Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

I could go off on a long rant about gun control here, but I’ll just share some scattered thoughts on yesterday’s shooting in Santa Monica, which hit way too close to home in every respect.

How come people only freak out and demand gun control legislation after one of these massive shootings in a usually-quiet neighborhood? Isn’t gun violence also terrible when it happens on a daily basis in cities across the nation? At our old house, we used to hear gunshots fairly frequently. The first time it happened, we tried calling the police. They brushed us off. And it really sucked when a guy was murdered in a drive-by shooting a few houses down from us because some gang members thought he was a member of a rival gang. He wasn’t. But nobody made any demands for gun control then. I don’t even think they published the guy’s name in the newspaper. You had to try really hard just to find the inch of column space the shooting received. This happens every day. Why are we letting this happen every day?

Why is it that the same people who bitch and moan about the constitutional notions of “separation of church and state” and “fundamental right to privacy” do a full flip-flop when it comes to the alleged unequivocal constitutional right to personally own military-style weaponry with virtually no governmental regulation or interference? Have they read the full 2nd Amendment?

How many more mass shootings is it going to take for us to make a change? When is enough enough? If a classroom full of murdered kindergarteners wasn’t enough… what is?

If we can regulate and track the sale of pseudoephedrine, why can’t we regulate and track ammunition sales? As with ammunition, mere purchase of pseudoephedrine is not illegal, nor is possession. But if somebody lives in the middle of a densely-populated city with virtually no open land for hunting and they suddenly start stockpiling ammunition meant for semi-automatic weapons, it seems like we ought to care as much as we do if somebody goes to four different pharmacies and buys out their supply of Sudafed. And yet somehow we don’t.

While GLADD is urging folks to come out to their families at Thanksgiving, Maggie Gallagher of NOM fame (you remember – the gathering storm that brought us some of the best commercial parodies of all time?) offers up some helpful tips on smacking down your gay relatives if they try to talk about their own lives at the dinner table.

Summary: Step 1: Tell them marriage is between a man and a woman for a reason (procreation argument, yadda yadda yadda). Step 2: Refute the charge of bigotry by saying that it’s not bigoted to treat different things differently; it’s just common sense. (I’m sure that argument will go over well). Step 3: Demand mutual toleration of each others’ sincere moral opinions (even though you have the moral high ground), and then state that it’s unkind and intolerant to suggest that you’re a bigot or a hater. Repeat Step 3 incessantly until your gay relative shuts up or until there is pie.

Now I’m sure there is an argument to be made (most likely by Ms. Gallagher herself) that these same steps might apply (with obvious content edits) to gay people talking to their relatives about their own lives – i.e. state the point, refute claims of narrow-mindedness against opponents, and then request mutual tolerance and respect in light of differing opinions. But I would argue that mutual tolerance and respect is not the compromise in this situation. It merely maintains the status quo of discrimination and asks us to be accepting of our own oppression. You don’t get to say, “Can’t you just respect that I believe you are inferior and will legislate to the extent I am able to keep you in a legally-inferior position?” and expect me to say, “Oh, sure, that sounds like a fair compromise.”

Mutual toleration and respect require that individuals be on equal footing. If you want mutual toleration and respect, let us get married and then disagree with it. Don’t funnel money and manpower into passing discriminatory laws to strip us of our civil rights and then expect us to be respectful and tolerant of your “moral” stance.

The CA Supreme Court held today that the proponents of Prop 8 have standing to defend the initiative on appeal in the 9th Circuit.

This is a technical ruling on standing, and has no bearing on the substantive arguments for or against same-sex marriage. Predictably, however, ProtectMarriage.com has claimed the ruling as a monumental victory that deals a fatal blow to supporters of marriage equality:

“This ruling is a huge disaster for the homosexual marriage extremists. The Court totally rejected their demands that their lawsuit to invalidate Proposition 8 should win by default with no defense. Their entire strategy relied on finding a biased judge and keeping the voters completely unrepresented. Today that all crumbled before their eyes.”

Let’s get one thing straight (so to speak): The only thing that crumbled before our eyes today was the barrier that prevented the 9th Circuit from deciding this case on the merits. The CA Supreme Court’s decision today only gives the ProtectMarriage people their day in court – a day which they already had and, let’s be honest, squandered. It’s now up to the 9th Circuit to determine whether Prop 8 violates federal constitutional protections.

Speaking of courtroom farce, oral arguments will be heard in early December as to whether or not the Prop 8 trial videos will be released to the public. The Prop 8 supporters have fought tooth and nail to prevent the public from seeing these footage – so you know it must be worth watching. So long as the videos remain suppressed, ProtectMarriage.com can continue to claim that Prop 8 was overturned based on judicial bias in the face of hard evidence against same-sex marriage (e.g. the admission by their own star witness that this nation would be more American the day we allowed marriage equality). That they fight the release of the videos is proof that they don’t want the public to see what the judge saw. Will update on that proceeding as well.

Join Amazon Student now and get free one-year subscription to Amazon Prime. I LOVE this service and feel it’s totally worth the cost, so if you can get it free, go for it! All you need is a valid .edu email address!

“I’m beginning to think ‘the American people’ is a meaningless phrase, cravenly used as a cudgel to project whatever provincial concerns any particular interest group may want to advance, and as such, perhaps should be struck from public utterance, along with such other false monolithic projections as ‘The Founders int…ended,’ ‘Our children deserve,’ and ‘Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee!'” ~ Jon Stewart, May 5, 2010

Myth of the ‘gay lifestyle’ justifies bias – CNN.com.

Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage | Reuters.

Op-Ed Columnist – Learning From the Sin of Sodom – NYTimes.com.

In all fairness, I think a lot of the liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations is precisely the result of evangelical sanctimony… but otherwise, the guy really has a point.

Meanwhile in Texas: “American Taliban” Isn’t Hyperbole Anymore | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Maybe somebody needs to build a website to identify members of this group by name, photo and workplace.

YouTube – Woman’s Last Stand: Dodge Charger Commercial Spoof.

‘Valentine’s Day’ promotion gets ‘de-gayed’ – CNN.com.

Sarah Palin Populism: Savvy Speech to Tea Party Movement – TIME.

<a href=’http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/americas/02orphans.html?th&emc=th’>Case Stokes Haiti’s Fear for Children, and Itself – NYTimes.com.

Srsly? Little kids are not stray animals – you can’t just pluck them off the street without regard to their status, assuming it’s all okay because they’ll be better off in good [white] Christian homes. They thought they didn’t need papers because of the earthquake? Really? I’ve heard of other people who think they can just help themselves to anything after a natural disaster… we call them “looters.”

I understand the desire to help the kids… but this approach crosses a line. A big one.

ProtectMarriage is now furious at, um, well, let’s take a look:

Despite supposedly winning our appeal in the Ninth Circuit to protect the privacy of our internal Prop 8 campaign records, the trial judge has still forced us to hand over literally tens of thousands of pages of sensitive campaign memos, emails and other documents to the plaintiffs. After sifting through our internal documents for facts they think aid their case, they had them labeled as trial exhibits and added to the court record.

Yeah, we’ve all read the testimony. The Court was pretty good about keeping out the genuinely sensitive / private stuff, and much of what was admitted was redacted substantially. But as for the general process of the opposing side forcing you to hand over personal documents (also known as discovery), sifting through those documents, labeling them as trial exhibits, and adding them to the court record? I’m pretty sure that’s a hefty component of what experts esoterically refer to as LITIGATION.

How a Bad Expert Witness Can Ruin A Case « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

At any moment of optimism, however, I go back to the basic lay of the land on this case. Due to the level of scrutiny in the case, Olson, Boies, et al. are playing on an uneven playing field. They have to roll the boulder up the hill. While Prof. Miller seems to be struggling to push it down the hill, they are still the ones pushing the easy way.

slacktivist: I think maybe part of the reason you’re so angry is you keep demanding that you get screwed and then, not surprisingly, you keep getting screwed.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Twelve US Senators signed a letter urging Uganda’s president to block passage of Uganda’s proposed ban on homosexuality, legislation which includes punishments of either life imprisonment or death, and encourages a witch hunt by requiring people “in authority” to turn in suspected homosexuals.

Note that not a single one of the Senators who signed onto the letter is a Republican. That’s no surprise, really. I’m fairly certain the Repubs are just trying to figure out if that bill would fly in Congress.

Our Work » Transcripts | American Foundation for Equal Rights.

REAL TRANSCRIPTS! I am so excited.

Protect Marriage – Yes on 8 » Blog » Blog Archive » Religion Put on the Stand.

This is the other side’s interpretation of Wednesday’s testimony. I’m awestruck by their willful ignorance. Note disabled comments.

Why Don’t You Proclaim Me Some Food, Moron? | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Wow. Just… wow. That is some opportunistic BS right there. “We could feed thousands of you for a lengthy chunk of time, but, um, here, have a useless techie gadget that spouts platitudes.” At the very least, couldn’t they send CHEAP bibles and use the rest of the money for food and medical aid?

What Do They Have To Hide? « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

My favorite was when the Prop 8 attorney suggested that the “backlash” against LGBT people was the result of alleged “violence” against those who supported Prop 8. Even if there had been violence, can anybody say that Auschwitz was just the Nazis’ backlash against the Warsaw Ghetto uprising? Or that slavery and public lynch…ing were just a backlash against the Black Panthers? I’m sorry, but you can’t have a backlash until something happens to elicit a backlash. Until then, it’s just a lash. In any event, violence against LGBT people increased after Prop 8. On the opposite side, most of the alleged “violent” acts actually involve LGBT people choosing to stop spending their money at establishments that donated to Yes on 8. There were maybe one or two isolated incidents involving people who got punched after calling somebody a faggot or physically trying to take signs from somebody. You can hardly compare these isolated incidents to a history of widespread violence.

Frankly, I think the *lack* of anti-homophobe violence shows a tremendous amount of self-restraint on the part of a people who have been insulted, assaulted, beaten, violated, and murdered for decades, if not centuries.

How Many Times Do They Have to Say It Before The Media Recognizes That It’s a Coordinated Effort?? | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

The Republican Message Machine: George W. Bush Was Not President on September 11, 2001 | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

So… Bush “inherited” a “recession” from Clinton (um, I was there too, and that doesn’t sound familiar), and Bush “inherited” the September 11, 2001 attack, which occurred after nine months of the Bush administration’s failed intelligence and active ignorance (despite repeated warnings from the Clinton administration that Bin Laden was a threat), but America is now in the “Obama recession,” which began before Obama was even elected? Can somebody please explain to me how this makes sense?