What if Senator Craig had tried the truth? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

HAT TIP Pandagon.

Steve Benen at Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo explores the question: what if Craig had stepped forward and admitted he was gay, instead going with the Roy Cohn "I am not a homosexual" routine.

The libertarian in me thinks intuitively that it might work, but that's because the libertarian in me doesn't get intuitively the unbelievably deep well-spring of anti-gay hostility that is present in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to which approximately 40% or more a very substantial fraction of Idaho residents belongs (General HAT TIP to LDS-matters consultant, fellow Princeton dissident/graduate '91 and friend of Crab Media Craig Harman, please see comments below.) The libertarian in me thinks that gay people should be as free to enjoy the amazing non-stop joys without responsibilities of parenthood and marriage as we straight breeders do in our hedonistic self-indulgences of ER trips with bleeding children, sorting out money matters (!!?) and the occasionally emitted "@&#^@ you I want a divorce!!" which completely loses its satisfying "oomph" if you are not, in fact, able to get a divorce due to lack of court jurisdiction over a marriage that does not exist in law.

But that's because the libertarian in me is not intuitively acclimated to who votes for what in places like Utah and Idaho. My instincts are perhaps good for moderate-leaning-liberal Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut and maybe one county in Iowa but no good for Idaho, I am afraid.

There is a libertarian, Goldwater-esque streak in Rocky Mountain conservatism, no doubt, but that probably characterizes Colorado, Wyoming and Montana more than Idaho. Craig would be dead meat in the next primary election, especially since Craig built his own base not on flinty, small-government values but a perma-pander to the religious hard-right and to the Iraq War, neither of which would be practical winners for him.

It would be difficult for him to sponsor legislation as other Senators, Republican and Democratic, would not want to associate their names with him. Every photo of Senator Craig with another Senator becomes a political liability to her or him, including this "Singing Senators" photo with respect to Senator Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) and former Attorney General, now Ashcroft Group founder, John Ashcroft. Nobody wants to take the call of a Senator caught trying to get sex in the toilet.

Tale of a Jilted Tearoom Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

"The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy - a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” - Senator Larry Craig (Republican-Idaho), 1998

The Republic has withstood the drama, denials and ultimate disgrace of anti-gay, right-wing Republican Larry Craig, who now stands convicted by his own statement under oath that he engaged in the conduct described by a Minnesota police officer who arrested Craig at the Lindbergh (ugh) Terminal I. As usual, The Smoking Gun has links to most of the salient documents. (HAT TIP Zuzu.)

Of greater interest to me is the police interrogation of Craig. Now Craig is over 60 years of age and has been in the Senate for over 15 years, on Capitol Hill since he was 25. So he should have a passing familiarity with the U.S. Constitution, one would hope, which provides an absolute right to remain silent, to say "jack" to the police. The Minnesota constitution does likewise, though one should forgive the "just-passing-through", non-attorney Senator Craig for not knowing that. But the U.S. Constitution which he had taken multiple oaths over multiple decades - he should have known that.

But in case the good Senator forgot, the office read the Senator his 5th Amendment rights, per Dragnet, as can be heard and read here at TPM Muckraker.

At least one witness claims to have had sexual relations in the Washington Union Station mens room with Craig some years back. And it's this bathroom, this neglected tea-room for politicos, lobbyists, para-government anonymous travelers and the presumed wayward tourist to which I turn my attentions.

Union Station is one of the top three or four railroad stations in the U.S. for total passenger volume. (This is not saying much, of course, because the U.S. treats rail shabbily, more shabbily than any European could possibly imagine.) I use this Union Station bathroom infrequently for purposes entirely consistent with the intentions of the architects, civil engineers and D.C. building permit authorities who authorized its construction. It is a disgusting place, 100% of the time, even if one does not dare "gaze" into the cracks between the stalls. I think it is the unlawful permanent residence of several people, and baggage does occasionally crowd the front of a stall, though whether that's a legitimate tactic against baggage theft by a resident or a passer-through, rather than an obscurement of a different violation of the D.C. Code, I cannot say and would rather not contemplate too deeply.

But I cannot help feeling that the Union Station "tea room" that this bathroom is said to be, now feels jilted. Larry Craig appears to have plied his tea room trade in, of all places, Minneapolis. Yet Union Station is only 6 blocks from his DC office. So close, and yet so far. The one widely-reported incident in Minneapolis cannot but leave the poor, under-appreciated restroom at Union Station feeling a little miffed. Railroads have lost out in federal funding, support and construction to airlines even though railroads are often more time and energy efficient for medium-distance travel and involve fewer (though NOT zero) security concerns. So of course Union Station will feel slighted.

Washington is a bigger and wealthier city than Minneapolis. So I suspect there is a bit of the resentment of the fallen nobleman jealous of the poorer but, in reality, freer merchant class, giving rise to bitchy snobbishness. Union Station has a statue of civil rights and labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, who was not gay but who associated closely with gay allies. Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's main terminal is named after a vicious anti-semite and Nazi sympathizer who, in total random coincidence, shot on the same riflery team as the Crab's grandfather at the University of Wisconsin. So it probably burns Union Station's, er, chaps, to lose out in attention to such an unworthy venue. Especially since Washington may now be the largest gay city proportional to population in the country, approaching San Francisco and perhaps surpassing it.

The entire incident has made me more, not less, supportive of gay marriage. I wish that Craig were gay married right now, and had been so three months ago, for several reasons. One is that if Craig were same-sex married, he probably would not be an advocate against same-sex marriage in the halls of Congress. Another would be that he would be less likely to have done what he did, though in fairness plenty of men (and, my divorce attorney colleagues keep reminding me, women, usually with greater discretion) openly married in opposite sex marriages do reckless and brazen things as well.

But no matter what I think, Union Station's feelings will remain tender for some time, no doubt. Show Union Station some love, though I would recommend visiting Sbarro's or the newsrack instead of the john if you have a choice.

Thank a Gay Mom and Dad Day Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

When you find a gay parent, you are finding someone who, in general, went out of her or his way to become a parent. Put simply, if "Adam and Steve" or "Marcia and Janet" are raising a child, it means that they a) probably went through some unusual headaches to get to the point of raising a child, and b) probably are going through some unusual headaches to continue to raise the child, "unusual" meaning not experienced or minimally experienced by most het couples. Ditto for single gay parents, times two.

A large number of children of het couples are formed by "oopsie." They did not plan the kid, but three tracks of Marvin Gaye or two glasses of Chianti later, the kid is on her or his way. Modern birth control (controversial morally among many of the critics of same-sex parenting) reduces the chance of "oopsie" but hardly to zero. Gay/lesbian couples or single parents, on the other hand, are usually undergoing a lot of resistance to doing what some Christians call "agape" - love for the sake of love of the children that they raise. They aren't doing it parenthood by default or because they are afraid of Social Services; they could have avoided parenthood and social services by default. They aren't doing it because of child support issues; they are doing because they really want to do it well, to show lots of love to a child and to do the amazingly difficult work of child-rearing. Why else bother; parenthood is a wonderful experience but, let's get real, a royal pain in the neck also, as many worthwhile experiences of life are for a certain percentage of the time.

Often, though not always, gay parents come in when het parents have dropped the ball. This is particularly true of gay adoptions, about which this blog has posted previously. So instead of these ridiculous right-wing moralists complaining about the horrors of a child experiencing stigma because of having gay parents - stigma which these moralists take pains to perpetuate - they should be offering gay couples assistance in doing the child-rearing better.

I don't know of churches or other religious institutions that provide male role models for children of deceased servicemen; their freak-out about Heather having two Mommies would seem a little less thin if they were going out of their way to provide male role models for single het moms whose husbands died. Ditto re: single dads through divorce, abandonment of the children by the mother, becoming widowers or otherwise.

Regardless of why the moms are single, if having male role models around is so paramount for kids, you'd think that the preachers would be demanding that the men of their congregation volunteer to offer themselves that way rather than just asking for donations so that the minister can get a new Bentley or, more likely, a fresh coat of paint for the sanctuary. Paint is nice but providing support to children of unusual family circumstances either matters more or matters not one bit. You'd think they would sell the altar and the pews to help the children. But no. Ditto with single dads and coupled dads.

Let's put it another way. Let's say that all of us do things that traditional religion favors and things that traditional religion discourages or criticizes or even condemns. Presumably, feeding a child, teaching a child to read and learn a useful trade or profession, or funding that education, clothing the child, carting that child to the E.R. when she has the roto-virus or a fishing hook stuck in her mouth, teaching the child to tell the truth, to refrain from fraud, trespassing on the rights of others or violence and teaching that child to obey the law of the land likely fall into the "favors" category above. Sexual acts can sometimes fall into the "discourages" or "condemns" column - or indeed the "favors" column - depending on specific act, specific tradition and surrounding circumstances.

Yet child-rearing is a economic competitor with sex for time and energy; every parent knows this to be true. The percentage of couples who have as much time for personal intimacy after becoming child rearers as before is stone zero. A person who had a different viewpoint from mine about human sexuality might argue for child-rearing as a method of abatement of the evils of sinful sex, perhaps under the theory that the devil likes idle hands but hates a tired-ass parent asleep and temporarily celibate after a miserably long day of brat management.

Regardless of one's religious or non-religious viewpoint about gay sex, we should thank gay parents who are doing good parenting. James Brown may have urged us to "get on up - like a Sex Machine" but none of us, gay or straight, are sex machines. We are people, usually people trying to get difficult things done under painful constraints. We should thank all parents of course who are doing good parenting, but especially gay parents who went out of their way and defeated obstacles to take on this massive responsibility with specific intent, often after straight parents failed.

HAT TIP to Terrance for getting me thinking today.

Boston.com: Bar Applicant Skips Gay Marriage Question, Fails, Sues Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Boston.com, July 7, 2007:

A man who claims he failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about gay marriage has filed a federal lawsuit, saying the test violated his rights and that his religious beliefs were targeted.

Stephen Dunne, 30, of Boston, is seeking $9.75 million in the suit against the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He was denied a license to practice law in May after scoring 268.866 on the exam, just shy of the 270 passing grade.

...

In the suit, Dunne called the question "morally repugnant and patently offensive," and said he refused to answer it because he believed it legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, which is contrary to his moral beliefs.

So let's get this straight.

This fellow filed to take the Bar in Massachusetts, the only state in the country that fully recognizes same-sex marriage by that name as of this date (though I think that both NY and NJ are headed that way shortly.) He filed to take the Bar in probably December 2006, took it in February 2007 and got his flunk result in May 2007, every date well after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled on this topic. His defense is, I guess, that he should not have to prove to the Court any competence in handling any areas of jurisprudence in which he disagrees morally with the court's interpretation.

Ironic, indeed, that if he scored at 268.866 and a 270 was needed, merely putting down any answer at all would have passed him. Perhaps merely naming the parties, or identifying the name of the court that would have had jurisdiction to rule, might have thrown him a 1.5 point bone.

If I believe morally that property is theft or that all real property in the U.S. belongs morally to the native nations that hunted, fished and tilled it before Europeans arrived with guns, alcohol and syphillis, does that mean I sue if I skip a property law question involving "Greenacre" or "Blackacre"?

If I believe that murder is morally wrong, do I get to skip criminal law? If I believe that it's immoral to deny the civil right of an adult to smoke the chemicals of his choice, do I get to skip any questions involving a drug bust? Can Mennonites conscientiously object to studying conscientious objection cases, since some of those Supreme Court holdings violate Mennonite beliefs (while others favor objectors)?

If I think that meat is murder, can I skip questions testing applicants on Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code dealing with sales of goods if a shipment truck in the fact pattern contains frozen meat? Or can I make the Bar proctor white-out the words "sides of beef" and replace them with "biodegradable packages of firm pack tofu"?

Here's the real story, I bet. Our budding Clarence Darrow probably took the same amount of time as every other Bar applicant, but produced an answer to one fewer question than most of his colleagues. (I don't know how many questions are on the state-specific exam in Mass., but in MD it used to be 3 and 3 morning and afternoon.) I will BET that the applicant took the full time to answer the other questions as best he could, probably producing more detailed answers for each question that he in fact did answer. So this way, he gets two bites at the apple: he goes "deep deep" on 2 questions rather than fairly deep on 3. BUT if that doesn't work, he sues the Bar for failing to ask him a question about a subject he preferred, say torts or contracts or whatever, and couching his failure into a faux religious objection for his method of gaming the test.

How this genius could expect gay marriage NOT to be on the Bar Exam is beyond me. Family law is tested in every state, and Bar authorities are more likely to test on a subject that is distinctive of or unique to a state's local legal peculiarities. In Maryland, it's contributory negligence, i.e. the doctrine that a partially at-fault accident victim gets nothing, not merely a reduced share. It's unique to a few mid-Atlantic states. Maryland tests on it essentially every time and everyone knows to expect it. Perhaps the legal genius decided not to study Massachusetts family law at all.

But by far the best evidence that this fellow is a moron is the fact that he is representing himself on a 10 million dollar suit against the court system itself. Apparently even the religious right's public interest lawyers (ACLJ, Rutherford Institute, etc.) wanted no piece of this stupidity.

Case closed.

Pam's House Blend: Schadenfreude over Failure of Marriage Amendment in Massachusetts Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding's reaction and those of opponents and supporters to the 151-45 vote (50 votes i.e. 25% needed to pass) by the Massachusetts legislature sitting as a constitutional convention on whether to amend the Massachusetts Constitution to bar same-sex marriage. The comments are rich, from harsh schadenfreude to thoughtful analysis to stoic resolve to Freeper rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. Personally, I appreciated the "smear the queer" joke for its whiff of nostalgia going back to the 4th grade.

Fascinating to me that in a state not quite as liberal as it has been made out to be (they elected arch-conserative, er, bleeding heart liberal Mitt Romney governor, for crying out loud), 75% of the assembly voted to kill this proposed amendment. They could not get even 23% percent to support it. It's hard to get 75% even of Maryland's General Assembly to agree on anything except to adjourn (to the latter no objection here; I would much prefer sloth to gluttony, envy, greed, anger or pride as a vice for my government, lust being a "condition" rather than a "problem" in that endeavor.)

A close ally of arch anti-gay delegate Don Dwyer reads this blog. And he (the reader) is a smart guy. I have some further thoughts on this issue as it applies in Maryland, but I just don't want to shout too loud in the "huddle." So I will keep my own counsel for now, until it's just us Enemies of the State bloggers conferring, ideally soon, ideally with Sam Adams involved. (Would also enjoy a separate Red-Blue blogger dart game challenge - in another post.)

Follow-Up re the Deane v. Conaway Case - Crablaw Swung, Wiffed Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Well, folks, the end of June 12, 2007 came and went in the Eastern Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time. No word on the Deane case. I pondered, I guessed, I wiffed. Oh well.

A prediction regarding the same-sex marriage case Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This is total speculation. I may well be dead wrong.

But the following facts are true.

1) Chief Judge Robert Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals was arrested at a civil rights sit-in in Baltimore when he was 16 or 17. Thurgood Marshall represented him and other defendants from that sit-in on appeal of their convictions before the United States Supreme Court. Ultimately Bell prevailed after the case was remanded to state courts. Bell later went to Harvard Law School and has served at multiple levels of the judiciary during his career.

2) In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1921" banning interracial marriages. The Supreme Court issued that decision on June 12, 1967.

3) The 40th anniversary of the Loving decision is this Tuesday (June 12, 2007.)

4) The Court of Appeals has formally gone out of session for the summer as of last Tuesday, to reconvene in September.

5) The Court of Appeals has not yet issued its opinion regarding the same-sex marriage case Deane v. Conaway.

6) The anticipated ruling in the Deane case is attracting a lot of state-wide and national attention as evidenced by the sheer variety and number of friend-of-the-court briefs filed therein.

Prediction: a reasonably cautious person might conclude that the Deane opinion will emerge on Tuesday, both for its anniversary symbolic value AND because it will allow the storm from this prominent case to blow over early in the summer recess, reducing its impact on the commencement of new case business, the departures and entries of law clerks for each judge and the general order of business of the Court. Employees of courthouses including judges take vacations more or less like other state employees, and I suspect that a lot of the Judges (and their staff) would as soon be on the beach, in the cottage or in a boat in the Bay holding a fishing rod, inaccessible by cell phone, when this storm hits. Especially when the response to unpopular rulings includes trespass and home invasion by wing-tip and impeachment motions.

Baltimore Sun: Gay Adoptive Families Calling Maryland Home Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 10, 2007:

Cynthia Garnette and her partner have two sons - one born to Garnette, one her partner adopted at birth - but Virginia law made it impossible for them, as a same-sex couple, to both be legal parents of both kids. It occurred to Garnette one day, as she was taking her 5-year-old son to play baseball, that she could run into trouble registering him because of her tenuous legal situation.

...

Maryland's appeal is bolstered by the reputation of the Baltimore City Circuit Court, which was the first in the state to grant a second-parent adoption to a gay partner. It is well-known in certain circles as a friendly and efficient place for gay couples to complete adoptions and has, as a result, become a popular jurisdiction for such proceedings. Gay families also say they are drawn to Maryland because of the climate of acceptance they've found in the state.

...

Using the 2000 Census, researchers from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, a UCLA think tank, and the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, determined that 2,142 of the 32,269 adopted children in Maryland were living with gay couples.

That report presented a snapshot only, but anecdotally, there are signs in courts, family clinics, law offices and adoption agencies that those numbers are climbing. In the Baltimore City Circuit Court, where many of the state's gay adoption cases land, a third of the parents on any given adoption day often are same-sex couples, said Mark Scurti, a Baltimore lawyer who concentrates on gay family law. The day Garnette was there, she says, most of the other families looked like hers.

Mark Scurti is not an acquaintance of mine but he is a known leader in the Baltimore City Bar community. I know of one Princeton '91 grad who is in a committed relationship with his partner and who moved to Bolton Hill with their children due the City's and neighborhood's friendly appeal, though whether they were pursuing adoption proceedings in the City I do not know.

Fuss and bebother Virginia and its family-hostile anti-gay rulings and statutes. All that Virginia's anti-gay policies do is to increase the procedural burdens on both de facto parents, and provide a class of new loving parents and taxpayers to Baltimore and the more liberal Maryland suburbs. On second thought, maybe Virginia's anti-gay policy isn't all bad. If more gay couples with kids moved into the City (or the DC suburbs) from Arlington, Fairfax, etc., their respective tax bases would increase. DC should not hog all of the economic boom that came in substantial part from an inflow of GLBT residents beyond the traditional "Gay Village" of Dupont Circle into Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, etc. When I was a kid growing up near Baltimore, we made fun of Washington as the ultimate hell-hole. Now Marion Barry is out and we have gone from Mayor Williams to Mayor Fenty, and property values in DC are skyrocketing.

When's Baltimore going to get its gay economic renaissance? While there is a substantial GLBT presence in downtown Baltimore in Mount Vernon and to some extent in the northeast in Lauraville with lesbian couples, the City needs gay money, even if couples only stay in the City until the kids reach middle school.

They ought to mount mural of Dora the Explorer holding a big rainbow flag on MD 295 near Camden Yards. Please, Virginia, keep it as redneck and hostile as possible. Please rename Route 50 through Fairfax and Arlington as the "Jerry Falwell Memorial Highway" after your recently departed Virginian patriarch, gay-basher and erstwhile segregationist. Baltimore and Maryland need you to step up, Virginia; Maryland has a budget deficit projects and needs the cash.

Gay Marriage: The Case Against Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This blog has gone on record for gay marriage. Let's hear what some on the other side have to say.



I would be interested in learning how preaching Christianity has led to an arrest. Fred Phelps and company are even preaching at Jerry Falwell's funeral, eliciting off-the-meter levels of Schadenfreude for folks like me. But Phelps and company keep eluding arrest. Where are the Christians who have been arrested and booked for praying and preaching in the U.S.? I know of anti-war protesters who got shot in California with rubber bullets for speech, but not Christian preachers. Decades of First Amendment jurisprudence, largely instituted on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses, protect the right to preach on a street corner (so much so that it is often joked that Jehovah's Witnesses don't lose free exercise cases, period.)

How gays and lesbians are bad for the "economy" is news to me. I would LOVE for my neighborhood to turn majority gay, out of my insatiable raw greed: property values tend to rise when a neighborhood gay-gentrifies. DC's gay community is growing by leaps and bounds and gentrifying the city daily; if gays and lesbians had any compassion they would invade Baltimore similarly, checkbooks in hand. They are good for the public fisc as well; they pay more taxes on the same dollar of income but use very little in the way of government services like public schools and Infants and Toddlers services for autism as my family uses heavily. No doubt there are many gay parents, both actual and aspiring, but gay parents are pretty much immune to a child by "oopsie" which is how about half of all children are conceived. And gay parenting is not a goal of a majority of gay adults,. Economy-killers, right. May they "kill" my neighborhood's economy and may it never recover.

In fairness, there are far more eloquent and educated advocates of the other side of this issue than the rubes who provided the freak-show display above, just as there are anti-war voices less "head-trip zombie" than Cindy Sheehan's. Some among those more eloquent voices may be among our own Maryland Blogger Alliance. I recognize how serious, educated and fair-minded people can disagree on this issue, either as a matter of moral principle or as a practical policy (or jurisprudential) matter. Serious, educated and fair-minded people did not appear in the YouTube above, I believe.

HAT TIP Pandagon.

You tell me.... Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Christians in Kansas or Al-Qaeda in Pakistan?

Hat Tip to Brimstone at My Left Wing.

Keith Boykin on White Homophobia: Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Keith Boykin, March 13, 2007 (HAT TIP to The Republic of T):

Every time a Tim Hardaway or an Isaiah Washington or an unknown black preacher makes an anti-gay comment, reporters call me up and ask why are black people so homophobic. But when high-profile white people make homophobic remarks, nobody ever asks why are white people so homophobic. They should, because the answers to the two questions are related. African Americans are homophobic because white Americans are homophobic. We all live in the same homophobic society, and in this case the prejudice starts from the president on down.

...

Of course they could not argue about the competence of the soldiers because their own argument would be undermined. In the case of gay soldiers, a 2005 government audit revealed that 10,000 troops, including more than 50 specialists in Arabic, have been discharged because of the military policy. At a time when our country is fighting two wars in the Arab world with limited intelligence, our military is firing the very people who can actually speak the language in the region. And at a time when the president is trying to find 21,500 new troops to send to Iraq, he's firing thousands of troops because of his own social policy.

When the conservatives can't win with the competence argument they always fall back on the "morality" issue that General Pace raised. In 1948, the opponents of integration made similar arguments. "Purity of race is a gift of God," said one Alabama congressman. "The incidence of syphilis, gonorrhea, chancre and all other venereal diseases is appallingly higher among the members of the Negro race than among members of the white race," said Senator Richard Russell. Today it sounds odd to hear avowed segregationists preach about morality, but it was quite common a generation ago. Morality is not an argument that should be used by people who support bigotry.

When we (liberal heathens) look askance at people like Jerry Falwell who built his early Christian ministry career as an active and nasty supporter of segregation who sought out the likes of Lester Maddox and George Wallace to feature on his Old Time Gospel Hour, we (liberal heathens) can have a little fun asking ourselves how many anti-gay militants will join the pro-equality movement once its success become politically inevitable and how they will claim they were pro-gay from the start.

I respect how religious belief and commitments will lead someone to a very conservative position about same-sex relationships and sexuality. My bone to pick is with those who are willing to damage the family lives and careers of others in order to make their religious beliefs the law of the land, their religion seeming to require the infliction of suffering and constraint on others.

To my Christian readers, I would ask: how many careers and family lives of GLBT citizens would Jesus of Nazareth be willing to wreck? How many "Civil Wrongs" activists (to use Jerry Falwell's phrase) would Jesus of Nazareth have "sicked" with Dobermans? How many funerals of American service personnel would Jesus of Nazareth protest, holding signs saying God Hates Fags? Was he as much of a hatemonger as some of his followers, less of a hatemonger or more? Or am I just an immoral lapsed "Papist" infidel heathen apostate Satan-spawn for asking these rude impertinent questions of good Christians? Really, WWJD - whom would Jesus damage?

Daily Kos' Dood Abides: The Reverend Ted Haggard on the Super Bowl Snickers Commercial Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Haggard Disappointed over Public Response to Snickers Super Bowl AD

by Dood Abides

Wed Feb 07, 2007 at 07:51:40 AM EST

Former evangelical minister Ted Haggard appearing in Snickers television ad




Phoenix, AZ (UPSI) - Newly declared heterosexual Ted Haggard came forward today to register his displeasure with the American public over condemnation of a recent Snickers Super Bowl ad in which he appeared. Mars Inc. was caught off guard by a tidal wave of public anger over the commercial which depicts an accidental kiss between two males. The company immediately pulled the ad campaign after overwhelming complaints that it was anti-gay. Haggard took issue with the public outcry, stating that he felt his performance reflected a natural, humorous and "completely heterosexual" situational response.

• Dood Abides's diary :: ::

The Snickers ad was one of a number of recent attempts by the disgraced pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado to parlay his celebrity and notoriety. Most recently Haggard had been a spokesmodel for an Australian brand of underwear called the Wonderjock. Haggard, a staunch anti-gay Christian, was forced out of his 22 year position as founding pastor of the 14,000 member mega-church after revelations that he had been involved in a three-year sexual relationship with a male escort from Denver.

Haggard recently declared himself completely and totally heterosexual after an intensive three-week spiritual retreat in Phoenix, and continues to receive ongoing Christian counseling. In an e-mail to friends, Haggard stated that he was now considering a career in psychology in order to combat the profession's progressive attitudes towards homosexuality from within and conform it to the teachings of the Bible and the example of Jesus.

"I really enjoyed doing the Snickers commercial," stated Haggard. "There is a sense of camaraderie, I suppose, that develops between actors in that kind of situation. There were a lot of takes, and a lot of candy bars in order to get the scene just right. It's a scientific fact that chocolate has chemical compounds that are similar to methamphetamine and stimulate sexual feelings, so it was a little tough on me. I'm just really disappointed with the American public that there is such intolerance for heterosexual feelings."

A spokesman for Mars Inc. stated that the Haggard/Snickers ad campaign had been pulled completely and would not return. He stated that the failed ad had in actuality been a positive learning experience for the corporation and that they had no idea of the extent to which their candies and other products were utilized by the gay and lesbian community. Plans were underway to revamp some older products and aggressively target this newly discovered market. The spokesman stated that the public could look for a new "Brokeback Mounds" bar in the near future, which promised to turn coconut haters into coconut lovers.

_____________________

Please note that Daily Kos site content "may be used for any purpose without
explicit permission unless otherwise specified." No limit was specified so this is a clean "take" under copyright law.

Kujanblog on Same-Sex Partnership Benefits Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am with Andrew Kujan on this one, though I am more focused on the jurisprudential content of the upcoming Court of Appeals opinion in Deane v. Conaway than on the Democratic General Assembly at the moment.

Boston Globe: God's Gay Child Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Boston Globe, January 15, 2007 (HAT TIP and Friendly Maryland Greetings to Terrance at the Republic of T):

God’s gay child

Love and let love.

God gave me a gift, a wonderful son who happens to be gay. God does not give inferiors gifts. God does not make mistakes. This little boy that God gave to me is now a fine young man. But my son is treated like a second-class citizen by my church. Maybe my state constitution will treat him likewise. I pray that it will not.

If you had a gay loved one in your family you would be a better person. You would be sensitive to the discrimination gays endure. You would realize that they, too, are entitled to mutual love.

God will continue to send gay babies. We must take them into our hearts and our lives. That would please God.

DOROTHY DONAHUE

Norwell [Massachusetts]

Mrs. Donahue, Crablaw's best to you and your son. While I do not take the precise, explicitly religious approach of Mrs. Donahue, I share her general sentiment.

When your sister, the best man at your wedding, two of your closest friends from college, your cousin, your business partner, etc. all reveal to you that they are, in various ways, GLBT or any permutation thereof, they are being honest with you about an extremely complicated and fundamental matter. They are showing you the moral virtues of courage and honesty. Every religion tells people to be both honest and brave. May you and I both be as brave and honest in our hours.

If you hide your body inside a twisted hole for years, it will become twisted. If you hide your mind inside a twisted hole for years, it will become twisted. If you hide your soul inside a twisted hole for years, it will become twisted. You don't have to be GLBT to understand that a mind, body and soul cannot live life inside a twisted hole.

If you want people to walk upright and straight, so to speak, you cannot cram them - any part of them - into a twisted hole. Your GLBT neighbor is your sister, your brother. If we forget their humanity, may humanity forget us, until we return to humanity.