.

“Your pants are clearly a poly-cotton blend,” I informed him. “You’re going to hell. It’s in the bible.”

The crowd started chanting, “Let the people vote!” Because social conservatives are not allowed to vote for governor or state legislature. Then they started singing; it was pretty gay. “How great is our God?” went the seemingly endless refrain. Not great enough to stop gay marriage which, for an omnipotent being, should have been pretty easy. One would imagine.

“This here’s a chocolate protest,” I heard one woman say to another. Indeed, most of the NOM supporters were black and, apparently, incapable of detecting the historic irony in their prejudice.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I beckoned one lady. “Are you menstruating?”

“Well, this is what this is all about,” she inexplicably answered.

I was like, “Whaaaa?”

“He’s trying to say you’re unclean,” her husband chimed in.

“It’s in the bible,” I said. “You’re going to hell.”

She then claimed that the New Testament was her guiding principle. I quickly shot back that in Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law. Bunting had made a note of this in anticipation of her predictable nonsense. He spends his spare time studying apologetics. I prefer to stab at my eyes with needles. But to each his own–unless it impinges on the rights of others.

We lingered on the outskirts of the protest. Bunting taped while I interviewed. I snagged a beardy bible-humper, but the noise of the rally was ruining our audio, so I broke out the dildophone. “How do you define marriage?” I asked him, waving the wobbly latex member near his face.

“I hope someone does this to your child,” he said, slowly slinking away.

Continue reading »

Even with cognitive dissonance this striking, they still think they've got a right to withhold civil rights from a whole segment of the population:

Maggie Gallagher's disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we're guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University's “Day of Dialogue," and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.

We do appreciate the debate over whether our "intolerance" for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That's Gallagher's position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we're being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.

But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. [..]

But here's the soundbite we're holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: "[Your marriage] may be better, but it's not a marriage. … It's probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn't talk about my marriage in such glowing terms."

It's so sad that someone who cannot speak well of their own marriage feels it's their right to fight to keep others from having that legal union.

On a related note, it's not a serious move so much as a political statement, but here in California, someone has decided to fight a real threat to the sanctity of marriage: the ability to divorce:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."[..]:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

While I obviously don't want my rights taken away (not that I'm planning on divorcing my husband, mind you. He's stuck with me.), I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. My gay uncle's marriage does not harm my marriage, threatens no one else's relationship and it's a ludicrous argument to claim it does. However, the ease in which we may end marriages (one-third of all first marriages end within 10 years, according to the CDC) certainly does. If these wingnuts want to hold up marriage as the foundation of society, then put up or shut up.

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The Glenn Beck show tried to sandbag Barney Frank with one of their roving reporters or producers or whatever they are, but they messed with the wrong guy. ACORN is Beck's villain of the hour and Biff Jenkins asked Frank if he'd hold hearings on ACORN because the right hates them. He got an answer he didn't expect.

Frank: As you know, the Bush administration, every year of the eight years of the Bush administration gave them well over a million dollars for housing counseling, and nobody has shown me any sign that any of that federal money was misspent. You know, I think people are being somewhat unfair to President Bush and his secretaries of HUD who consistently funded ACORN for, as I said, for a total of about 14 million dollars during the Bush years. If someone has evidence that the money that President Bush made available was misspent -- that's what I have jurisdiction over, I don't have jurisdiction over election activities by another ACORN organization -- but if anyone has any evidence, and no one has sent it to me yet, that the Bush administration ignored the misspending of that $14 million, I'll look into it.

Biff: Yes, sir, but would you hold hearings or an investigation ...?

Frank: I think you're being very unfair to President Bush.

OK, his name is not Biff, it's Griff. Frank used this against Michelle Bachmann and when you hit them with facts like this, they really have no response other than to ignore what Barney Frank said and continue with their smears.

I wonder why Beck never asked Republicans to investigate the missing $9 billion in Iraq? I guess Beck still feels like a fool after being exposed as a liar by the ladies of The View.