Gay marriages for everyone!

It's a gay marriage frenzy!

Just a few days ago the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in Iowa. Which was nice and all, but results in the same old boring complaints about "activist judges."

The term "activist judges," of course, means any judge who overturns a ruling that conservatives like. Judges who overturn laws that conservatives don't like (like medical marijuana or euthanasia laws) aren't activists, they're just judges. Don't get confused!

So good for Iowa! Still, while adding to the very short list of states that don't treat gays like shit is great, the arguments arising from it are very predictable. It's the same old bullshit we got with Massachusetts, Connecticut, and California.

Booooring!

But Vermont has upped the ante! Not only did they legalize gay marriage, but they did it through the legislature. Hell, they even overturned a veto by the douchey governor to do it!

That's just awesome.

Now there can't be any talk about "activist" anythings. The legislature did it. They were elected by the people, ostensibly to represent those people. Ergo, the people of Vermont have legalized gay marriage.

Which is great, especially since it means that now we'll get new insane arguments from conservatives about how gays are destroying America. The local crazies aren't up in arms yet (they won't be aware of how Vermont is destroying the sanctity of marriage until McMenemy's whiny editorial appears), but there are free-range idiots to make fun of.

Let's see what the new conservative bitching-point is! Here are some comments from the AOL reprint of the AP story.

God will have the final word on this. Vermont might seem like a quaint inland area, but beware, they are not immune to an act of God!

Hmm. That's pretty poor, as far as crazy freakouts go. Saying God will punish them is good, but the "inland area" part is weak. Is God going to somehow turn Vermont into a non-quaint coastal area?

Because that seems like it would mostly punish New Hampshire. And New Hampshire is already feeling pretty uncomfortable, what with Vermont and Massachusetts rubbing up against it all sexy-like.

Here we go again the government overriding the rule of the people. I thought we lived in a democracy, where people vote and the majority rules.

Disqualified for poor reading comprehension, and still using the old arguments! Time to formulate new stupid arguments, dammit!

The only solution to the ECONOMY is to DEPORT all ILLEGALS and bring home the troops from Iraq and put them on the MEXICAN BORDER!!!

Umm... huh.

ill never go to vermont, sick sick sick, and no im not a bible thumping dude, but im not taking it in the back door !!!!!!sick sick

This fellow thinks that legalizing gay marriage means he has to be on the receiving end of anal sex if he sets foot in Vermont.

He will absolutely not masturbate tonight to the thought of visiting Vermont. Seriously. He just won't. Probably.

We are headed downhill as a country. Next we will have polygamy and then people marrying animals. It's just gross thinking about 2 men getting married. So sad what our children of tommorow are facing!

Rick Santorum is now commenting on AOL?

First it was overwhelming support for Barack Obama now it is legalization of gay marriage. My home state of Vermont has become a cess pool of failed liberal ideals.

Failed? Obama won, and gay marriage is legal.

I'm starting to think that commenters on AOL are actually sort of dumb. Won't anyone update their crazy stupid arguments? Must we stick with all the old, boring ones?

How do these "Gays" explain the birds and the bees to there adopted children? What kind of message does this send? Those kids will get so much harassment in school, those are the kids that blow schools up!

Now, that may not be a new crazy argument, but it's a pretty good one!

Gay marriage should be outlawed because adopted children of gay parents (who don't exist unless they can be legally married) will get confused about procreation, which will lead to them getting harassed, which will lead to them BLOWING UP SCHOOLS!

How do you like that, Vermont? Let's see how "gay" you are when all your schools are blown up!

Another loss for the moral beliefs of most Americans every time a gay marriage ban is lifted. It shows how far we have came from our roots of one nation under God. Now it is quickly becoming one nation under Satan.

This counts as crazy, because of Satan. But I don't think it's a new argument, really. Just a really dumb old one. And yeah, the "one nation, under God" part of the pledge of allegiance dates from 1954.

Okay, this isn't working out how I expected. There's a whole lot of crazy, but it's mostly just Christians freaking out about Jesus and equating homosexuality with bestiality, as is their habit. I could only find one clearly new argument in all my looking, and here it is:

HERE IS WHAT'S NEXT: THEY TRY TO TAKE OUR HUMAN BABIES.

That's right, married gays are coming for your human babies. Quick, stuff as many in your mouth as you can!

Hurry, the gays may already be here!

Focus on the Family's Gay Obama Fanfiction

Lately I've been taking a perverse pleasure in listening to conservative talk radio and skimming through conservative websites. Virtually everyone at this point realizes that McCain is about to go down in flames, and all the conservative nuts are going apoplectic over it.

Some approach it in a relatively sensible way, talking about what needs to be done to rebuild the conservative movement into something that isn't quite so ridiculously inept. Lucky for liberals like me, they're clueless about how to actually do it. Still, at least they're trying, bless their tiny lizard brains.

Others can't quite get to that level of acceptance and just spend their time ranting about how an Obama presidency will mean the end of the world. It's like talking to someone who's really drunk while you're perfectly sober. Entertaining for a little while, then mostly just sad and annoying.

Then there are yet others. Those who take it even beyond the ranting. Those like Focus on the Family, who actually write an hilarious sixteen-page pseudo-science fictiony letter from the future!

Specifically, it's from "A Christian from 2012." That scary future dystopia after one term of an Obama presidency!

It's totally obsessed with gayness, which is what makes it quite entertaining to me. There's a little bit in there about wars and guns and shit too, but it's about 60% about how scary the world will be when future Christian might not be allowed to discriminate against gay people.

Allow me to sum it up for you.

Obama will put liberals on the Supreme Court. They will say you're not allowed to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. This will eliminate our precious freedom of being assholes to gay people. Also, the Boy Scouts are disbanded and Iran nukes Israel! Exciting!

Some choice quotes:

Suddenly, homosexual “marriage” was the law of the land in all 50 states, and no state legislature, no state Supreme Court, no state Constitutional amendment, not even Congress, had any power to change it. The Supreme Court had ruled, and the discussion was over. This was a blatant example of creating law by the court, for homosexual “marriage” was mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, nor would any of the authors have imagined that same-sex “marriage” could be derived from their words.

Physicians who refuse to provide artificial insemination for lesbian couples now face significant fines or loss of their license to practice medicine... As a result, many Christian physicians have retired or left the practices of family medicine and obstetrics & gynecology. Lawyers who refuse to handle adoption cases for same-sex couples similarly now lose their licenses to practice law.

Church buildings are now considered a “public accommodation” by the Supreme Court, and churches have no freedom to refuse to allow their buildings to be used for wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples. If they refuse, they lose their tax-exempt status, and they are increasingly becoming subject to fines and antidiscrimination lawsuits.

A cruel vision of the future indeed! Nothing is more horrifying to your average American than the thought of a church losing its tax-exempt status!

I suspect this is just the first in a series. In the next installment, expect our intrepid future Christian to be trapped in a bathhouse by a roving gang of Obama-supporting sodomites. They'll force him to watch lavish Broadway musicals while tweezing his eyebrows, and maybe do some interior decorating.

Future Christian will struggle against this devious homosexual agenda as long as he can, until eventually even he has to give in and accept hot, hot gay sex the gay lifestyle. Which will be forced on him against his will, which he totally never spends time fantasizing about.

Never. Not once. Really.

Kurt Hayes' Stealth Agenda

Kurt Hayes is a Republican running for State Rep. in the 37th Middlesex district (which includes parts or all of Shirley, Lunenburg, Lancaster, Harvard, Boxborough, and Acton).

He has a terrible website. Also, for awhile I thought his name was "Kurt Haves" due to some poor design choices on his campaign signs. What more is there to say about him?

Quite a bit, actually. Though I suspect he would prefer it remain quiet.

See, there's a funny thing that happens to Republican candidates in Massachusetts. Since we're among the bluest of the blue states, Republicans have a difficult time getting elected. So they pretend to be "bipartisan" or downplay their conservative views, or run as independents, or try to appear more liberal than they are, or just simply lie. See Mitt Romney for examples of most of the above.

To be fair, Democrats running in red states do a lot of the same kinds of things. But they're not my concern at the moment.

My concern is this Kurt Hayes fellow, his seedy backers, and what he stands for (but doesn't want you to know he stands for).

A few weeks ago I got an email from Jamie Eldridge, the former holder of the seat for which Hayes is running (against Jen Benson). Eldridge is running for State Senate instead. By most accounts, he's a good guy.

It was an interesting email, which I oddly can't find on Eldridge's website. You can see the bulk of it quoted here. I'm not on Eldridge's mailing list, so I guess this was part of an effort to inform area bloggers. I also had a local tipster mention the same thing to me, so mission accomplished!

If you didn't bother to read it, the memo from Eldridge basically goes over how Hayes (and two other Republican candidates) are funded in large part by the despicable MIPAC.

Here's how MIPAC describes itself:

Massachusetts Independent PAC for Working Families, or MIPAC, is dedicated to helping elect candidates at the state legislative level who support pro-family positions, particularly candidates who support traditional marriage and the right of the Massachusetts citizens to vote on this vital issue.

What the hell do "working families" have to do with gay marriage? Beats me!

The important part to note is that MIPAC's entire reason for existing is to promote "pro-family" (more commonly known as "anti-gay") candidates, and to try to get gay marriage banned in Massachusetts. They do this by giving money to candidates, natch. But it's not just through the PAC that they give money (there's a $500 limit for that), as Eldridge pointed out in a nifty chart, the donors to MIPAC also give independently to these candidates. To such a degree that nearly 40% of Hayes' donations come from these out-of-district jerkasses whose defining quality is that they don't like gay people.



It's worth looking over the list of MIPAC expenditures, by the way. You'll find a number of familiar names. Brian Knuuttila, for instance. Guess that was wasted money. You'll also find Dennis Rosa and Guy Glodis on there. It's a handy little list of candidates who MIPAC believes will support their discriminatory agenda.

Of course MIPAC could be wrong to support some of these people, right? Maybe they're actually all very progressive candidates that MIPAC is just hoping to sway with the power of the purse.

Maybe, but that's not the case with Hayes. Hayes filled out a questionnaire for the Massachusetts Family Institute, another anti-gay (also anti-gambling, anti-stem-cell, anti-first-amendment, anti-porn, etc., etc.) group. You can see his responses in pdf form here. I don't recommend it, though, since the morons scanned it upside down.

Here they are flipped over and in image form. Click to embiggen.



The MFI also have a voter guide (also pdf) which boils down those longer responses. Obviously the MFI has more varied concerns than MIPAC, which is pretty straightforward about just being anti-gay. But the first question is the really telling one (though all Hayes' responses are straight along social conservative lines).

If you can't make it out, that first question is:

Should legislators vote yes to allow Massachusetts citizens to vote on a Constitutional Amendment that would define future marriages as between one man and one woman?

... to which Hayes answered "YES" without any further comment.

Of course, what that convoluted question is really asking is "do you oppose gay marriage?" It's just easier to ask it this way, where the respondents can pretend it's about voters' rights or some such bullshit. It's not. It's about whether or not they'll waste everyone's time fighting gay marriage.

So what's the problem? MIPAC can donate to whomever they want. Supporters of their cause can do the same thing. They don't have to live in Hayes' district to support his agenda, after all.

But Hayes' website makes no mention of his massive backing from anti-gay activists. In fact, I couldn't even find a mention of gay marriage anywhere on the site. If you went to his site not knowing his party affiliation, it would probably take you a little while to even figure out he's a Republican. But not only is he a Republican, he's a Republican who toes the conservative line on most social issues. Just another shill.

If that's what you're into, go ahead and vote for the guy (also, if that's what you're into why the hell are you here?). Knock yourself out. But he should at least have the decency to be upfront about his agenda.

I guess it's a good thing he intends to keep his day job even if elected, because I can't imagine people being happy if they voted him in, only to later find out what he's really all about. Better that they just hear it now, isn't it?

So yeah, if you live in that district, consider giving Jen Benson a vote.

Usurping the Constitution

Mitt Romney has sued in an attempt to force the issue of gay marriage to get a vote by the citizens of Massachusetts.

Per today's Telegram:

The suit asks the court to require that Mr. Travaglini call for a vote at the Jan. 2 convention, its last before the end of the 2005-2006 legislative session

If no vote is taken on the measure that day, the suit asks that the court require the secretary of state to put the proposed constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman on the 2008 ballot without legislative approval.

Furthermore...

“A decision not to vote is a decision to usurp the constitution, to abandon democracy, and substitute a form of what this nation’s founders called tyranny: that is, the imposition of the will of those in power on the people,” Mr. Romney said.

Ignoring for the moment the fancy rhetoric, one thing no article I've seen about this has discussed is the actual constitutional basis for what Romney is trying to force; putting an amendment on the ballot while skipping the legislature itself.

Here it's helpful to look at the Constitution itself, specifically the part dealing with Initiative Petitions. Romney's focus is on the legislature having to have a vote, as supposedly indicated by the word "shall":

Section 4. Legislative Action. - Final legislative action in the joint session upon any amendment shall be taken only by call of the yeas and nays, which shall be entered upon the journals of the two houses; and an unfavorable vote at any stage preceding final action shall be verified by call of the yeas and nays, to be entered in like manner. At such joint session a legislative amendment receiving the affirmative votes of a majority of all the members elected, or an initiative amendment receiving the affirmative votes of not less than one-fourth of all the members elected, shall be referred to the next general court.

What he seems to be missing, however, is the next Section (my emphasis):

Section 5. Submission to the People. - If in the next general court a legislative amendment shall again be agreed to in joint session by a majority of all the members elected, or if an initiative amendment or a legislative substitute shall again receive the affirmative votes of a least one-fourth of all the members elected, such fact shall be certified by the clerk of such joint session to the secretary of the commonwealth, who shall submit the amendment to the people at the next state election. Such amendment shall become part of the constitution if approved, in the case of a legislative amendment, by a majority of the voters voting thereon, or if approved, in the case of an initiative amendment or a legislative substitute, by voters equal in number to at least thirty per cent of the total number of ballots cast at such state election and also by a majority of the voters voting on such amendment.

In other words, it only gets to the popular vote if voted for in sufficient numbers by the legislature itself. I'm no constitutional scholar, but to skip that step, as the suit seeks to do in absence of a vote, also seems like it would be unconstitutional.

So usurping the constitution is bad, unless you're the one doing it.

Now, personally I don't think civil rights should ever be subject to popular vote, but the constitution does appear to allow it in some (but not all*) cases. Furthermore, amending the constitution to remove rights from a subset of people is just abhorrent.

Should there be a legislative vote? Maybe. I'd rather see it after the new reps are sworn in (so long, Emile Goguen!) than during the current session, but either way I suspect the initiative is doomed to failure. The longer this goes on, the less opposition you're going to find in the general population (which may be part of why Romney is so keen to get it on the 2008 ballot).

On another note, why does Romney want to restrict marriage to being between "one man and one woman"? Do his Mormon buddies know he's up to this?


* Per the constitution:

No proposition inconsistent with any one of the following rights of the individual, as at present declared in the declaration of rights, shall be the subject of an initiative or referendum petition: The right to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use; the right of access to and protection in courts of justice; the right of trial by jury; protection from unreasonable search, unreasonable bail and the law martial; freedom of the press; freedom of speech; freedom of elections; and the right of peaceable assembly.