Those 267,574 people who voted “no” — which would approve the same-sex marriage law — were not dissuaded by an anti-gay coalition of conservatives and churches wielding more than $3 million, including more than $2 million from out-of-state donors, according to a report by the National Institute On Money In State Politics.

Much of the sparring over the referendum was funded on both sides by groups outside the state of Maine. Given that gay marriage has been a wedge issue for years, that’s hardly surprising. But in Maine?

Those who backed the gay marriage law ponied up 12 to 1 over donors to the anti-gay donors and had more money — $5 million. But they lost. The institute’s report, written by Tyler Evilsizer, says:

The measure pitted conservative groups and churches against gay-rights groups, a few wealthy donors, and more than 10,000 smaller donors from Maine and around the country. Question 1 attracted over $9 million, or 72 cents of every dollar raised around Maine’s seven ballot measures. [emphasis added]

But press attention, money, and political capital focused on a wedge issue to divide people of good conscience and faith and divert their attention from far more pressing matters. Maine needs more attention to the condition of its roads, bridges and airports than it does in the bedrooms of loving, consenting adults who wish to make a lifelong commitment.

The blunt end of the money hammer used in Maine against gays was primarily wielded by a group called Stand For Marriage Maine. Like all political communicators and niche interest groups these days, it has a website. But its site is notably deficient. It does not have links such as “About Us” or “Who We Are.” Such links usually provide a list of financial supporters, coalition partners, and the names and contact data for organization officers and staff. Stand For Marriage Maine does not provide such information on its website.

Wading through the organization’s press releases and media stories is needed to learn that Marc Mutty is chairman of Stand for Marriage Maine, that Scott K. Fish is communications director (releases provide a phone number) and that Bob Emrich is a member of the group’s executive committee.

That lack of clear, easy-to-find disclosure makes it difficult for those interested in the issue to find out more about the bona fides of donors and supporters who worked to repeal Maine’s gay-marriage law.

Why not explain “Who We Are”? Only conjecture is possible. It is, perhaps, easier to operate in ideological shadows. According to Mr. Evilsizer’s report, here are the principal sources of money that drove the effort to repeal gays’ right to marry in Maine. A few groups are well known outside Maine.

StandForMarriageMaine.com | $2,650,052
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland | $553,608
Focus On The Family Maine Marriage Committee | $114,500
Family Research Council Action | $25,000
Maine Marriage PAC | $11,539
Maine Grassroots Coalition | $9,410
Marriage Matters in Maine | $2,678
Maine4Marriage | $230
Proponents’ total $3,367,018

Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, asked Maine ethics officials to investigate the organization. He said it was laundering money. His August letter

contained allegations religious organizations are hiding contributions to the Stand for Marriage Maine campaign. The letter reports how the National Organization for Marriage, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the national office of the Knights of Columbus and Focus on the Family had contributors give the money to their organizations, and in turn gave the money to the Stand for Marriage Maine to hide the donors’ identity.

But a federal judge ruled on Oct. 29 that the “state can compel the National Organization for Marriage to disclose the identities of donors who contributed to its effort to repeal Maine’s gay-marriage law.” In that story, the Portland Press Herald said NOM — based in Washington, D.C. — had funneled $1.6 million to Stand For Marriage Maine. A resolution of the lawsuit was “months away,” the story said — well after the Nov. 3 referendum. Mr. Evilsizer’s report contains a breakdown of donors to Stand For Marriage Maine showing NOM’s $1,622,152 donation.

But his report notes that financial supporters of gay marriage in Maine “from Away” were also plentiful. Those who supported the gay-marriage law raised $5,678,579.

The Human Rights Campaign, which bills itself as “the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization,” donated $267,589 to the principal umbrella organization, No On 1 Protect Maine Equality. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force gave $139,056. Esmond Harmsworth, a founding partner of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency in Boston and New York, gave $100,000. Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders of Boston gave $91,258.

The website of No On 1 Protect Maine Equality also has a “Who We Are” page that lists its coalition partners. Its “Contact Us” page list its physical address, mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. Its campaign manager is clearly identified as Jesse Connolly.

The gay marriage caravan now moves on, it seems, to New York state. Gov. David Patterson wants a same-sex marriage bill, passed twice in the state Assembly, on the floor of the Senate for debate on Tuesday.

And the money, both for and against, will likely move on as well.

Competition at international sporting events is fierce and the pursuit of an edge, sometimes measured in hundredths of a second, leads some to cheat.  Steroid abuse aims to increase the strength, speed and endurance of what is natural.  But the androgens created by the body are not set to any standard.  Some people do genuinely produce more than others.  Figuring out what is normal and what is not is difficult.

And, sometimes, something else is going on.

In 1966, Erika Schinegger was the world champion women’s downhill skier.  The young Austrian was preparing for the Olympics in 1968 and a hoped-for gold medal.  However, 1968 was no ordinary year.

The politics of the time saw Communist countries forcing significant anabolic steroids on their athletes in an effort to ensure victory.  The concern was not just for the future of competitive sport, but also for the health of the athletes.  The East Germans, in particular, were serial abusers.  Manfred Ewald, architect of their doping scheme, was convicted and jailed in 2000 for his part in this.

Besides doping, though, many male athletes were entered as women to ensure an additional level of success.

Schinegger was one of the first Olympic athletes to undergo a gender test.  She discovered, to her shock, that she was actually male.  She was disqualified and had a sex-change, becoming Erik, a man.

Gender is not as simple as visually inspecting a person and deciding whether they are male or female.  Much of what we are comes down to the expression of our genes.

For hardened racists, it can be somewhat troubling and disconcerting to discover that we are both all and no races.  That a person who may live in Europe and whose family has been there for generations has components of their genetic code that prove incontrovertibly that they have African ancestors.

This doesn’t matter unless you enter a situation where hard rules are enforced, like South Africa’s racial rules of the Apartheid era.  The same is also true of gender.  It doesn’t much matter unless you wish to have children, or to compete in sporting events.

During the fertilisation of an egg by a sperm, the female egg has its X chromosome complemented by either of an X or Y chromosome from the sperm.  This results in a typical XX or XY paring.  However, in one pairing per thousand, something slightly different happens.

According to the Textbook of Sexual Medicine, “During the first weeks of development, genetic male and female fetuses are anatomically indistinguishable, with primitive gonads beginning to develop during approximately the sixth week of gestation. The gonads, in a bipotential state, may develop into either testes (the male gonads) or ovaries (the female gonads) depending on consequent events.”

The most common cause of sexual ambiguity is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrine disorder in which the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of virilizing hormones.  This results in genetic females (XX chromosomes) producing male characteristics as they become extremely sensitive to male hormones.  Conversely, a genetic male (XY) could become insensitive to androgens, resulting in female characteristics.  And there are a wide range of other variations.

Milton Diamond, a prominent gender researcher, says this, “Foremost, we advocate use of the terms “typical,” “usual,” or “most frequent” where it is more common to use the term “normal.” When possible avoid expressions like maldeveloped or undeveloped, errors of development, defective genitals, abnormal, or mistakes of nature. Emphasize that all of these conditions are biologically understandable while they are statistically uncommon.”

In other words, while some of the impacts of these gender events can be disturbing for some, and statistically rare, they are all normal aspects of our genetic makeup.  Far from making race and gender simpler, modern genetics has made pure categorisation almost impossible.

All of this may be scant support for Caster Semenya as she undergoes the public scrutiny which has followed her victory in the 800 metres at the World Championships.

In every-day life, it certainly doesn’t matter what gender she may be. 

In the brutal world of competitive athletics, it is important.  This has nothing to do with the politics of gender or race, but it does with the arbitrary limitations required of competitive sport. 

Life is full of arbitrary definitions: from the legal voting age, to official retirement, to age categories for sporting events. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is enforcing its rules no less arbitrarily, but those happen to be the known rules for international competition.

The debate about racism or sexism is pitched as being about accepting predefined stereotypes and labels, not about chucking them in the bin.  Race is an arbitrary measure of human difference.  So is gender.  Yet we don’t throw away the labels, we just force people into them and then demand tolerance of people because of those labels.  Isn’t that discrimination as well?

The real hope of this current row over the gender of one person is that maybe we can start accepting people for what they are, rather than in stereotyping people and then choosing whether to accept or reject those stereotypes.

[Cross-posted from Africagenome.com]

Further reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/30/olympicgames2008.gender

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_differentiation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/aug/23/caster-semenya-athletics-gender

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1055314

Q: Let’s say you’re sick with a potentially deadly disease. Who do you want for a doctor?
A: The smartest, most experienced and highly qualified expert in the field.

Q: You’re looking to invest your life savings. Who do you trust to handle your money?
A: The brightest, most agile financial mind I can find.

Q: You’ve been selected to participate in a “private citizens in space” program. Who do you want in charge of building the rocket?
A: The most brilliant and reliable engineers in the nation.

So far, so good. One more.

Q: You live in a time of unimaginable complexity and danger. Who do want to be the leader of the free world?
A: Somebody I can have a beer with. You know, a regular guy, a Joe Sixpack.

It’s said that people tend to get the leaders they deserve, and I can’t imagine better proof than the United States. At present we’re watching as a new president attempts to arm-tackle an array of national political and economic crises of evil supervillain jailbreak proportions, and at this early stage it’s far from clear that he’s Rushmore-bound.

• He may or may not get health care reform passed, and if he does it may or may not be as comprehensive as the programs pursued by previous arch-progressives Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.
• He may or may not bog us down in a vastly expanded quagmire in Afghanistan, although at present only an idiot would bet on him meeting his campaign promises regarding getting the heck out of Iraq.
• He may or may not decide to honor the pledges he made to the gay community.
• He may or may not spearhead a green revolution that saves the species from itself.
• And his economic policies may boost us to new, unprecedented levels of universal prosperity. Or they may plummet us nards-first into a meat grinder of a global recession so epic it will make the Great Depression look like a weekend in the Hamptons.

So the jury is still out on Mr. Obama. But… While past performance is no guarantee of future results, there’s also that thing about those who don’t understand history being doomed to repeat it. And America’s history of electing dolts, buffoons, scoundrels, knaves, low-jackers, pig-fuckers, gomers, dog-whistlers, Kloset Klansmen, recidivists and sheep pimps to the Highest Elected Office in the Land does not make one optimistic about the prospects for Barackapalooza. I’d love to be wrong, but let’s be honest. An indicator that can pick a loser 100% of the time is every bit as valuable to the shrewd investor as one that always picks the winner, and the Electoral College is as reliable a Finger of Doom as the world has ever seen.

Let’s review, shall we?

George W. Bush: Worst president ever? Dumbest president ever? Hard to say for certain, although put me down for “hell, yes.” The nation apparently elected a string of semi-housebroken wombats in the 1800s, and contemporary polling feels obliged, in the name of “balance,” to humor the estimations of conservative “scholars” who rate him the sixth-best ever. For my money, that opinion alone is sufficient for the credentialing institution to revoke the PhD, but such is the price we pay for the privilege of living in an society that not only tolerates fools gladly, it gives them television shows.

Bill Clinton: In so many ways, Clinton was the archetypal president of our age. He was the distilled, undiluted essence of the modern political animal. He was like everything in Washington, only moreso. And I don’t mean that in the good way.

Bubba may not be the man who invented the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, but he was damned sure the one who established it as the only wing that mattered. The irony, of course, was that he was reviled by the GOP. I’ve always wondered if the source of that rage was that Clinton was a better Republican than they were.

In addition, he cheapened the office at every turn: whether renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidder, pardoning Marc Rich or “hiking the Appalachian Trail” like mink freebasing Viagra, it seemed as though his every action left us feeling the need for a shower. From the poor house to the penthouse to the whore house, we’ve never seen anything like him. God willing, we never will again.

George HW Bush: It’s still hard to fathom how this mealy-mouthed little wimp stumbled into the White House. All the Democrats had to do in 1988 was find a candidate with a pulse. Instead, they trotted out Mike Dukakis, a man with all the charisma and passion of an accountant on a phenobarbital drip.

Bush the Elder was the latest incarnation of an established and thoroughly corrupt dynasty, and between him and his fuckwit kids there is no better argument, could be no better argument, in favor of a 100% inheritance tax. If they’d had to earn anything on their own merit their only entree into a country club would be as assistant assistant assistant greenskeepers reporting to Carl Spackler at Bushwood.

Ronald Reagan: Wow. Where to start. Back in the 1960s Marshall McLuhan, in writing about where television was taking the culture, predicted Reagan in terms so accurate that you’d think you were reading a history instead of a precognition. The only thing missing was the name and home address. The failing in McLuhan’s analysis, if there was one, was this: as cynical as he was, the reality turned out to be even worse than he feared.

Ronnie was as anti-intellectual a leader as we could have imagined prior to Dubya. A man who somehow managed to remain immensely popular despite the fact that most Americans disagreed with his policies. One of the most corrupt collections of advisors, staffers and appointees in history. And the man who represented the grand triumph of years and years of scheming by wealthy conservatives bent on by god rolling the rich-poor gap back to feudal levels. An intellectually void, amoral cesspool of a human being who will nonetheless go down as one of our “great” presidents.

Jimmy Carter: Carter has the distinction of being one of the very few politicians that Hunter Thompson ever said anything nice about, and his record since leaving the White House has made clear what an outstanding statesman and humanitarian Carter really is. History will not mark him down as the most adept practitioner of the presidential arts, however, and for those who bemoan the erosion of the line between church and state, let’s remember just how very publicly Baptist Jimmy was. Now, thanks in part to him, we’ll never get the smell of the fundamentalists out of the furniture. (Which reminds me – Phish is playing four dates at Red Rocks, so those of us who live in downtown Denver are hoping the wind isn’t blowing straight west-to-east for the next few days.)

Gerald Ford: Nice enough guy, seemed like. For a politician and all. But he wasn’t ever elected.

Richard Nixon: Please tell me we don’t really need to talk about this one.

Lyndon Johnson: Ever heard of Vietnam? It’s hard to recall the last time somebody took an idea so bad and managed to make it even worse. He does get credit for important civil rights legislation, at least.

Still, in the final analysis he was a president from Texas with a lust for illicit, unwinnable wars. If that reminds you of somebody else, don’t blame me. I’m just reporting the facts.

John F. Kennedy: He invaded Cuba, and once the troops started landing he changed his mind. He nearly got us into a hot nukular shooting war. Then there was that Vietnam thing – he and LBJ can share this honor. Marilyn Monroe was either a plus or a minus, depending on where you stand with respect to the marital infidelity issue.

Ultimately, though, the only thing that saved his legacy was death. Had he lived to serve out his term(s) he’d be judged today based on his record, which falls somewhat short of the legend.

So, when was the last time America elected a president it could be proud of? By today’s standards Ike isn’t looking bad at all, and his two predecessors, FDR and Truman, also score high marks.

If you look at that chart in the link above, it seems like maybe the country’s ability to elect somebody half decent runs in cycles.

Let’s hope that’s the case, and that the wheel is turning back in our direction. Because damn, America is due.

It’s been entertaining watching American public “discourse” since the election. (I use that word in its broadest, most ridiculous sense, since nothing that hinges so completely on self-absorption, rank ignorance and pathological dishonesty can be accurately characterized by such a noble word. But indulge me. I’ve been working on my irony lately.)

On the one hand you have conservatives fainting dead away that we’re now in the clutches of a “socialist” president. Never mind that these folks wouldn’t know a real socialist if he was gnawing their balls off. Never mind that most of these folks think “socialist” is the French word for Negro. Never mind that Obama demonstrably is to socialism what Joe the Plumber is to brie-sucking Northeastern intellectualism. As arch-conservative TV pundit Stephen Colbert says, “this is a fact-free zone.”

On the other you have the righteous outrage of the progressosphere, which feels six different kinds of betrayed by a president who promised them the moon and stars and has now left them to what looks like at least a four-year walk of shame. If I might borrow from an old fraternity joke, imagine the following scene from the Oval Office:

Barack: Hey everybody, what’s the difference between a progressive and a toilet?
Rahm: I give up, Mr. President.
Barack: The toilet doesn’t follow you around after you use it.
[Entire Cabinet]: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

A few days ago Chris Bowers, one of the progressive blogosphere’s smarter and more influential voices, announced that he was becoming a conservative Democrat. His reasoning was compelling. Let me sample a bit for you (and encourage you to go read the rest as soon as you’re done here).

You can “endorse someone other than a Democrat for President, and then have the Democratic leadership do whatever it takes” to keep you in the Party. “You get ten times the media mentions that one gets being a progressive.” You get “more money, too. You can proclaim that you are a conservative Democrat, and still have small, progressive, grassroots donors be by far your top contributors.” You can “hold up, water down, and threaten whatever Democratic legislation you want” with no consequences at all. “You get frequent meetings with the President and proclamations that he is one of your own.” If you bitch about it you get “threats about never hearing from the White House again.” You’re “far more likely to receive a major cabinet appointment. Not even counting the Republicans, New Democrats outnumber Progressives in President Obama’s cabinet by 7-1.” And that’s not nearly all.

Okay, so maybe Bowers isn’t really abandoning his fellow progressives. Maybe he was just being a smart-ass to make a point. I can’t say I approve of such tactics, but hey, my old pal Jonathan Swift was known for the occasional snark, so who am I to judge?

The point is that progressives have a beef with the new fauxcialist administration, and regardless of what you think about their issues, their analysis or their personal hygiene, a review of the facts certainly justifies their pique. Think about it.

• Obama the Campaigning Man was pretty clear in his disdain for the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama the President has apparently decided that gay rights can wait. (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Don’t bother.)
• Candidate Obama was balls-to-the-wall about greening the economy, and I mean yesterday. President Obama, whose favorability rating is running better than 2-1 for, seemed unable or unwilling to expend some of that political capital on the just passed ACES bill, which many experts think will accomplish diddley (or worse). (Again, whatever the eventual reality about this bill turns out to be is irrelevant – the point is that Obama did not act in accordance with the more progressive stance he had taken earlier.)
• And what about health care? A recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed overwhelming support for “a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans.” How overwhelming, you ask? Overall 72% were in favor of the “public option,” and 57% said they’d be willing to pay higher taxes to get it. Hell, 50% of Republican respondents want it. So, you have very high approval ratings. And you certainly have a significantly greater mandate than George the Conqueror did after nipping John Kerry in 2004. You have significant majorities in both houses of Congress. You have overwhelming popular support for a public option. And you can’t get it done? Seriously?

I’m sitting here trying to figure out why corporate America, which would stand to benefit tremendously from having the burden of insuring the citizenry lifted from its shoulders, isn’t in open revolt. (That part of corporate America that doesn’t include the insurance industry, I mean.)

It has been observed that the Republicans seem to be more effective with a minority than the Dems are when they have the entire country by the balls. GOPpers derail the train by threatening a filibuster, but the Democrats can’t seem to head off a bad idea with a damned-near buster-proof majority. How the hell is this possible?

This, of course, is what’s known as a “rhetorical question.” The butt-obvious answer is that the contemporary Democratic Party is not really a party, at least not in the same way that the GOP is. Instead, it’s a bizarre amalgam of progressives, “moderates,” bipartisan fetishists, “New Democrats,” DINOs and opportunistic Republicans (see Specter, Arlen). The median at present lies significantly to the right of Richard Nixon, who despite the recent revelation that he was in favor of abortion in the case of half-breed fetuses, posted a record that would make him pretty darned progressive by 2009 standards. (Good thing you dodged that bullet, huh Mr. President?)

Ultimately, Bowers and other frustrated progressives are right. The Democratic party just isn’t that into them. They’re useful when votes are needed, but are utterly incapable of leveraging that into actual influence. As far as the “responsible” centrists are concerned, progressives are the late-date with no self-esteem, the unwitting fat chick at the pig party.

So, what to do?

Playing along isn’t working. So how about rounding up all the members of the Progressive Caucus (and their many allies around the country) and opting out? Leave the Democractic Party. Form a third party of their own (or just join the Greens). All of a sudden the Democratic Party has a numbers problem. All of a sudden they lose majority status, chairmanships, agenda-setting stroke, etc.

I’m no expert on the rules of the American legislature, so I’m sure there are nuances I’m missing. Nonetheless, I imagine the Republican wing of the Democratic Party would wet itself. And in the short term this could be very good for the GOP, which would find itself in the plurality.

Longer-term, though, it seems like the progressives can make an argument – and one that is supported by some actual evidence – that they represent the will of a goodly slice of the American public. Even better, given how the youth vote seems to be trending, they can also argue that their hand is going to strengthen over time. Are these premises accurate? Hard to say. But they are testable hypotheses, and the posit is certainly plausible enough to be worth examining.

Maybe the remaining Dems respond by making the reality of the situation official and decamping for the GOP. Maybe the Blue Dogs and the “moderate” wing of the GOP abandon those pesky snake-handlers on the right and form a new “centrist” coalition. Who knows. If that did happen, however, America would at least have the refreshing luxury of an opposition party that, you know, opposed. We could get all that corporatist DC clutter, which thrives because it dominates both parties, up for a real referendum. What a campaign hook – America vs. the Beltway.

Part of me says “what if it backfires?” But the other part of me looks at the state of the current union, at the looting of the last eight (or, depending on your taste for the long view, 29) years, at the energy way too many Americans have to devote to worrying about what happens if they get sick or injured, at the staggering cost associated with continuing to fuck around with the environment, at the fact that millions and millions and millions of citizens have no hope at all of financial solvency, at the knee-buckling stupidity of a populace that’s been victimized by a brilliantly conceived War on Education, at…. Fuck it. You get the picture.

Off your knees, progressives. The worst that happens is more of the same. At the least do us the favor of dying on your feet.

I always marveled at how some of my friends worshiped the writing of Orson Scott Card. Maybe, I thought, it’s because we’re North Carolinians and he’s from Greensboro. From my perspective he was nothing special, at best, and has in the last couple of decades evolved into perhaps America’s most overrated science fiction author. Ender’s Game was prescient in its way – in a world where weaponry is so technologized that war is a video game, of course kids can be uber-warriors. But when the boy is made into some kind of equally uber moralist and philosopher (or whatever the hell Speaker for the Dead was about) I smelled the pungent aroma of self-indulgence that so often attends SF writers of a certain stripe.

The Alvin Maker series was even less bearable. We were doing fine in Seventh Son, clipping through an interesting enough little story (assuming you could get past the inexplicably patronizing treatment of Native American names) and then – the damnedest what the fuck passage in all of known literature. Those of you who have read the book will recall the scene I’m talking about – the quilt sequence – and those of you who haven’t should read the book just to say you’ve been there.

At this point it was clear that Card was too goddamned full of himself by half and that the only reason the rest of us existed was so he’d have people to be more clever than.

Until today, however, I thought Card was merely a badly overrated writer. Now, though, we’ve learned that he favors criminalizing homosexuality and overthrowing any government that tolerates teh faggots. Witness, if you would:

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books…to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens.

And:

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

His words, not mine.

In a way this is validating for me. I knew there was something a little wrong with the boy, but couldn’t fully articulate what it was based on his masturbatory fictional style alone.

It will be interesting to see how his fans react. I personally have some literary heroes with political skeletonry in their closet (Eliot comes to mind) and cognitive dissonance loves company…

Dr. Slammy was kind enough to put up a post earlier today that shows just how un-Christian people who call themselves Christians can actually be. And then I happened to be listening to my favorite Goth crooner, Voltaire, when one of my favorite songs came on: “God Thinks”, from Voltaire’s Almost Human album. Enjoy.

God thinks all blacks are obsolete farm eqipment
God thinks the Jews killed his son and must be punished
God thinks the white man is Satan
God, they know what God thinks

God thinks we should all convert to Judaism
God thinks we must all be Christians and
God thinks we should all embrace Islam
God thinks the only true religion is Hinduism

And I
I know what God thinks
God thinks you’re a waste of flesh
God prefers an Atheist

God thinks all people like you are evil
God thinks all people like you are an embarrassment to creation
self-righteous, judgmental, first to throw the stone
and use His name for your own protection

God thinks the sun revolves around the Earth
God thinks there was something very wrong with Copernicus
God thinks abortion is murder and
God thinks everything that science gave us is wrong
God thinks women deserve it
God thinks AIDS is a form of punishment

I hate people who blame the Devil for their own shortcomings and
I hate people who thank God when things go right

And I
I know what God thinks
God thinks you’re an idiot
God prefers a heretic

God God
God thinks all people like you are evil
God thinks all people like you are an embarrassment to creation
self-righteous, judgmental, first to throw the stone
and use His name for your own agenda

God is a liberal
God is a democrat
God wants you to vote republican
never trust a man who puts his words in the mouth of god
and says that it’s absolute truth
its lies and it smells like death
its all in a day’s work taking money from the poor
Why do you think that God would need your dirty money
if he wanted to start a holy war?

self-righteous, judgmental, first to throw the stone
and use His name for your own protection

God thinks puppies need to die and
God thinks babies need to drown
’cause God is neither good nor bad
God is you and me
God is Everything

(Lyrics from LyricsTime.com)

33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

- Matthew 25: 33-40

I was reminded of this little passage today as I reviewed these numbers:

• Colorado Independent reports that “donations supporting Proposition 8 from Focus on the Family, one of its major benefactors and an offshoot lobbying organization totaled more than $1.251 million…”
• This money was being funneled into the California campaign at the same time the organization was laying off 202 employees.
• “The Knights of Columbus, the Connecticut-based political arm of the Catholic Church” chipped in another $1.275 million.
• The Mormon Church donated nearly $190,000, and it’s guesstimated that when you add in the amount spent by all Mormons individually the total climbs into the $20 million range.
• All told, individuals and hate groups like Focus on the Family, the Catholic Church and the Mormons ponied up $39.9 million to make sure that gays living in places they couldn’t find on a map if their eternal souls depended on it can’t get married.

Now, why would my twisted little mind put these numbers together with that little passage of scripture above, you wonder? Because it got me to thinking about what Jesus might have done with nearly $40 million if he were around today. See, that’s $40M that wasn’t spent

• feeding the hungry
• giving drink to the thirsty
• providing shelter for the homeless
• clothing the poor
• caring for the sick
• visiting those in prison

I’m not a mathematician by trade, but I believe the following statements are close to accurate:

• $40M could provide three square meals a day for a month for over 65,000 people.
• $40M could buy winter coats for four million poor children.
• $40M could build a couple of schools. Because, you know, the children are our future.
• $40M could operate middle-of-the-road quality youth homeless shelters for over 30,000 people for the two coldest months of the year.

I mean, that is the kind of pussy liberal bullshit that Jesus was always whining about, right?

But maybe you don’t believe in rewarding failure and bailing out losers. Okay, Mr. Get-Off-Your-Ass-and-Work-For-It Conservative, you’re a smart guy. How many productive, useful community projects could you get done if I gave you $40 million and a legion of poor people who are willing to pull their weight? If the answer is less than 100, you’re a pretty pathetic excuse for an entrepreneur.

So as I see it, wasting $40M on something as patently ignorant as Prop 8 is a bipartisan offense against common decency.

If the Bible is to be believed – and parts of it probably should be – there are things that mattered enough to Jesus that he pretty much never shut up about them. Then there are other things – like deficit spending, the proper way to groom a poodle, homosexuality and whether Van Halen was better with David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar – that we have no evidence he ever spoke about at all.

With that in mind, let’s review the rest of Matthew 25:

41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

…in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell research were “non-negotiable” issues for Christian voters and has admitted that the main difference between himself and James Dobson is a matter of tone.  He criticized Obama’s answers at the Faith Forum he hosted before the election and vowed to continue to pressure him to change his views on the issue of reproductive choice.  He came out strongly in support of Prop 8, saying “there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population … This is not a political issue — it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.” He’s declared that those who do not believe in God should not be allowed to hold public office.

“Tone,” my well-toned ass. At the risk of reopening some delicate old rhetorical wounds, the difference between Warren and James Dobson/Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson is lipstick.

Oh, and he also believes that God wants us to whack Ahmadinejad. Good thing for him that Warren is a moderate, huh? Just imagine what a real conservative Christian would want to do to him.

So, what is Obama thinking here? Possibilities include:

1: The Uber-Unity Angle: I know Obama is hell-bent on being a man for ALL the people, ALL the time, regardless of whatever sorts of barking loonery they profess great faith in, and I’m sure this is part-and-parcel of his realpolitik theory about getting us past our partisan divisions. I’ve written before about the ways in which our power-elites have played us against each other, and I’m not a fan of artificial divisions. But at the same time, I don’t think we want everybody on the team – not unless they join on the right terms. There are people in America who don’t need to be courted or united, they need to be changed, and until this happens you’re inviting disaster.

2: The Strictly Personal Angle: Maybe Pastor Dan is right – maybe Barack just likes the guy. I don’t know that this makes me feel a whole lot better, but by the same token, no politician ever got elected by pandering to the likes of me.

3: The Use ‘Em and Lose ‘Em Angle: Perhaps Obama is just about tossing the fundagelicals a bone to make them feel like he’s representing them, too. If so, Warren doing an invocation is something I can live with as long as that’s all he’s doing. I won’t like it (listen, I’ve read the Constitution and Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, so to my understanding the word “God” should never occur in any remotely official legal context) but if this is the extent of Warren’s involvement in the next four to eight years of my life I suppose I’ll hold my nose and deal with it. But if this well-heeled neo-Puritan becomes an intimate consultant and policy driver I might not be quite as forgiving. Nor should you.

Whether it’s 1, 2, 3, all of the above or none, this is a bad move by Obama. You don’t effectively promote unity and progress by handing the show over to a guy who has offended every American with a working brain. So – off to a bad start. Maybe the change we can believe in comes later on the card.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an inauguration to plan for and I can’t find my Ouija board or my official Increase Mather prayer book anywhere….

In a pair of recent opinion pieces, Lind asserts that we shouldn’t let women and gays in the armed services because if we do, “men who want to prove they are real men will not join.”

Lind’s relative manliness doesn’t necessarily add to or subtract from his opinion’s validity, but unnamed sources who knew him when assure me that the closest he ever came to wearing a uniform was dressing his G.I. Joe doll in one.

Gays and Dolls

As one might expect a social conservative to do, Lind laces his positions with a number of intellectual subterfuges, not the least of which is filing gay men and women in the same pigeon hole. The go-to argument against women serving in the military is that they are, on average, smaller and weaker than their male counterparts and they can get pregnant, a consideration that doesn’t apply to gay men.

If you think that gay men are intrinsically less physically capable than their heterosexual counterparts, and you want to take a trip to the emergency room, I invite you to walk up to a homosexual member of the American Ballet Theater and call him a faggot. I doubt if there’s a segment of the population more physically prepared for direct placement into elite commando training than male dancers. (There are such things as heterosexual male dancers, by the way, and they generally don’t lack for the companionship of women who wouldn’t give either Lind or me the time of day).

But there’s more required of a fighter than physical toughness, according to Lind. “Throughout history,” he prates, “some armies have fought a lot harder than others. The specific reasons vary widely, but one way or another they all come down to human factors.” The most important human factor, Lind assures us, “is that men fight to prove they are real men.” Their membership in fighting organizations is a “badge of honor” that says, “We’re not sissies or pansies. We are men who fight, serving alongside other men who fight.” An infusion of sissies and pansies among the company of real men, Lind warns, could damage “military unit cohesion.”

Mr. Lind has a selective sense of military history and/or a blind notch in his Doppler gay-dar.

As a carrier skipper I served with said when President Bill Clinton enacted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, “Sailors have been rubbing heinies since Sinbad reported to boot camp.” Soldiers have been sharing pup tents just as long.

The ancient Greeks believed that physical love between soldiers improved morale, bravery and overall battle efficiency. Plato, the philosophical father of the American political right, considered it utter stupidity to ban physical relationships between soldiers. “Wherever, therefore, it has been established that it is shameful to be involved in sexual relationships with men,” he wrote, “this is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice in the part of the governed.”

In a song honoring the Lelantine War, Plato’s pupil Aristotle wrote that, “love…thrives side by side with courage.”

The Roman historian Plutarch noted that tribal ties were of little value “when dangers press, but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken.”

Lind cautions that gay and straight men can’t mix in “very close quarters” without “serous friction.” I’ve got news for Lind: gay and straight men have been mixing in very close quarters in the American military without serious friction since forever, including those World War II John Wayne types that conservatives like Lind have such a school girl crush on.

They’re queer, Bill. They’re here, Bill. Now drop and give me fifty pushups (heh).

G.I. Jane

The notion of women serving in the military is hardly new either. Plato favored it. He wrote in Republic that women must be taught the “art of war, which they must practice like men.”

“Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all?” he asked. “And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share?” Then “let [women] share in the toils of war and the defense of their country… Only in the distribution of labors the lighter are to be assigned to the women, who are the weaker natures, but in other respects their duties are to be the same.”

Lind’s specific objection to letting women serve is that they might be allowed into “ground combat arms.” I’m not sure what he means by that. Women are and will be assigned to war zones in combat support capacities. So what? He may suppose that women inherently lack the “right stuff” for combat, but those Israeli Security Force babes who pull the trigger on those remote control machine guns along the Gaza Strip don’t appear to be lacking anything in the killer instinct department. If Lind is worried that women will elbow their way into Delta Force, he is, in Plato’s words, “plucking a fruit of unripe wisdom.” I don’t know of anyone who is seriously trying to make women into commandos, or of anyone who would take the notion seriously. Maybe Lind is confusing that movie where Demi Moore becomes a Navy SEAL with reality. Confusion about reality is, after all, a leading occupational hazard of conservatism.

I don’t claim that integrating women in the military has been a tribulation-free experience. In my day, the incidence of young single sailor girls getting themselves pregnant to get out of duties they didn’t care for was completely out of hand. We developed a pretty good solution though; all the single mommy strikers got discharged and sent home.

I’ve also known a fair number of female officers who benefitted from reverse discrimination, but not nearly as many as the number of male officers I knew who got where they got thanks to Uncle Admiral or Governor Grandpa or a godfather who had a village in the old country named after him. And never forget that whatever wartime leadership qualities George S. Patton possessed that allowed him to get away with his vainglorious shenanigans, he was also one of the richest dudes in the Army.

Lind’s bottom line isn’t that women and homosexuals serving in the military will impair America’s war making capability. He’s concerned about “cultural Marxism,” which is a code phrase narrow shouldered white male bigots intone when they sense that cultural Darwinism is about to bust them another pay grade or two down the social pyramid. By Lind’s criteria, emancipation was cultural Marxism, as was the ban on feeding Christians to lions.

There may be good arguments for barring women and gays from military service, but Lind doesn’t make them, and I haven’t heard any that make an ounce more sense than his do.

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword . Jeff’s novel Bathtub Admirals (Kunati Books), a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance, is on sale now. Also catch Scott Horton’s interview with Jeff at Antiwar Radio.

A person consists both of their being and of the works that their being produces. Whether those works are physical or as intangible as the time spent on a particular task.

A traditional Westminster approach to politics, with a typical Left / Right political duopoly, has become the gold standard of democratic representation. It is also conflicted and inherently incapable of resolving its core contradiction.

The way it is supposed to work is that Left-leaning parties are the parties of Collectivism while Right-leaning parties are the parties of Individualism.

Collectivism implies redistribution of wealth to look out for the marginalised or neglected members of society, and to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity.

Individualism implies innovation, uninhibited originality, wealth creation on an epic scale and each person rising to their own level of accomplishment.

The structure of the dynamic tension between the two political schools is designed to constrain the nightmare extreme scenarios of each approach. For Collectivism, that is the worst excesses of forced equality which impoverishes a nation and flattens innovation. For Individualism, it is the worst excesses of concentrated wealth that abandons a frustrated underclass to perpetual poverty in violent ghettos. A duality of parties that remains true to this ideal and recognises the threat from extremism of both their own and the other’s ideals is a very powerful social temper.

It provides its own feedback loop. As society twists one way, politics can twist the other, holding society in balance.

However, no more.

Each party is now hopelessly contradicted and the upshot is that neither side is capable of reconciling their objectives.

Parties of the Right have approached their mandate by supporting the rights of businesses, but not of individuals. As if you can accept the microwaves, toasters and high-definition televisions of the world, but not the people who made them.

Parties of the Left are no better, supporting the rights of people but bemoaning business. As if people have merit, but their works have none.

The Right provide bailouts and subsidies to businesses, while the Left provides entitlements and benefits to people. Somewhere in this has become cemented the belief that people – individuals – are separate from their works. That the works should be held accountable for their own existence and that people are the innocent victims of such works.

Labels, like “business” and “rich” and “poor”, are thrown around as if they’re not just distinct definitions, but unconnected, unrelated objects.

The truth will always be that they are not. It is impossible to promote individuals without also promoting their works.

A political party that promotes people may find that it cannot control their works, or the way that such works concentrate wealth. Spurts of inequality are an inevitable result of the innovation that results from individual freedom. A political party that promotes business may find that it cannot control the personal expressions, or social interactions, of the people who produce. An increasing space for alternative lifestyles is a natural consequence of business freedom to create consumer choice.

These inherent contradictions have become so entrenched that it is scarcely surprising that the most passionate devotees of either side sound so peculiarly detached and unhinged.

Until leaders reconcile these two contradictory approaches they will never return to the dynamic tension which enabled the innovation that built their societies in the first place.

James Dobson and the Christian Right activists at Focus on the Family seem to have forgotten that scriptural promise.  Then again, there is a great deal of the Bible they seem to have forgotten, or chosen to blatantly ignore.  Their real “focus” is on scare tactics to frighten conservative evangelicals away from any flirtation with voting for Barack Obama, who may as well be the devil incarnate masquerading beneath a veneer of seductive charisma.

The latest instrument in this campaign of emotional intimidation is a “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America,” [download PDF at website] produced by Focus on the Family Action, the PAC arm of Dobson’s organization.  The document is so over the top that it’s garnered the usual media buzz, which is the goal of the group’s media strategy, according to Focus senior vice president Tom Minnery.  Unfortunately, the press finds such extremism more riveting than the message of a Christian political organization like Matthew 25 that supports Obama and candidates who are likely to promote the moral values expressed in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and which takes as its scriptural mandate Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40, “I tell you the truth, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Whoever crafted the 15-page letter clearly had a creative heyday while indulging paranoia at an unprecedented level.  The letter, which is as likely to amuse as to appall most Christians who are more moderate and rational than Dobson’s devotees, outlines a world so transformed in just four years that it has become unrecognizable.  Consider these 15 (and the letter contains more) “natural” outcomes if Obama is elected, most of which are fomented after a 6-3 liberal majority takes over the U.S. Supreme Court:

• Boy Scouts disband after refusing to allow homosexual scoutmasters to sleep in the same tent as young boys

• First-graders get “compulsory training in varieties of gender identity,” and parents can no longer opt out of school-based sex ed for their kids

• Churches are declared “public accommodations” and forced to offer marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples

• Military must offer “sensitivity training” for troops forced to accept enlisted homosexuals

• The Supreme Court declares that “proselytizing speech” does not have the same protection as other speech, and Christian ministries are banned from college campuses

• Nurses who do not wish to participate in abortions will lose their jobs, and doctors who deliver babies at hospitals must perform abortions or lose their licenses

• The FCC nullifies all restrictions on obscene speech or visual portrayals on TV, and it’s now a 24-hour non-stop diet of explicit porn

• States are allowed to ban guns, and illegal gun-owners face stiff fines or prison terms

• Home-schoolers are forced to use state-approved curricula, and rather than do so, many emigrate to New Zealand or Australia where they may teach without restrictions

• The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq prompts a take-over by Al Qaeda, which in turn has carried out terrorist attacks on four U.S. cities

• Russia reclaims most of the old Soviet bloc, including the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Bulgaria while UN & NATO fail to take action

• Latin America topples toward communism as the U.S.’s pro-Chavez policies give Venezuela more weight

• A single-payer national health care system has banned hospital admissions for anyone over 80

• Periodic blackouts are the norm after a moratorium is instituted on new oil drilling, nuclear plants and CO2-emitting coal power plants

• Business owners and entrepreneurs have moved overseas in droves to avoid higher taxes, with a huge loss of U.S. jobs

Wow, that’s one efficient administration.  Even when G.W. Bush had both houses of Congress, a majority of Supreme Court appointees, and two-thirds of federal judgeships in his court, the American political and cultural landscape held relatively steady.  That’s not to say that another four years of Republican control wouldn’t instigate a significant shift farther right – or that change won’t happen under Obama — but a scenario like the one Focus paints in this letter is as ridiculous as it is underhanded in its efforts to exploit the worries of religious conservatives who are beholden to fear rather than faith.

And to push the insult further, it turns out that some Christians themselves will be to blame.  As the letter’s author, “A Christian in 2012,” states in an effort to explain how all this happened, “In 2008 many evangelicals thought that Senator Obama was an opportunity for a ‘change,’ and they voted for him. They simply did not realize Obama’s far-left agenda would take away many of our freedoms as a nation, perhaps permanently…[allowing] the law, in the hands of a liberal Congress and Supreme Court, to become a great instrument of oppression.”

As a result of these naïve voters’ ignorance, the country has become a pawn in the takeover by “the agenda of the ACLU, the agenda of liberal activist judges in their dissenting opinions, the agenda of the homosexual activists, the agenda of the environmental activists, the agenda of the National Education Association, the agenda of the global warming activists, the agenda of the abortion rights activists, the agenda of the gun control activists, the agenda of the euthanasia supporters, the agenda of the one-world government pacifists, [and] the agenda of far-left groups in Canada and Europe.”  Heaven help us.  That’s a lot of agendas.

Capitalizing on fear has been a mainstay in the religious right’s persuasion tactics, just as absolutist governments have perpetuated through history.  Fear has always been the most powerful weapon tyrants have utilized to engineer consent to power, or to mobilize people into attacking other nations, races, ethnic groups or cultures. It is always fear that precedes fascism.  And it is ironic that in trumpeting the threats to freedom posed by this litany of “leftist” agendas, Focus on the Family and its ilk would seek to replace existing freedoms with a form of government that leans dangerously toward theocracy.

But the greater irony is that the “gospel” of Jesus translates to “good news,” not “be afraid.”  The Book of Matthew tells the story of the good news Jesus brings to the poor, the grieving, the hungry, the persecuted, the meek, the merciful, the pure of heart, and the peacemakers.  It is these, the scriptures say, who will be blessed, comforted, satisfied, and who shall see God.

Not once does the Jesus of the New Testament express concern over homosexuality as the greatest threat to the Kingdom of God.  Rather – as is made clear in the more than 2,000 verses in the Bible critiquing the love of money – it is being consumed with materialism and one’s own well-being at the ignorance and expense of others.

In Matthew 25:42-45, Jesus says, “For I was hungry, and you gave me no meat.  I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink.  I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me.  Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto you?  He answered them, saying, I tell you the truth: inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.”

Imagine a letter from 2012 in which genuine Christian values – an agenda for “the least of these” – were to prevail.  Now that would be a transformed world.  In the meantime, Dobson and his supporters would do well to heed the words of David in the Psalms: “The Lord is my Shepherd, whom shall I fear?”  Indeed, the most frequently expressed command in the Bible is “be not afraid “ or “do not fear.”  Focus on the Family’s political agenda is thus neither Christian, nor right.

DNC08, day one observation: there’s just way the hell more going on that we can cover. There are 11 of us, and I’m not sure we could do what we feel like we ought to be doing if we had 111.

It’s especially tough because S&R isn’t and never has been about being the firstest and the fastest. We rarely scoop anybody. Instead, we like to digest, to ponder, to reflect, to think as thoroughly as we can and finally produce something that takes the reader deeper. But today – there’s so much that the team has covered, so many people we’ve talked to, so many pictures we’ve taken… When it comes to information coming in, it’s been like drinking from a firehose.

So there’s a balancing act. We want to be as timely as possible, but that works against our instincts at times.

Team Scrogue is working feverishly, and at the same time we’re all suddenly aware of this curious dynamic. Gonna be fun, and we hope you’ll chime in with your observations, questions, story requests, and the like.

In the meantime, here are some shots that Nick got for us today.

The wages of sin, yes, and apparently the wages of inbreeding are to be forced to carry stupid signs around in public for all eternity.

Or am I editorializing?

“Can I take a picture of your sign?”

“Whose side are you on?”

“God’s side.”

I believe I am.

“Bless you, sister. Here.”

He maneuvered the sign according to my directions, forgave my lamentable awkwardness with a camera and asked me where I was from. Then he hugged me. I think I felt something wet on my cheek. I’m praying it’s not what I thought it was.

The Catholic League’s request to Leah Daughtry to ban the blogs BitchPhD and Towleroad from the Democratic National Convention came as something of a shock to those of us here at Scholars and Rogues. Frankly, Mr. Donohue, we are hurt. Our offices contain no balloon figures of Jesus, with or without genitalia (you say “apparently albino penis,” I say “loincloth” – oh wait! There’s the penis! Or should it be Penis?). Our site features no links to intensely homoerotic coverage of the hottest Olympic athletes, despite insistent lobbying from at least two of our staff members. Our humble blog, unlike Daily Kos, may never become the Internet apotheosis of evil radicalism. We know our place. We are what we are.

What we are, Mr. Donohue, is a blog at least ten times as offensive to the Catholic League as the so-called “patently obscene” publications to which you so vehemently object.

Had you bothered to do any in-depth research, were you the watchdog of God you claim to be, your list of blogs to be summarily uncredentialed would have been headed by the proud though lesser-known name of… Scholars and Rogues.

Perhaps it is not too late; in this hope, I offer you the following information about our staff, practices and standards. May you use it for the greater glory of the League, ignoring in your righteous wrath the craven tolerance and despicable humanity of the vast majority of Catholics worldwide.

1. If, as you quote Peter Viereck, “Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals,” editor-in-chief Dr. S has raised that pastime to an art by installing an actual Catholic baiting pit in the basement of S&R headquarters. Unlucky male representatives of the Faith are routinely chained to steam pipes and taunted for hours by voluptuous Wiccans bearing wine, condoms and the latest issue of Lesbian Vampire Nuns of Sodom. Oddly, many former victims later return voluntarily and must be chased away by special guilt-sniffing Rottweilers.
2. Dr. W, senior editor and sexuality expert, has divorced at least nine wives, four of whom are practicing Catholics. With a callous disregard for the traditions of their faith, Dr. W has refused to apply for annulments on the grounds of antecedent and perpetual impotence, thereby dooming these poor women to a lifetime of lesbian vampire sex behind convent walls.
3. Mr. W, editor, is an official lapsed Catholic and has been heard to loudly profane the name of the Holy Virgin while locked alone in his office for several hours at a time. Repetitive slapping noises and an impressive collection of leather flagellation devices may or may not be related to these obscene outbursts.
4. Ms. I, token female and possessor of the Moist Pink Gates to Hell, is an outspoken pro-choice advocate; like most of her fellow succubi she has used repeated casual abortions to facilitate her whorish lifestyle and prominently displays a series of commemorative post-D&C “thumbs-up” photos along one wall of her cubicle.
5. Ms. I also personally fucked Jesus at least twice, possibly three times if oral counts. She stated that although the Savior pronounced his name “hay-ZOOS,” she got a look at his driver’s license in the bar and is confident in her identification.
6. Mr. L, token homosexual or “quoken,” also claimed to have had carnal knowledge of that same Son of God. In the resulting bitchfight, Mr. L produced as evidence a semen-stained t-shirt bearing an eerie resemblance to the lower half of the Shroud of Turin. Challenged as to its authenticity, Mr. L casually dropped two words: Baby. Jesus. (NSFW) Ms. I ran from the room in tears, only to discover Hayzoos had given her a fake cell number.
7. Mr. O emphatically denies any unhealthy preoccupation with plaid skirts, knee socks or white cotton panties. He was, however, unable to explain to the S&R site administrator the near-constant traffic between his workstation and here; his excessive Kleenex and hand lotion consumption is also under investigation.
8. Finally, Mr. Donohue, virulent ad hominem attacks on the defenders of the Faith are an everyday occurrence at S&R, and you yourself are a favored target. A typically bigoted exchange:

Is it me or is he the pervy uncle who wants you to sit on his lap while he talks about the miracle of womanhood?

I don’t know, but he’s apparently obsessed with Jesus’s penis…

I would be, too.

Shut up, you smug bitch!

HEY, we’re ripping the Catholofascist right now, you two.

Whatever.

So what does he say about fucking choirboys?

Who, King Powerbottom Donohue?

Nothing. No comment. He’s like the Switzerland of the Catholic world.

Yeah, if by “Switzerland” you mean “hysterical misogynistic homophobic paranoiac.”

Just an affectionate nickname, bless his heart.

I can only hope, Mr. Donohue, that you will reconsider your choice of obscene and inappropriate blogs and add Scholars and Rogues to that roll of honor.

Thank you,

The Staff of S&R

His shot at David Vitter is pretty funny, too.

But, why the gratuitous nard-stomping of two public servants who’ve paid their debt to society? Ah – maybe you missed this:

The Federal Marriage Amendment is back — with Vitter’s and Craig’s support
Posted June 27th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Just this week, a group of Republican senators re-introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which, as we know, would ban gay marriage.

And once again, the language is pretty straightforward:

Section 1. This article may be cited as the `Marriage Protection Amendment’.

Section 2. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.’.

This isn’t especially surprising. Republicans are looking at the political landscape, and they’re feeling awfully discouraged. The polls look bad, the base looks depressed, and fundraising looks iffy. Rallying the far-right troops with an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution — even though it has no chance at even getting so much as a hearing — might be helpful to the conservative movement.

But the funny part is looking over the list of the 10 original sponsors. Most of the names are predictable — Brownback and Inhofe, for example — but there are two others whose names stand out: Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

Pam’s House Blend weighs in here.

This is why it’s getting harder and harder to be a comedian, I think – how in the hell are you going to come up with a joke for this? Seriously, we live in an age where truth is not only stranger than fiction, it’s a whole lot funnier. Or would be, if it weren’t so scary.

Sorry I don’t have more time to give this the treatment it deserves, but I’m participating in Dick Cheney’s March for Peace today and I have to go buy some new Birkenstocks…

Hasta.

Her: Why do even the nicest straight guys get weird when you talk about gay sex? Are men just naturally more homophobic than women?
Me: We’re talking gay male sex , right?
Her: Yeah, of course. Straight chicks don’t act like that when you talk about lesbians.
Me: Uncontaminated ones don’t.
Her: Uncontaminated?
Me: By patriarchal fundamentalist religions… but that’s a whole different can of writhing phallic worms.
Her: Oh, right. But what’s the deal with uncontaminated guys?
Me: You mean, why do their anal sphincters snap shut with a faintly audible *pop* right before they remember to mention all their gay friends?
Her: Yeah, the sphincter snap.
Me: Let me think about it…
Her: You’re going to use this for that Guide thing, aren’t you? It’s about men, not women.
Her: E? E? E?????
Her: Goddamnit. Don’t use my name, for Christ’s sake.

For the record, I believe “gay” and “straight” are useless terms. The universal human desire to get off isn’t as simple as A and B, even with AB’s thrown into the equation. Human sexuality is more like a spectrum, or a range, or perhaps a Cartesian coordinate system with wet bits and lots of throbbing – complex, confusing, and much, MUCH more situational than most people want to admit. I think in terms of percentages.

Like this: You’re a guy. You say, “I’m totally gay.” I say, “You’re a Ninety-Five Percenter,” meaning that in a perfect world full of freely available 23-year-old International Male models, you’d shun the vagina. You’d laugh at the vagina. You might even utter a contemptuous “Tchah!” when the vagina came up in conversation. If, however, you were born into an environment in which a young gay boy was beaten, humiliated and brainwashed into seeing himself as sick and disgusting, you very well might be able to not only marry the possessor of a vagina, but put it to occasional use as well. As my NFP(Gay) friend Bruce explained once, “If it’s dark enough, a hole is a hole is a hole.”

Or like this: You’re a guy. You say, “I’m totally straight.” I say, “You’re an NFP.” You say, “I-don’t-have-a-problem-with-it-I’m-just-not-attracted-to-men (the official appropriate response on page three of your Enlightened Modern Male Handbook).” I say, “Have another beer. Or two.” Then I take you to the men’s room, promise you complete secrecy and the best blowjob of your life, unbutton your fly, kneel, and right before the magic moment say, “By the way, I’m a trannie.”

Ninety-Five Percenter, pal.

So back to the original question. My correspondent had a point: ask an NFP(Straight) woman if she’d ever have sex with another woman, and she’ll say something like “Oh, probably not,” or “I doubt it,” or “Which woman are we talking about here? Like Tina Fey?” Ask the same question of a charming, progressive, lovable NFP(S) man and listen closely… yep, there it is, just before the “I-don’t-have-a-problem.” The telltale sphincter snap. Why?

This is where the Just Came Out Gay Men’s Chorus melodically exclaims, “CLO-seted!” with the annoying but blessedly transitory zeal of any recent convert. This is where Euphrosyne says, “Hmmm. I don’t know.” Suppressing a vital part of who you are for years and years and having it come out as rage, hatred and violence: that makes sense. Horrifying, revolting, fatal sense. Momentary but instinctual discomfort, particularly in a relatively safe environment, like a room full of like-minded guiltily uncomfortable liberals and women who dig the Enlightened Male? Not so much.

My theory (and the word once again is theory): it might just be about dominance. Pack position. Who gets to piss last and longest on the fire hydrant of society. Nature or nurture, most men have been expected from birth to compete, to win, and to equate their rank in the Big Game with their worth as a human being. The times they may be changing, but not much and not fast. And unless that nice tolerant NFP guy is a total blithering idiot, he has noticed that in this game, women start out behind and never really catch up. He may be aware of the essential wrongness of these rules, he may be actively involved in fighting against the status quo, he may have “NOW” tattooed on his scrotum and a rainbow ring hanging from his Prince Albert – but that lifelong conditioning is deep. Associating being on the receiving end of penetrative sex (the root of the sphincter snap) with being feminized and therefore with being weak or vulnerable… at a gut level, like it or not, it makes sense. Sad but true.

So give a good NFP guy a break. Turn a deaf ear to the involuntary muscular spasm. Appreciate that he’s able to kiss his father in public, plays basketball with his daughter, and will watch every episode of Project Runway with you and a roomful of gay men without even once clasping his hands unconsciously over his genitals. Give a little, get a lot.

But save the pegging conversation for a really opportune moment.

Got a question about women? Or men and women? Tap out an e-mail with the hand that’s not wanking to Internet porn and send it to:

askeuphrosyne at gmail dot com

Confidentiality guaranteed, ball-busting absolutely free. Go on, hit me.

]]> http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/06/19/the-guide-to-women-whats-up-your-straight-guys-ass/feed/ 19 http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/05/01/the-mccain-standard-and-the-rise-of-the-calphalon-candidate/ http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/05/01/the-mccain-standard-and-the-rise-of-the-calphalon-candidate/#comments Thu, 01 May 2008 23:46:00 +0000 Dr. Slammy http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2008/05/01/the-mccain-standard-and-the-rise-of-the-calphalon-candidate/ If you’re following America’s electoral theater at all, you know that we have a candidate with a preacher problem. And that the candidate in question has been put in the uncomfortable position of having to repudiate some of said preacher’s remarks (while not alienating those voters in the flock who actually, you know, agree with what the Reverend was saying). In case you haven’t been paying attention, the controversial cleric has pronounced God’s doom upon certain of the nation’s citizens, and the backlash against him and his favorite for the White House has significantly damaged the candidate’s chances.

Of course, I’m talking about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. Errr, wait … that’s not right. That’s not who I’m talking about at all.

No, I’m talking about the Rev. John Hagee and His Maverickness, John Dubya McCain.

You might recall (or you might not, since the Fourth Estate has devoted so few column inches to the story) that Preacher Hagee, a many-jowled man who does little to explode cheap stereotypes about fundamentalist Texans and whose public pronouncements are a living indictment against every academic institution he ever attended, decreed that Hurricane Katrina was a divine smiting against the city of Sodom New Orleans because it was planning to allow a public parade by a bunch of queers. To be sure, Preacher Hagee believes a great many interesting things (I mean, come on, he called the Catholic Church “‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system’”) so in context his New Orleans theory is actually fairly tame.

Besides, he’s been called to account for the outrage, with the nation’s top journalistic watchdogs walloping him no less than 8% as often as it has the Rev. Wright.

A Media Matters for America Nexis search* found that since February 27, the date that televangelist John Hagee endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, The New York Times and The Washington Post combined have published more than 12 times as many articles mentioning Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Sen. Barack Obama as they have mentioning Hagee and McCain. The Post published 53 articles during that period that mentioned Wright and Obama, compared with three articles mentioning Hagee and McCain. The Times published 46 articles since February 27 mentioning Wright and Obama, compared with five articles mentioning Hagee and McCain.

Additionally, during the same period, the Post published 40 editorials or opinion pieces that included Wright and Obama while publishing two editorials or opinion pieces that mentioned McCain and Hagee. The Times published 22 editorials or opinion pieces that included Wright and Obama, compared with two editorials or opinion pieces that mentioned McCain and Hagee.

Now that’s fair and balanced!

Still, none of this matters because McCain is having nothing to do with Hagee. Ummm, hold on. No, no … that’s not right, either. McCain said he was right honored to have the good Reverend’s endorsement. Of course, he’s repudiated Hagee’s New Orleans remarks. But he’s still glad to have the endorsement.

I know what you’re probably thinking: here comes a “flip-flopper” crack. Nope. Flip-flopping is when you say/do one thing and them come back later and say/do the opposite. It hardly counts as flip-flopping when you’re saying/doing both things at the same time (and please watch the video). No, that’s some other kind of advanced forked-tonguery that the noise machines haven’t coined a catchy name for yet (although “Double-Talk Express” does have a certain ring to it). In the meantime, let’s just call it “lying.” Never mind having his cake and eating it, too – he’s having my cake and eating it, too.

In any case, at least Hagee has calmed his ass down lately. What? I’m sorry, hold on a sec …. he said what? You have got to be kidding me.

In a sermon given at his San Antonio, Texas Cornerstone megachurch that was telecast and available in up to ninety million homes worldwide, controversial pastor John Hagee, who has endorsed the presidential bid of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, Jr., claimed that American public schools provide abortion services. Hagee stated, “Your daughter can get an abortion in public school without telling you but she can’t get an aspirin without your approval.” The pastor also claimed that public school teachers can force their students to study a “precursor to witchcraft” and suggests that America has invited “satan” and demonic spirits into its public school systems by failing to display the Ten Commandments on classroom walls.

Well, surely the press is going to be all over this one. Right? [audio cue: crickets chirping in the wilderness]

One of Ronald Reagan’s nicknames was “the Teflon President,” because no matter what he said or did, and no matter how many cookie jars his people got caught looting, nothing ever stuck.

Are we now seeing the ascendance of The Calphalon Candidate? McCain flips and flops like a live trout on a hot griddle. He’s got a temper like an adolescent with roid rage. He called his wife – in public, with witnesses (and brace yourself for some intemperate language, if you would) – a “cunt.” Since no reporters are willing to ask about this bit of immoderacy, an attendee at an Iowa Town Hall event did.

No normal rabble rouser was the questioner, by the way. He was a Baptist minister. And he got tossed from the event for having the temerity to utter such blasphemy in the presence of, you know, adult voters.

I’m not sure what to say here that isn’t obvious. Maverick is clearly less the straight shooter than he wants us to believe and the nation’s press has no interest in holding him to the same standards it holds his opponents to. Welcome to The McCain Standard. Had he and Hagee been subjected to the same scrutiny that Obama and Wright have endured how very interesting these past few weeks would have been.

I’ve been resisting the urge to question why white Christianity is getting a pass while black Christianity gets pummeled. Why white whack-jobs of the first order can say any goddamned crazy shit that pops into their heads while distinguished military veterans with – and let’s be honest here – fairly legitimate questions about the plight of blacks in America get demonized like they thought up 9/11 all by themselves.

Of course, now I’ve gone and done it, I guess, but explain to me, if you will, how I’m being any less fair to the American press than they’re being to America.

I have no illusions that our nations reporters, editors and obscenely rich (and occasionally Australian) media moguls are going to act in the best interest of the country. Right now I guess I’d count it as a victory if they’d just pretend a little harder.

Bruce booted after “illiterate” remark
By Jessica Fender
The Denver Post

Disparaging remarks aimed at migrant workers got resident rabble-rouser Rep. Douglas Bruce banned from speaking on an alien worker bill today.

“We don’t need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in the state of Colorado,” Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, told the chamber to an audible gasp.

Rep. Kathleen Curry, leading the House at the time, immediately barred Bruce from speaking at the podium, an uncommon maneuver.

“How dare you?” she asked Bruce, before House members moved back to discussion of a bill aimed at helping seasonal farm workers from other countries enter the state legally on a temporary basis.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Bruce, he masterminded Colorado’s notorious Amendment 2 debacle and the state’s disastrous “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” (TABOR). He’s been relatively calm of late, having only been involved in three embarrassments this calendar year (until today).

• In January he became the first representative ever formally censured by the Colorado legislature. Why? For kicking a photographer.
• He pissed off his colleagues by refusing to support a bill honoring military personnel, a move that got him removed from a House committee overseeing veterans affairs.
• In February he got caught – ironically enough, given TABOR – charging the state for days he didn’t actually work.

I guess it’s hardly surprising that he’d have an issue with all those dirty wetbacks sneaking into the state.

I’m not sure of the logistics involved, but it’s high time that the Colorado legislature removed Bruce from its ranks. He has been responsible for incalculable damage to the state and its citizens. Our education and public services are among the worst in the nation thanks to TABOR. Amendment 2 announced to the rest of America that we were prepared to by god act on our ignorance. And lately he seems to exist for no other reason than to outrage our sense of propriety and public decency.

Douglas Bruce is – and let’s be brutally frank about this – a bad human being. He makes the lives of others measurably worse, and if he were to drive off a cliff tonight we would all be demonstrably better off. I’m not in the business of wishing ill on people, but at the same time we shouldn’t be any more afraid to state the plain truth than he is to foul the podium in our legislature with hate and bile.

Yes, Virginia, Colorado has an illiterate problem. But it’s not the migrant workers who need us as badly as we need them. It’s the man from House District 15 in Colorado Springs.

It’s time for Douglas Bruce to go crawl back under whatever rock he slithered out from in the first place. Today.

Chalk another one up to the gaytriarchy.

Once upon a time, a column in a Denver-area LGBT magazine was met with a brief but pointed shitstorm, prompting a retraction and official apology.

In case you don’t keep up with LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender — just think “gender outlaw” or “it’s those damn queers again”) media, a second-grade Douglas County boy is returning to school presenting as a girl, with the support of her parents and the school, which is going through the trouble to accommodate this change with pamphlets for interested parents and building gender-neutral restrooms…wait for it…

*rumbling noise*….AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE-ENSE-ense-ense…

(This is not to say that you’re only ever going to hear from me when the societally “Will-and-Graced” gay man points the laser sight in his manicured index finger towards trans people, but I guess the company I keep has something to do with my perspective on that.)

This, of course, had our friend Mr. Neil Cavuto, of Fox News fame (among others), outraged that a vast majority of students would have to “bend over backwards” so that this one student could also have access to an education, even if she has to pee during the process. (If anything, I think the accommodations in this case are just as much for the other kids as it is for this one.)

I don’t know. Do parents become exempt from property taxes when a pundit deems their child a special-rights-demanding freak? I’ll check with my accountant.

Really, though, that particular argument was laughable, at least to me, that the “99%” of kids that are “doing just fine” (though I’m sure the number would be a lot different if we could read the mind of every youth out there) shouldn’t have to walk past a unisex khazi in between classes, and shouldn’t have to associate with a classmate of a certain disposition because they’re in the middle of their sacred childhood, in which good parents in Picketfence Grove, USA do all they can to either pretend that people who are “different” simply don’t exist, or instill teachings in their kids to the tune of “to hell with those freaks, we’re superior to them.”

(Whether or not America owes its children 18 years of unicorn rides, fizzy drinks made from fairy dust, and bullshit is an issue I’ll leave for another day.)

Chattering classes and Dr. Dobson aside, the “top 99%” will more than likely adapt, go along their merry way and ultimately not care. The ones who do care might learn a thing or two. Perhaps the things a select few learn will prevent them from living lives of depression, denial and self-hatred. Perhaps, at least at one school in Colorado, a student body at large can attempt to understand that each of them has an equal right to a learning environment free of academic sabotage (forms of which include tacit approval of physical abuse and psychological warfare at the hands of peers and faculty alike).

Anybody?

Some might even befriend a gender-variant or otherwise “different” kid, regardless, without being traumatized, scarred for life or otherwise having their heads colonized by mind-controlling worms (I picture those ones from Star Trek, though I suppose those are space scarabs more than anything — I’ll leave it up to you) that demand they give themselves, body and soul, over to San Francisco Valuesâ„¢ at the drop of a hat.

Dare I say, having in my time been subject to plenty of hostile climates and lines of thinking (with much less moral support and media coverage, mind you):

The “top 99%,” around whom the entire planet already revolves, can stuff it if it’s seriously seen as that big a deal to make room, in a publicly funded facility, for a fellow member of the public; one for whom the tan bark, drinking fountains, molded plastic lunch trays and chalkboards have also been made available (at least on paper).

Furthermore: To hell with the prevalent idea of America’s Chosen People™ needing refuge from the unmutual and concepts likewise marginalized, browbeaten and otherwise willed into invisibility or ridicule by the “top 99%.”

Where do the “bottom 1%” go for refuge? If the “top 99%” don’t care, who will? It is my belief that the minority needs protection from the majority, and the powerless from the powerful–not the other way around. Furthermore, it is my guess that childhood in a place like Douglas County would be a lot more like Ed, Edd and Eddy than Leave It to Beaver.

Dare I say: 99 pairs of knickers in a twist over the occupant, brand or fabric of the hundredth pair (in or out of “wedgie formation” depending on the whims of those 99) do not my tear ducts activate. The same goes for one big pair being paid to twist itself in print, on national television or on talk radio on behalf of said 99, who probably didn’t ask it to in the first place.

Really, though: This child is a member of our society and our species that’s not going to be swept under a rug. Not by her parents, not by her school and not by any person’s objections. I’m sorry to disappoint the picket-fencers, but no matter how deep into the suburbs one moves one will still run the risk of meeting, as one might say, “new and interesting people.” And even if a person’s disposition, condition or appearance offends you or doesn’t make sense to you, they have the right, regardless, to make their contributions to society, just like you, for their own benefit personally and for yours collectively.

Short version: You want to choose your kids’ classmates, it’s called homeschooling or private school, off the public dime.

Now, for the article.

I don’t know how else to respond, except piece by piece. So that is what I shall do. (Brace yourself.)

Alternate title: “TG! OMG! WTF? Or: A Cock, In A Frock, On A ‘Castle Rock,’ by (some gay guy)”

This last month a 7 year old child decided that he was going to start going to school as a woman, dressed in woman’s clothes, using the girls bathroom and only responding to the name ‘Christina’. And while I’m an advocate of sexual expression,

That’s fine. What about gender expression? This kid has a long way to puberty. There’s a difference. Gender dysphoria, completely separate from sexual orientation, can manifest itself as early as age 4.

…there is another part of me that says “hello, he’s seven years old!” How can the parents allow something like this to happen?

Possibly after some shock, some reading, some emotional strain, maybe some doctor visits and counseling, and probably after some of the aforementioned combined with continued unconditional love for their child. It’s all speculation since I don’t know them personally, of course.

Shouldn’t a child have to wait until their balls drop into their sack before they’re able to choose their own gender identity? Up until about 16 years old an individual should probably just go ahead and go with the set of genitalia that was given to them upon birth.

I doubt anybody’s rushing to call a surgeon. A seamstress, maybe. For that matter, how many children “go with it” and live in misery into adulthood? You may be surprised. Think being born before 1998 and growing up gay or perceived gay.

I’ll take a look at their ten-year plan and get back to you on that.

What kind of parents allow their seven-year-old to say “I’m going to school as a woman from now on.” Do they just sit back and say, “Girl, if that’s the case were gonna have to get you some pumps to go with that summer dress of yours.”

With the neck twirl and all, I’m sure. They’ve installed a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert hood ornament on the M-Class and everything. There’s plenty of room for the Fisher-Price “Li’l Agnetha Fältskog” make-up set in the back, I bet!

Don’t the parents get arrested for allowing their seven-year-old boy to try on training bra’s and panties in the Kohl’s dressing room? I assume some sort of local authority would be informed rather quickly of their misdeeds.

Can’t help you there. Quite an imagination, though.

I presume that the parents are probably just perverted and like to take pictures of their seven-year-old boy dressed up in women’s clothing. There is a fetish out there for everyone you know. But what’s worst, is the school officials are not only allowing this to go on, but also encouraging it by installing a unisex bathroom and having a class assembly to inform the other children of his decision to dress like a woman.

(Counting to ten…)

I could see this happening in San Francisco, or one of those crazy European cities where all the good porn comes from, but in Highlands Ranch, Colorado?

You mean to tell me that people growing up in ZIP codes beginning with “8012″ and “8013″ are legally protected from each other’s differences? I’m going to sue the pants off of Mr. ZIP… unless he’s become Ms. Bertha Post-Mark and is now unemployed thanks to the lack of employment discrimination protections! …Get it? ‘Post-Mark?!’

This just seems like a Jerry Springer episode waiting to happen. I can see the title now: “seven-year-old tells parents to get off his sack, cause he wants a vagina.”

I’m sure one could conjure up enough material to write the whole script for a stage play based on this hypothetical Springer episode. A “Celebrity Deathmatch-esque” claymation piece, maybe?

What’s next, an official sex change? What happens if he hits puberty and decides that perhaps the whole ‘removing the penis thing’ wasn’t such a good idea after all. Can they keep it in a jar in case he changes his mind? And if he doesn’t change his mind, could he freeze it and use it as a dildo? It would put a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Go fuck yourself!”

…Ahh! Never mind! I see it’s already been written!

Most young children want expensive toys when they’re young. “Mommy, can I have a pony?” “Mommy, can I have a PlayStation 3?” Oh no, this needy little brat says, “mommy I’d like my penis sliced in half and pushed up into my pelvis to form what looks to be a mangled vagina… Please mommy, Tommy’s parents got him one!” To which the parents will undoubtedly respond, “Ah look honey, how cute, our little boys all grown up now – talking about getting his first vagina.”

(Counting to twenty…)

Jeez. Cavuto calls this kid a threat to the very concept of childhood, but this column ups the ante by pegging all parties involved as the oversexed would-be cast of Tom Rubnitz’ Pickle Surprise 2008.

I’m going to ask out loud, here: Would the writer of such a piece project the same kind of vivid imagery and ridicule onto a second-grade cisgender boy who hangs out with girls and has no interest in sports? You know, maybe with a set of accepting, or at least tolerant (if he’s lucky), parents having the audacity to expect their child to have access to an education without being unaccountably taunted, beaten up, threatened, isolated socially… you know, the good stuff? That would be lunacy!

Would the LGBT community ever stand for a “humor piece” about this hypothetical child’s parents–I don’t know–petitioning the school district to drill glory holes in the bathrooms, add Mapplethorpe to the school library and install a stripper pole and disco lights in place of the climbing rope in the school gym? Why not South Park’s “Mr. Slave” as special guest speaker to deliver his “New World Order” speech in conjunction with the gay mafia?

Let’s go one step further and have ‘em memorizing the hanky code as part of their American History studies! (HAW HAW!)

My guess is: Prrrrrobably not. That would be a grotesque and unfair portrayal of a person that’s pointedly “different” and already going through enough shit from society, peers, media and all points in between simply for daring to exist.

I dare just one person to say, clearly and in plain English: “This child is not entitled to the same education mine is because…”

Anybody?…

What issue will be foremost in your thoughts when you vote for a president in 2008?

1. Civil Liberties (28)
2. Economy and Class (26)
3. Iraq and Military Issues (20)
4. Foreign Policy (General) (11)
5. Education (7)
6. Campaign Reform (6)
7. Gay Marriage (5)
8. Abortion and Reproductive Rights (4)
Environment (4)
10. Energy Independence (3)
Immigration (3)
Other (3)

No votes:

Terrorism
Crime

Our next poll asks you which press sources you trust the most, and can be found in the column to the right.