But things remain a bit confusing, so let me get straight. Here's the Christmas-state of the union:
The ruling Christian class has now given me the right to kill many men, but still withholds the right to love just one.
The ruling class did not include transgender soldiers in the DADT repeal. So these individuals are free to civilly marry a person of the same biological sex (as long as the individual has had his or her legal sex changed), but this person is not allowed to kill transgender people in foreign lands.
In some of the United States, I'm forbidden to adopt and care for a child, but in foreign states I can use our tax-funded bullets and bombs to blow children apart.
All praise and glory be to the just and compassionate god of the Christians, for He is a wonderful counselor, a prince of peace, wisdom and understanding, who wears righteousness as His belt, and cares for the poor, the widow and the orphan (unless they are a different color, religion, orientation, or nationality). Thank dog that he came into the world roughly 2010 years ago (depending upon the heavily redacted and religiously syncretized source of your choosing). Dog bless America, where the currency, 90% which is in the hands of the upper 10% of the U.S. population, reads: "In God [sic] We Trust." No doubt.
The fight for equality continues. ENDA died in Congress this year. Obama's justice department is still fighting to overturn the Federal Court ruling that DOMA is unconstitutional. We've scored victories on DADT and Hate Crimes legislation, but there's much more to be done in the Land of the Free Institutionalized Homophobia, Hatred, Bigotry, Racism and Xenophobia.
Postscript:
Update on Lt. Dan Choi; his response to the DADT repeal; how PTSD landed him in the hospital.
In this case, Congressman Steve Pearce (White, Straight, Baptist, Republican, New Mexico) argued that after gay couples marry and polygamy reigns that one gay will marry every uninsured person in California with AIDS so that they can all get health insurance benefits. That's about as slippery as the slope gets. (There's a simple solution to calm his fear: nationalized healthcare or at least a public option.)
Pearce (who Sarah Palin just endorsed) went on in the video to claim that children adopted by same-sex couples are sewing their homo-parents in droves, because these children want to be raised by one man and one woman and not have a "social experiment" run on their lives. Pearce claimed that this "push-back" happened "nationwide." You may wonder why I'm mixing my tenses, that's because this video is from Pearce's 2008 campaign. His prophesies failed.
Where is the nationwide push-back of straight children sewing their homo-parents? Why did the Mormons, historical practitioners of polygamy, fund California Proposition 8? If same-sex marriage really was going to lead to legalized polygamy, this seems illogical. Of course it is: This is a multiple-term congressman who's making laws that govern our lives.
A Miami appeals court ruled Wednesday that Florida's ban on gays adopting is unconstitutional and affirmed the controversial adoption of two foster children by a gay North Miami couple. The unanimous 3-0 decision deals a critical blow to Florida's 33-year-old law banning adoption by gay men and lesbians, and most likely sends the case to Florida's highest court for resolution. "Given a total ban on adoption by homosexual persons, one might expect that this reflected a legislative judgment that homosexual persons are, as a group, unfit to be parents," the opinion states. "No one in this case has made, or even hinted at, any such argument. To the contrary, the parties agree 'that gay people and heterosexuals make equally good parents.' "
This map (via Wikimedia) shows the worldwide laws by country concerning homosexuality, ranging from marriage equality for same sex couples to the death penalty for outed or accused gays. Notice that the United States, "Land of the Free," is the same color as all those communist countries that the Religious Right loves to demonize.
SHORTLY after 4 a.m. on the frigid morning of July 15th, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to permit gay marriages nationwide, and to allow homosexual couples to adopt children. After over 14 hours of debate and fierce legislative arm-twisting, the Senate voted 33 to 27 to approve the bill. The measure both cements Argentina’s reputation as a relatively liberal outlier in a socially conservative region, and delivers a big short-term political victory to the president, Cristina Fernández, and her husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner. Whether it will help or harm their effort to remain in power past 2011, however, remains very much in question.
Charles Cooper, attorney for proponents of the measure, told Walker that the “marital relationship is fundamental to the existence and survival of the race. Without the marital relationship, society would come to an end.”
But wait a minute, if the purpose of marriage is to ensure procreation, then how did human beings evolve, exist, and procreate long before the patriarchal version of the institution of marriage was created? Every other species on earth procreates successfully without the "marital relationship." Cooper's argument is completely flawed. The human race survived and thrived long before marriage, and if Cooper's doomsgay prophesy manifests, the human race will continue to procreate.
That relationship, he [Cooper] said, is between a man and a woman and its main focus is procreation and “channeling” the sexual behavior of heterosexuals into “stable, marital unions.”
Once again, I have to ask, does this mean that divorce should be made illegal? Define "stable." Should we pass laws defining a stable marriage and only allow heterosexual couples in so-called "stable, marital unions" to have sex and procreate?
Walker continually pressed the sometimes flustered Cooper on just what marriage means and why the state should care about it. Why does the state regulate marriage, he asked. Do people get married to benefit the community? Why doesn’t the state just consider it a private contract?
Walker: “Why is it that marriage has such a large public role? What is the purpose?”
Cooper: “This relationship is crucial to the public interest.… Procreative sexual relations both are an enormous benefit to society and represent a very real threat to society’s interest.”
Walker: “Threat?"
Cooper: “If children are born into the world without this stable, marital union … both of the parents that brought them into the world, then a host of very important, very negative social implications arise.... The purpose of marriage is to provide society’s approval to that sexual relationship and to the actual production of children.”
If the purpose of marriage is to "provide society's approval to that sexual relationship and the actual production of children," then society is doing a shitty job by permitting so many children to be born into families of pedophiles, rapists, drug addicts, embezzlers, child-beaters, religious fanatics, mentally abusive, neglecting, self-centered, overbearing, disordered, cheating, lying, etc. etc. parents. Where are all the laws that define and monitor marriage stability, determining whether a couple can conceive? On what planet does Cooper live?
Those who adopt go through rigorous screening processes before being allowed to become parents. Olson presented evidence of studies showing that adoptive parents are more likely to provide a stable, nurturing household than your average married couple. Perhaps we need to take the babies born to those deemed "unstable" by Cooper's standards and put them all up for adoption. That's it. Stable same sex couples may actually save the human race by adopting and raising the children of abusive, unqualified, and unstable heterosexuals, who don't live up to Cooper's standards.
And what of our soldiers that die in action? Should their children be taken from their single mothers and placed in "stable" homes that have one mommy and one daddy? Where does it end, Cooper?
Cooper took Theodore Olson, attorney for the gay and lesbian couples who filed suit against Proposition 8, to task for claiming that Californians could support the ban on same-sex marriage only “through irrational or dark motive, some animus, some kind of bigotry.”
People's religious beliefs don't excuse their actions, especially in a country where there is freedom of and from religion. Voting to take away the rights of a group, who holds different religious beliefs, is unconstitutional.
As for the dark motive, animus and bigotry, were not an endless barrage of commercials financed by religious groups channeled into my living room in 2008 purporting scientifically disproved myths and stereotypes of homosexuals as deviants, who were trying to prey on children in the school systems? If that's not animus and bigotry, what is?
Olson’s viewpoint, Cooper said, “denies the good faith of Congress, of state legislature after state legislature and electorate after electorate.” To which Walker responded: “If you have 7 million Californians, 70 judges and this long history, why in this case did you present but one witness? ... You had a lot to choose from. One witness, and it was fair to say his testimony was equivocal.”
a: subject to two or more interpretations and usually used to mislead or confuse [an equivocal statement] b: uncertain as an indication or sign [equivocal evidence]
Ouch.
To download the full transcript click here. My favorite moment came when during Cooper's argument, he sounded flustered and stated something like, "I'm losing my voice."
We could only be so lucky.
Here is Kate Kendell's optimistic response after witnessing the closing arguments.
In the embedded video below, "Lucien" reveals the contract that he had with Rekers, which agreed to much more than just bag carrying. Also, NARTH and the Family Research Council have released statements distancing themselves from Rekers.
It appears these conservative Christian organizations have passed judgement on Rekers. His lies, denial, and ex-gay therapy can't save him from the truth: he is a member of what he referred to as a "deviant segment of society." As if, the mustache hadn't been giving him away.
A few weeks ago, when Huckabee challenged the paper to release the full audio tapes that would supposedly exonerate him, the paper did so. The tapes confirm everything that Huckabee said and in context. He's still a puppy pushing homophobe.
"It is telling that nowhere in his statement did Huckabee suggest he was misquoted in the article, and rightfully so; we have the audio and transcripts to prove that everything reported is accurate. Huckabee's problem seems to lie more in the focus of the article, which is centered partially on LGBT issues. We feel that same-sex marriage, laws prohibiting gays and lesbians from adopting children, and 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' are legitimate policy concerns about which to question national political figures. Gov. Huckabee may disagree."
And released the audio, which is actually more damning than the original published remarks. Among Huckabee's comments:
"In a perfect world, in the ideal world, people would recognize that having a child is heavy duty responsibility and you engage into a relationship with somebody sexually as a permanent expression of your commitment to that person. You don't use another person a sexual toy and toss them away, leaving them with the burdens of a child. That to me is what's so recklessly irresponsible and ridiculous immature. When people use another person as their sexual object of pleasure without any regards to the ultimate consequences of it. That's not mature sexuality, that's immature, selfish lifestyle. … The ideal world is a man and a woman. You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal."
You'll notice Huckabee refuses to say gays and lesbians fall outside of this ideal world, claiming Tracey is putting those words in his mouth. But by grouping these so-called alternative lifestyles into the groups of other terrible behaviors — i.e. drug users — he is tacitly categorizing them together. That isn't the same thing as taking his words out of context; it is, in fact, putting them in context.
A few weeks ago, Rachel Maddow covered this story (embedded below), but on last Friday, Huckabee was on Hannity (also embedded), once again claiming he'd been framed by the college reported at the College of New Jersey. He also responds to an interview by Rosie O'Donnell on Sirius radio. Notice how patronizing his response to Rosie is, saying that she didn't even yell at him and was civil, as if all lesbians are screaming, angry, and uncivil people.
Huckabee continues to lie to cover his bigoted statements, and that's why he's in the running for Hypocrite of the Year.
In contrast, here's what Rachel Maddow had to say about the story a few weeks ago.
Here's the uncut audio version of The Perspective's Mike Puppies Huckabee interview.
28% of those polled voted "Yes: Puppies need Huckabee's Jesus to be saved from puppy purgatory."
71% voted "NO: Huckabee should not be allowed to teach his version of right wing Christian, hatred, fear, and discrimination to cute, vulnerable, innocent, needy, and malleable puppies."
Either way, we're all hypocrites: the "no" votes for allowing Huckabee's hypocritical, homophobic ways to be passed onto poor little puppies and the "yes" votes for wanting equal puppy civil rights, while voting to limit Huckabee's puppy adoption rights.
A state judge on Friday struck down an Arkansas law approved by voters that banned gay couples and other unmarried people living together from serving as adoptive or foster parents. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said in a two-page ruling that people in "non-marital relationships" are forced to choose between becoming an adoptive parent and sustaining that relationship. "Due process and equal protection are not hollow words without substance," Piazza said. "They are rights enumerated in our constitution that must not be construed in such a way as to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people."
Jerry Cox, leader of the Arkansas Family Council, which backed the ban and helped defend it in court, said his group will appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
From California Proposition 8 Protest, November 2008
He [Huckabee] continues to oppose any government recognition of same-sex relationships. Even civil unions are "not necessary," Huckabee said. "I think there's been a real level of being disingenuous on the part of the gay and lesbian community with their goal of civil unions," he alleged, referring to LGBT activists who first claimed that their goal in several states was to enact civil unions, but subsequently launched efforts to implement full marriage rights.
Huckabee went on to draw parallels between homosexuality and other lifestyles that are considered by some to be morally aberrant. "You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal," he said of same-sex marriage. "That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want who use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them."
He also affirmed support for a law in Arkansas that prohibits same-sex couples from becoming adoptive or foster parents. "I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family," Huckabee said. "And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults."
* More than one in three lesbians have given birth and one in six gay men have fathered or adopted a child.
* More than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians want to have a child.
* An estimated two million GLB people are interested in adopting.
* An estimated 65,500 adopted children are living with a lesbian or gay parent.
* More than 16,000 adopted children are living with lesbian and gay parents in California, the highest number among the states.
* Gay and lesbian parents are raising four percent of all adopted children in the United States.
* Same-sex couples raising adopted children are older, more educated, and have more economic resources than other adoptive parents.
* Adopted children with same-sex parents are younger and more likely to be foreign born.
* An estimated 14,100 foster children are living with lesbian or gay parents.
* Gay and lesbian parents are raising three percent of foster children in the United States.
* A national ban on GLB foster care could cost from $87 to $130 million.
* Costs to individual states could range from $100,000 to $27 million.
