The Gay Fray

Today

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There is little I can say right now; it is an expected decision, yet the moment itself is still surreal. Maybe I wasn't really expecting the decision until Monday.

Much reading to do; the opinion is available↱, so there's my evening and weekend.

This thread has run for nearly eleven years, and the whole time the point has been to create something of a record, so that when today arrived we would have something to look back at in order to remember that it wasn't actually a bad dream.

My beloved America takes a step forward, breaks some of the chains that bind it to shame.

And today I raise a toast to my traditionalist neighbors. Really, we could not have come this far without you. Indeed, your determination to inflict harm against my community over the last quarter-century is exactly the reason we have reached this threshold.

Every time you asked people to look, they did, and often with new eyes. With each new request to harm people, fewer and fewer could look their friends and family in the eye and say yes.

And then one day they looked at us, and what we were asking for―basic human rights and dignity―and said yes.

And this happened millions of times, individual hearts and minds. This nation, transformed by hatred, rises to say no.

Columbia smiles. Columbia shines.

We made it, friends. We made it through this insanity, and today the whole of our nation can claim victory. This isn't just a gay rights victory, it is a triumph for the whole of these United States of America.

 

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meh, I just want front row seats to the pastor who threatened to light himself on fire if this passed... I got marshmallows, let's light this baby up and have a bonfire!

honestly surprised it passed - angry and sad it was just 5 to 4,but glad it passed. it is a fight that shouldn't have had to be fought... sadly we have far too many fundies who want to stoll feel relevant

 

Anti-Humanity fundies should be exiled to the country of origin for the religion they're so zealous about.

 

Well, these are the United States of America. We would be better served, anyway, if we figured out a Constitutional means of setting meaningful expectations for intelligence.

 

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I also am disappointed it was 5 to 4.
It is insane that some claim their rights are infringed by this.
I wonder if they want it to be illegal for atheists to marry.
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Critical thinking should be a mandatory part of America's national curriculum. At every school level.

 

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Logic with Dick and Jane and Spot?

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And Look at What This Dumb Stunt Got Him

To the one, Rick Scarborough has taken back his promise.

To the other, I'm surprised at how seriously even a magazine and website like Christian Today↱ took his words. Indeed, when I blogged a link about Scarborough yesterday↱, I put it this way:

• Another headline, this one somewhat overstated: "Texas Pastor Says He Will Set Himself On Fire In Protest Over Gay Marriage"​

To the beeblebrox, there is tragic irony afoot. Today the Most Read list at WashingtonPost.com fell in behind a very sad headline from last year: "A Texas minister set himself on fire and died to 'inspire' justice"↱. Last year, retired Methodist minister Charles Moore, age seventy-nine, set himself ablaze in Grand Saline, Texas. Consider how many people rushed to read about Rick Scarborough suggesting he would die by fire if the Supreme Court found for the Obergefell petitioners―a suicidal protest because gay marriage was constitutionally protected―and found this tragic report from Lindsey Bever, instead:

The Tyler Morning Telegraph obtained a copy of the suicide note from Grand Saline police. In it, Moore lamented past racism in Grand Saline and beyond. He called on the community to repent and said he was "giving my body to be burned, with love in my heart" for those who were lynched in his home town as well as for those who did the lynching, hoping to address lingering racism.

In his letters, obtained by The Washington Post, he called his death an act of protest. He said he felt that after a lifetime of fighting for social justice, he needed to do more.

"I would much prefer to go on living and enjoy my beloved wife and grandchildren and others," he wrote, "but I have come to believe that only my self-immolation will get the attention of anybody and perhaps inspire some to higher service."

Those who knew him call it a tragedy.

"It would have been nice to have had some sort of counseling, somebody to point out that his life had mattered, that he hadn't failed," Renfro told the United Methodist News Service. "He had done plenty."

Moore had gone on a two-week hunger strike in the 1990s to move the United Methodist Church to remove discriminatory language against homosexuals. While working with the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, he stood vigil in front of George W. Bush's governor's mansion to protest more than 100 executions. He served in the slums of India, Africa and the Middle East.

Moore had "a conviction that if the Bible stood for anything, it stood for radical inclusiveness," the Rev. Sid Hall, a former colleague, told the Dallas Morning News. "If you ever were on the side of powerlessness, if you were ever on the margins yourself and were looking for someone to help you, Charles was the person."

But for Moore, it wasn't enough.

"I have no significant achievements to offer from that period so that my influence on contemporary isTexas Pastor Says He Will Set Himself On Fire In Protest Over Gay Marriagesues might have a significant impact," he wrote, "so I am laying down my life here today, in order to call attention to issues of great human concern." He seemed particularly disturbed by capital punishment, racial discrimination, prejudice against the LGBT community.

Since his death, some news accounts described him as a man who seemed troubled. One asked if he was a "madman or a martyr."

But Moore seemed to anticipate the response.

"There is one thing I have absolute control over: that is, the manner of my death," he wrote. "History will decide whether my offering is worthy."​

I do hope the good Reverend found his peace.

Or, you know, as they say, God rest his soul.

And it really is a striking contrast: The one who ventured forth, regardless of what we think of faith or insanity, did so as a protest against human cruelty. The one who stayed, who said he didn't mean to suggest he would self-immolate when he said, "We are not going to bow. We are not going to bend, and if necessary we will burn"―come on, really, how does that not fit with their apocalyptic dreams of victimization, that Christians are the next Holocaust victims?―got himself into this mess complaining that he would not be allowed to be so cruel as he wishes toward other people. The one who burned sought one last chance to strike against cruelty. The one who stayed is a petty coward, regardless of what he thought he was on about. And because of his tantrum, a lot of people are now recalling a tragic tale from Texas, and considering the contrasts. Of the one, courage or insanity; 'tis a fair question. Of the other, hatred and cowardice; 'tis a fair assessment.

Spoiler

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Notes:

"Pastor Rick Scarborough says he didn't mean he would set himself on fire after US Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage". Christian Today. 27 June 2015. ChristianToday.com. 27 June 2015. http://bit.ly/1Ki8Osw

Cabrera, Irene. "Texas Pastor Says He Will Set Himself On Fire In Protest Over Gay Marriage". Headlines & Global News. 24 June 2015. HNGN.com. 27 June 2015. http://bit.ly/1GPqg5h

Bever, Lindsey. "A Texas minister set himself on fire and died to 'inspire' justice". The Washington Post. 16 July 2014. WashingtonPost.com. 27 June 2015. http://wapo.st/1NniCS0

 

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1 aspect of this is the same as interracial marriage was until 1967. Another is the same as businesses refusing to serve blacks. Regardless of religious beliefs, it is all destructive unfair discrimination that those who commit it would never want turned on them.

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Um ... Huh?

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"I know a lot of people, actually a lot of people who are friends of mine in the gay community, who also think it was a bad decision."​

―Sen James Inhofe (R-OK)↱​

As soon as you're finished laughing ... er ... ah ... right. I don't know. I mean, really, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?
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Notes:

Kaczynski, Andrew. "Republican Sen. James Inhofe: My Gay Friends Think Court Ruling Was Bad". BuzzFeed. 27 June 2015. BuzzFeed.com. 29 June 2015. http://bzfd.it/1HriXT1

 

Indeed. And the screech of a million hateful harpies can be heard as the music of LGBT street parties dies out. Has it not finally been proven how absurdly irrelevant and out of touch religion has become in our day and age? A belief system so delusional and selfish it can only rally support for itself by opposing the rights and freedoms of other human beings?

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/

 

The vast majority of Americans supported Gays and Lesbians couples receiving all the secular benefits of marriage. This could have been done with Civil Unions, which would have passed easily with a feeling of good will.

The problem appeared when the homosexual community tries to help legislate religion, by forcing a definition of marriage that was contrary to ancient religious teachings. This went beyond the core needs of full secular benefits, into a violation of church and state, which is what caused the prolonged backlash.

There is separation of church and state, which does not allow the state to teach religion or define how religion should be taught. If the ancient writings do not say, such and such, the state can't just add words to form its own version of any religion. The result was a backlash, that went beyond the practical needs of gays and lesbian, into protecting against a breech of religious liberty. The homosexual community become unknowing pawns, for powers to be who wished to undermine religion freedom. You guys and gals got caught in the cross fire, as a front line of pawns, serving the back line democratic strategists, who suffered nothing.

The best strategy for the gay community is to accept their victory and let sleeping dogs lie, since if you continue as mercenaries, for a religious war, it can backfire. Their back is against the wall and turning the other cheek may not be an option. This is not your fight, but is being induced by back line atheists, who need pawns to suffer attrition, for public spectacle and spin.

If I went into a Democratic party presidential rally, and I expected them to accept and fund me, for my conservative ideas, as candidate, if they showed me hate and then showed me the door, this would not be considered hatred and bigotry. The unspoken rule is I can't impose my views on their views, since their views goes beyond reason, all the way to basic core principles; their religion. This type of political bigotry is allowed, even for shady behavior.

It may be good for all, if the homosexual and religious communities use the tactics they have learned, to assault and break down the walls of political parties first, by making this form of unspoken segregation behavior have an attached social taboo; reverse PC sanitized. I believe the legal end of political partisanship, will dry up the false positive reflex, in religion and politics.

Say political parties could not discriminate, based on opinion, but rather each had to fund all? There is no longer any political party to sacrifice pawns for power. Without pawns for threat, peace begins.

 

I have an objection to part of that. History is being buried in the rush for "correctness", as evidenced by this bit of vomit from USA Today.

I'm from the deep south, from being the operative word here. I can't fucking stand racists, including my own kin. I respect that flag, because damned near everyone I grew up with had a grandfather whose brother or father died in that damned horrible war.

You can't fix a problem by hiding it and pretending it doesn't exist, and that's what this current rush-to-PC is as far as I'm concerned.

 

"The General Accounting Office in 1997 released a list of 1,049 benefits and protections available to heterosexual married couples. These benefits range from federal benefits, such as survivor benefits through Social Security, sick leave to care for ailing partner, tax breaks, military benefits, veterans benefits, burial and inheritance rights, and insurance breaks. They also include things like family discounts, obtaining family insurance through your employer, visiting your spouse in the hospital and making medical decisions if your partner is unable to. Civil Unions protect some of these rights, but not all of them."======http://lesbianlife.about.com/cs/wedding/a/unionvmarriage.htm

 

This is absolute bullshit on two levels:

(1) It is historically inaccurate.

(2) The first time we tried separate but equal, the one justice on the Supreme Court who said no was also the former slave owner; we spent the next fifty-eight years trying to save the separate but equal standard, but in the end it failed to achieve anything remotely resembling equality.​

Your argument is the classic lament of dying supremacism: We could have been happily equal if only you would have accepted being a second-class citizen.

We might also note―

―that this is ahistorical, as well. Between Stonewall and about 1990, gay marriage was nowhere on the map. Indeed, the concept was first introduced to me by Christian zealots who asked that we should vote to use the state to ostracize homosexuals specifically, because if we didn't, who knows, maybe next they will want to get married.

Gay marriage didn't hit the map until a Hawai'i court made the apparent mistake of actually paying attention to the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, had Baehr v. Miike found resolution before 1996, the case might have gone the other way. Originally filed in 1991, the case was dismissed on 1 October; the appeal process carried on until 1993, when on 5 May the Hawai'i Supreme Court remanded to trial, testing the evidentiary burden. With Romer v. Evans working its way through the courts, a legislative commission recommended in December 1995 that the state should open marriage to same sex couples. Romer, a powerful gay-rights victory, came down in May 1996; Judge Chang conducted the trial for Baehr v. Miike starting 10 September. The state failed to meet its burden, and on 3 December Judge Chang found for the petitioning couples.

And ever since then, social conservatives have been scrambling to close the hole blown open by their zeal.

And every time they lost at the ballot box, they made so much noise and conducted themselves so terribly as to make the point; more and more people found it harder and harder to look the increasing number of identifying homosexuals among their circles and take part in the hatred. And every time the soccons won at the ballot box, they made so much noise and conducted themselves so terribly as to make the same point.

Certes, there is some humor when I raise a glass to the hatemongers, but it is also sincere; we really could not have come so far so fast without them driving the discussion, without their terrible cruelty to make such a convincing argument that this is what the face of hatred looks like.

 

Not only is our back NOT against the wall, but we have torn the wall down that was built over the centuries by the religious homophobia and bigotry of you Judeo-christian haters. The battle is over, and you have lost miserably. But the war, as we now see, is far from over. At any given time we may hear on the news some new case of discrimination against us, as in a christian-run bed and breakfast, a christian employer, a christian bakery, or a christian florist. Your pathetic hate continues to foam and rage in your congregations, where we are weekly demonized and damned by priests and ministers in the name of God. Which is fine. You can tie yourself up in knots with hate all you want. You just don't have the right to act on it. Such is the inconvenience of living in a free country where equal rights WILL be respected and protected.

 

Looks like this homophobic bakery here in the Portland area is going to have to fork over the dough big time. We'll see how they try to wiggle out of it this time.

"Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian on Thursday ordered the owners of a former Gresham bakery to pay $135,000 in damages to a lesbian couple for refusing to make them a wedding cake.

Avakian's ruling upheld a preliminary finding earlier this year that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa had discriminated against the women on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Bakery owners Melissa and Aaron Klein cited their Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage in denying service. The case ignited a long-running skirmish in the nation's culture wars, pitting civil rights advocates against religious freedom proponents who argued business owners should have the right to refuse services for gay and lesbian weddings.

Avakian's final order makes clear that serving potential customers equally trumps the Kleins' religious beliefs. Under Oregon law, businesses cannot discriminate or refuse service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot turn customers away because of race, sex, disability, age or religion, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said in a news release.

"This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage," Avakian wrote. "It is about a business's refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal."===

Source:

• Sweet Cakes final order: Gresham bakery must pay $135,000 fo[…]
• Date Accessed: July 03, 2015
• Author: George Rede | The Oregonian/OregonLive

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/07/sweet_cakes_final_order_gresha.html