You best believe I mean love l-u-v.
If same-sex marriage is allowed, it is going to be nearly impossible to prohibit the sanctioning of any other kind of human “relationship”—from close relatives of different sexes who wish to marry (that has been outlawed because of biological and incest considerations) and polygamists to adult-child “marriage.”
Oh, Cal. Cal Thomas. You have no idea. Once our godless footsoldiers succeed in destroying heterosexual marriage, why, the sky’s the limit. Here’s a little of what I, myself, will marry on that happy, blessed day:
- “Flim,” by Aphex Twin (or, “Flying North,” by Thomas Dolby);
- the sensation of presque vu;
- Kahimi Currie;
- Queen Elizabeth (as portrayed by Miranda Richardson);
- just about anyone else, so long as they’re drawn by Paul Pope;
- the scene at the end of Rushmore at the cast party for Max’s latest play, when he signals to the DJ and everybody starts dancing in slow motion to that song they later tried to fuck up in a car commercial but just barely managed not to;
- and, apparently, Orson Scott Card.
(Advantage Johnzo. Pass it on.)
Let no one put asunder.
At about ten of nine, West Coast time, this Hampton Roads news site lists Multnomah County as being in Washington.
Multnomah County is actually located in the state of Oregon.
But I’m linking to it anyway, since it gacked the photo of Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge from KGW.com (who want you to fill out a friggin’ form before they’ll let you read the news).
AP photo of Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge, posing with their marriage certificate after a news conference for Basic Rights Oregon.
Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge got a marriage certificate today.
They’re going to get married tomorrow, right here in Multnomah County.
God, it feels good to be on the right side of this wall.
update— The invaluable Jeff “Emma” Alworth provides some sobering but vital context.
further update— The illimitable Zoe Trope provides some giddy and equally vital photographs.
The mind, reeling.
The president’s trying to enshrine the first discriminatory constitutional amendment as a bloody-shirt tactic to drum up more votes. His supporters are smearing war heroes while puffing up their own and blatantly lying about the record of his most likely opponent. We are finally hearing the truth about what the administration knew going into Iraq, and how little it had to do with what was said or what we did; the pay for soldiers on the front lines has been cut, the promised support for first responders never materialized, and callous privatization is hiding the true cost of this disastrous blunder. The president’s budget is a transparent joke, larded with boobytraps set to expire after his increasingly theoretical second term; every federal source of once-credible objective data and analysis has been poisoned by his political goals. Even science and the public health is subject to the political whims of the Mayberry Machiavellis. And if they are successful in openly stonewalling the investigation of the most devastating terrorist attack ever on American soil, we can at least rest assured that their obscene attempts to capitalize on the tragedy this coming September will not go as smoothly as expected.
Also, Kenny-boy still walks free.
(Aw, shit. I almost managed that with a straight face. I’m sorry. Lemme try it again—)
Further, not-so-meaningless internet-related activities.
Billmon has uncovered the most glorious hack. It seems georgewbush.com has a really keen tool: enter your ZIP code, and it’ll bring up a list of your local papers. Type in the letter you wish to send to the editor(s), check off the papers in question, press the “send” button, and presto! You’ve siphoned off a tiny chip of his 200-million–dollar war chest and used it for truth, justice, and the American way. (If you’re at a loss, Billmon suggests you take the HRC or Lambda Defense Fund letters as boilerplate.)
What are you waiting for? Go” alt=”” /> Go!
The devil’s ice skates.
Seriously: Andrew Sullivan’s dish today is well worth your browsing time. No one thing: just email after email, pouring over the transom—
I am (or, I never thought I’d say it, was?) a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who (much like you) has spent the last two years proselytizing my liberal friends for GW. I am also a woman who has been in a committed same-sex relationship for 25 years. I feel like I was body-slammed today. What a quandary: I don’t know for sure that the Dems will be worse in the war on terror, but I do now know for sure the Republicans will be worse in protecting my equal rights. This is just a depressing day.
And this—
We’ve witnessed a shift in Republican politics. The Republican establishment used to pay lip service to religious conservative interests while openly courting independent voters with moderate policies because it knew it could get the religious conservative vote regardless (who were they going to vote for, Clinton!?). But now, it seems Bush is paying lip service to independent interests while openly promoting religious conservative policy. Who are we going to vote for, Kerry?
Well, yes.
But also—
President Bush didn’t “declare war” on the civil rights of homosexuals; left-wing activist judges, mayors, city bureaucrats and the gay movement have declared war on the rule of law and the institution of marriage. President Bush has merely responded to what others have started. The battle is now joined and I believe that the overwhelming majority of the country will be in the President’s army, as you’ll soon find out.
(Confidential to that last: you’re probably thinking of Arnold’s promise of blood in the streets if the marriages aren’t terminated right this minute, but you might want to re-think that whole “army” motif—considering the current C-in-C’s track record in that particular regard.)
Meaningless internet-poll–related activities.
Oh, go kick some homophobic wingnut ass, would you?
Andew Sullivan also has some interesting numbers for the currently faint of heart. (This is what it’s come to: I now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Andew Sullivan. The mind reels.)
And der Gropenfuhrer’s veiled threats of riots and blood in the streets aside, look at it this way: whoever supports such an amendment—whether it would nuke all civil unions and partnership benefits currently negotiated piecemeal in states and municipalities across the country, like Musgrave’s grossly misrepresented proposal, or whether it scales back to merely mandate groin checks before the issuance of first-class marriage licenses—now has to walk up to very specific people and say, “You aren’t married anymore. I’m destroying your family.” This is much, much harder to do; then, the abstract’s always easier than the concrete.
Also, via Atrios: the Fidelity Pledge.
Mars tanked; this will tank. (Remember Mars? We were gonna go to Mars. In a rocketship. Zoom!) —There might be a brief plateau in the plunging polls, but there won’t be a bounce; that’s all this is for, after all: a toehold, a chance to catch a breath on the way down. A bit of red meat for the slavering hordes, but get real: who the hell else are the slavering hordes gonna vote for? (Run, Roy, run!) It might pass the House—the perennial flag-burning amendment always does—but it won’t pass the Senate, not in its current form: and if that famous second sentence is stripped out or rewritten to allow faggots and dykes the rights to marriage in all but name, well, you won’t end up making anyone at all happy with that, now, will you? And if it or something like it does pass, we merely have to hold the line in thirteen states for seven years to keep it out of the constitution. Or less—I’d lay money that if the Senate did pass this, it’d be with a hellishly tight ratification deadline. If the people want it, they want it now, right? (Otherwise, they’ll just keep getting married in Massachusetts and San Francisco while solons natter…)
The rat’s cornered. The scales are finally falling from too many purblind eyes; whole divisions of his reserves are packing up and melting away by dark of night. His hardliners have pushed him into a rash and ill-advised kulturkrieg, but we can contain him. We haven’t won yet, but we will.
Today’s half-assed declaration was an act of rank desperation, and everybody can smell it.
Cookies (and bourbon).
So we’ve got boxes of Samoas and Thin Mints and even a box of Tagalongs in the freezer, and there’s an open box of Lemon Coolers on the table, and much as a friend might haul a carton of milk out of the fridge, sniff it, and make that face and then hold it out to you saying, “God, this is foul, you gotta smell it,” Patrick Nielsen Hayden points out Girl Scout cookie time again.
So pick up a box or three and spread the word. The Girl Scouts will doubtless weather this storm the way they have weathered storms going back to the ’50s and beyond, but they weather them largely because people like you and me support them by, among other things, buying cookies. And hey: you get cookies! Those Lemon Coolers, for instance? They’re pretty good to nibble on as you’re savoring an I-just-flew-back-from-San-Francisco-and-boy-was-that-a-rough-landing drink.
I’m just sayin.’
Political action.
When Jenn and I got married, we had to go to the county to file for a marriage certificate, so I figured sending an email to Portland’s mayor, Vera Katz, might not be the most direct route toward seeing that Portland joined San Francisco and New Mexico and maybe soon Chicago on the right side of history. But Vera must be hearing from a lot of people on this subject these days; not an hour later, I got back a form email—
Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts about same-sex marriage and your recommendation that such benefits be extended to citizens of Portland. Naturally, the recent action by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has raised questions about whether or not I have the authority to grant marriage licenses.
In both Oregon and California, the county serves as the instrument of the state for recording marriage licenses. However, Portland and Multnomah County are two separate governmental entities. This contrasts with the City of San Francisco and San Francisco County, which are unified. There, the Mayor shares an administrative role with the County Board of Supervisors. Therefore, Mayor Newsom had the authority to ask staff in the Office of the County Clerk, which is located in City Hall, to issue marriage licenses to interested couples. While I share your conviction for full civil rights for all citizens, I have no such authority over county functions.
She goes on to outline her role in working with the county to set up our domestic partnership registry. “The only role the City has ever played has been to refer individuals seeking license information to the County,” she says, or rather her email says, or rather the email composed by her assistant says. “However, at the appropriate time I will make known my sentiments about the right to marry.” And she closes with a plug for Basic Rights Oregon.
Not too shabby, one supposes, for an elected official. It might have been nice, though, if she’d gone on to point out who, exactly, one should contact in the Multnomah County government to pass along one’s thoughts on the matter. So here’s the contact page for Diane Linn, current chair of Multnomah County.
(So we’re here in San Francisco for APE, and in a little room in Patrick Farley’s house in North Berkeley I can plug a yellow ethernet cable into the iBook I brought from home and then read about a quick action taken by an old friend up in Olympia who was inspired by what’s happening just across the Bay here, and without getting up from my seat I can engage in a little back-home political activism with a quick Google and some email. Yes, it’s old hat, and yes, we’ve heard it all before, but still: this brave new world has its terribly cool moments.
(Though it would’ve been cooler if my iBook were wired for wireless, I know. Sigh. Always room for improvement.)
And then, as I’m making my last-minute live final edits, this—
The Sandoval County clerk’s office granted licenses to 26 same-sex couples before New Mexico attorney general Patricia Madrid issued a late afternoon opinion saying the licenses were “invalid under state law.”
The clerk’s office stopped issuing licenses and told newly wed couples their licenses were invalid. A crowd outside the office reacted with boos and shouts as a deputy clerk read the attorney general’s legal advice.
—via Alas
Especially noteworthy is this passage from the AP article:
“The governor has always been a champion for human rights. He supports equal rights and opposes all forms of discrimination. However, he is opposed to same-sex marriage,” said Marsha Catron.
Breathtaking, ennit?
What the hell is this, a threat?
Still working on it. (For those who want a preview, here. Baboon’s ass has been fixed; individual archive is mostly working [ignore that top nav line for now]; monthly archives and linkroll to be massaged, but hell, it’s pretty much open for beta.) But! Saw this banner ad for the RNC on my soon-to-be-dumped Sitemeter—
—and had to share. (Points here, in case you were wondering.)
All I have to say is, once this is over, the Iraqi people better be the freest fucking people on the face of the earth. They better be freer than me. They better be so fucking free they can fly.
And so we went to war with the Islamofascists: a clash of civilizations, the final showdown between tolerant Enlightenment rationalism and grim, dark, authoritarian terror. And what did we do when we won?
Fuck you, Bush. Fuck Rice and Powell, fuck Cheney, fuck Donald “Vases?” Rumsfeld. Fuck the House, fuck the Senate; fuck the Democrats who trusted you weaselly little fucks and voted for this fucking farce. Fuck Thomas Friedman, fuck Christopher Hitchens—hell, fuck the entire fucking press corps sideways; not a one of you fucks did your fucking job, and you’re still ignoring this. Go write about another fucking sweater, you useless, lying fucks. Fuck you Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan; fuck the Freepers and the Little Green Footballs; fuck Lileks, fuck Tacitus, fuck Misha, fuck the captain of the fucking USS Clueless, fuck John fucking Cole. Hell, the mood I’m in, Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum and Big Media Matt can go fuck themselves for being suckered in however briefly by fucking Kenneth Pollack, who was in turn suckered, so by all means, fuck him too. Fuck Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer III. Fuck the CPA and the IGC. Fuck Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Abd Al-Aziz Al-Hakim. Look at what you’ve done. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve said and what you hoped would happen and look at what is actually happening right now. Tell me this was worth tens of thousands of dead and wounded. Tell me this does one whit to make the world a safer place. Tell me how many lives it will save and improve. Tell me!
Ah, to hell with the lot of you. Fucking bastards.
Gung-ho
In all the foofooraw over Paul O’Neill’s statements about the Bush administration drawing a bead on Iraq from day one, and the counter-claims and counter-counter-claims, that he’s full of shit, and we were never planning regime change until 9/11 changed everything, and anyway we were just following in the footsteps of Clinton’s policy, which wanted regime change, I mean, God, who didn’t, I’d just like to dredge up this quote again, from a September 10, 2001 profile of Secretary of State Colin Powell:
When the Secretary jumped out front on Iraq, pushing to “toughen” crumbling UN sanctions against old nemesis Saddam Hussein by making them “smarter,” conservatives scoffed that meant weaker. But Powell persuaded the President—because, say aides and rivals alike, he’s very effective when he “marshalls his facts.” The Administration—and Powell—was embarrassed later, when Russia rebuffed the plan.
And as soon as Wolfowitz, a zealous advocate of “regime change” in Baghdad—backing dissidents to overthrow Saddam—settled into his office, he told European parliamentarians that Powell was not the last word on sanctions or Iraq policy. Enthusiasm is building inside the Administration to take down Saddam once and for all. Powell too would love to see Saddam unhorsed, says an official at State. “But you need a serious plan that’s doable. The question is how many lives and resources you have to risk.” Powell’s unwillingness to fight any less-than-total war is legendary, and the particulars of launching a covert insurgency among the feuding Iraqi opposition factions would give any general pause. The proposition is still “hypothetical,” he told Time. But plenty of others on the Bush team are gung-ho.
To review:
- Senior administration officials were planning to take Saddam down once and for all before 9/11.
- This was seen as a deliberate break with previous policy.
So what’s wrong with what it was O’Neill said?
From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out…. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, “Fine. Go find me a way to do this.”
Vote early. Vote often.
Via Zoe Trope, we learn that the American Family Association is conducting a poll to determine America’s attitudes regarding same-sex marriage. They intend to present the results to Congress.
Unfortunately, they neglected to let a broad spectrum of Americans know about the survey. However will it be truly representative of our country in all its diverse majesty? So go, vote—then spread the word.
You know?
Happy anniversary.
We all know that George W. Bush is unelectable. After all, he lost last time; he’ll lose again. In every conceivable metric, he has failed to clear the bar set by even the most inept of presidential predecessors: whether it’s the gutshot economy, the punch-drunk war, the hamfisted cronyism, the Nixonian authoritarianism, or the ludicrous foreign policy, as conducted by a bunch of froshling poli sci majors on a Diplomacy binge, he’s presided over the most appalling collection of creeps, crooks, dolts, and faith-based dipshits ever to tap a Teapot Dome. His administration has been a miserable failure; any slob in a smelly T-shirt could beat him in a walk on that special Tuesday in November. The man is unelectable.
But he is selectable.
So here’s a clip’n’save vocabulary list of tricks and tactics we all ought to keep a weather eye out for, beyond the obvious black-box ballot-stuffing threat of Diebold and company:
Rehnquist v. tr. To purge voter rolls of blocs designated as likely to vote Democratic, whether by excluding anyone with the same last name as someone who might be a felon, or directly intimidating minority voters at the polls. Usage: “Katherine Harris really rehnquisted Florida in 2000.”
Kennedy v. tr. To gerrymander voting districts to prevent adequate representation of minorities; from the act of using specious legal reasoning to defend this practice. Usage: “The Republicans are getting more brazen about how they kennedy voting districts.” Note: overshadowed by the more virulent synonym, delay.
O’Connor n. The hypocrisy of strenuously attempting to appear principled while openly aligning oneself with unethical, amoral factions, lending them respectability in return for the tactical advantages gained by trampling the very principles one claims to uphold. Usage: “There’s an entire class of ‘good’ Republicans in this country, lost in an advanced state of o’connor.”
Thomas v. tr. To “work the ref,” manipulating rules, regulations, policies, procedures, and public relations to prevent crucial information from reaching the public, thus ensuring the vote goes your way. Usage: “The punditocracy appears if anything to be even more complicit in thomasing political coverage in favor of the Republicans than they were in 2000.” Note: thomasing differs from diebolding in that no vote tampering occurs, per se.
Scalia n. Any Supreme Court decision which is a one-time only deal, setting no precedent, engaging in transparent sophistry that makes a mockery of the articles cited, and effecting a naked power grab that shatters our much-vaunted system of checks and balances. Usage: “Bush v. Gore? Total scalia, dude.”
Over it? Feh. Move on? Ha! Happy anniversary, y’all, and remember: he’s unelectable—but selectable. The gang that can’t shoot straight is governing like there’s no tomorrow— certainly not one that belongs to anyone but them. They will not go gently into that good night.
But they will go there, by God.
Unelectable.
I’m gonna quote Atrios on this one:
...and another thing. Stop ceding the goddamn debate. Who here thinks Howard Dean can beat Bush? Why Ted, you ignorant slut, Fred Flintstone could take Bush with Barney Rubble as his campaign manager. Wesley Clark should stop saying that he needs to be the nominee because someone needs to be able to match Bush at foreign policy. What Clark should say is that Joey Tribiani could match Bush at foreign policy, though he, Clark, has the most experience. Stop acknowledging that Bush is strong on anything. He’s a big loser. He’s a miserable failure. He’s lost 3 million jobs. He got us into a screwed up war. Our soldiers are being killed by terrorists. The Middle East is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess. OBL is alive. Hussein is alive.
Say it with me, everybody: George W. Bush is unelectable.
Reflexive decency.
Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a faggot there from Boston—not a blue-blood Brahmin, neither, most as upright as a straight man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state. And what do you think? They said he was a lawyer in a big firm out that way, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain’t the wust. They said he could get married when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? Now, I’m sweet on Dolores, as you know, and I was just about to go and ask for her hand if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in that country where they’d let that faggot marry a man, or let some bulldagger swoop in on sweet Dolores, I drawed out. I says I’ll never get married ag’in. Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me—I’ll never get married ag’in as long as I live.
With thanks to Teresa Nielsen Hayden, for reminding me; apologies to Messr. Twain; and a great big dollop of neener dumped all over Jonah Goldberg and all his icky, phobic ilk.
The Devil, quoting Scripture.
Matthew, Chapter 7, that ol’ Sermon on the Mount:
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Some of the trees in question: Allen Brill introduces the Right Christians to the latest batch of the Christian Right, who’ll doubtless be spearheading the upcoming Last Stand for Bigotry against gay marriage. David Neiwert does some digging into recent efforts by Richard Mellon Scaife & co. to do to America’s churches what they’ve done to America’s conservative movement. One of Neiwert’s links leads us back to Brill and thence to a connection between black box voting and a particularly nasty brand of Christianist. And y’all did remember to make a copy of this Harper’s article from a while back, didn’t you?
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
(Which, you know, is fine and dandy for Him. But what about the rest of us, huh? Stuck down here with these corrupt and evil-fruited trees.)
Dennis Miller: Tax and spend liberal!
In a surprise move guaranteed to confound those who’d counted on Dennis Miller’s acerbic wit to lend a certain cultural legitimacy to the Bush administration and its lack of a popular mandate, the former SNL anchorman recently spoke in favor of not just rolling back the Bush tax cuts, but raising taxes—across the board.
In the course of a broader discussion of his politics, Miller said “he’d like to keep a dollar out of every two he makes.”
This would, of course, translate to a tax rate of 50%. The highest federal tax rate at the moment is 35%. American families near the median of income distribution currently pay one dollar in taxes for every four dollars they make.
Though it would mean an increase in taxes for almost every single American, the Miller Tax of 50% could easily raise enough money to eradicate budget deficits currently plaguing state governments, as well as address the structural deficits built into future federal budgets. It would also go a long way towards fully funding such underperforming Bush administration programs as No Child Left Behind, Americorps, the Department of Homeland Security, and the War on Terror, as well as help assuage fears of looming crises in Social Security and Medicare—yet it would be a far cry from the 1950s top tax rate of 94%.
But a tax increase of this magnitude would work against the avowed goals of many of Miller’s newfound allies on the right, such as Grover “Drown it in a Bathtub” Norquist, who has compared progressive taxation to the Holocaust. Still, the Miller Tax is a flat tax, and so would presumably avoid that particular criticism.
As of this writing, Mallard Fillmore could not be reached for comment.
