You DON’T get to vote on my rights

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no [legitimate] interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

— Federal Judge Vaughn Walker in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, [and] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— The U.S. Declaration of Independence

Associated Press photos

San Franciscans Spencer Jones and Tyler Barrick, who were married when California honored same-sex marriage in 2008 and who are featured prominently in the worthwhile documentary “8: The Mormon Proposition,” celebrate a federal judge’s decision today that November 2008’s anti-same-sex-marriage Proposition 8 is invalid because it violates the protections afforded to Californians by the U.S. Constitution. I expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately uphold the ruling.

I should have been a fucking lawyer.

When I predicted several hours before he did so that federal Judge Vaughn Walker would rule that Proposition H8 is unconstitutional — which he did, of course — I noted the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, the case that found that no state has a legitimate reason to meddle in what consenting adults do sexually in private, that religious sexual prohibitions aren’t enough to make a sex act illegal if the state cannot demonstrate that the state has an interest (such as a public-safety interest) in making that act illegal. 

In his ruling invalidating Prop H8, Walker wisely and correctly notes, on page 8, that “The state does not have an interest in enforcing private moral or religious beliefs without an accompanying secular purpose. See Lawrence v Texas…”

Yup.

Again, I don’t wish to compare same-sex marriage and sodomy (the subject of Lawrence vs. Texas), but again: What Judge Walker said!

The pro-Prop H8 fascists have actually claimed that same-sex couples getting married actually violates their (the fascists’) religious freedom because they find same-sex marriage to be offensive to their religious beliefs and sensibilities.

This line of “argument” is down-the-rabbit-hole-level insanity.

To live in a free nation is to be offended sometimes. If you can’t fucking handle that, then you need to get the fuck out of the fucking nation. (I hear that the Taliban is recruiting, and they’re quite homophobic.)

But seriously, I find Mormon motherfuckers, “tea-party” dipshits and other “Christo”fascists to be incredibly offensive. I find them to represent quite the opposite of what Jesus Christ and the founding fathers stood for. Thus, in all seriousness, I find them to be anti-Christian and anti-American.

However, because their very existence offends me — and my sense of religious and civic propriety — does that mean that I have the right to violate their constitutional rights in the name of preserving or defending my own rights or my personal cognitive comfort or my peace of mind?

Fuck no.

Then there is the “argument” that whatever a majority of the voters decides never, ever should be overturned, that that majority vote is sacrosanct.

OK, what if we Californians took a vote, and a solid majority of us decided to drive every last Mormon motherfucker out of the state of California? Would that be constitutionally permissible?

Um, yeah.

Only you know what? Such a ballot measure wouldn’t even fucking make it to the ballot. It would be stricken down as blatantly unconstitutional before a single voter could weigh in on it.

Yet my equal human and civil rights were put up for a vote in November 2008, and that is some fucked-up shit. It’s why they call being non-heterosexual “the new black”: because even black people, who should know how wrong oppression is, shit and piss upon us non-heterosexuals.

Then there is perhaps the lamest argument against same-sex marriage that I’ve heard: that same-sex couples can’t produce children, and procreation is in the state’s interest.

Oh, puhfuckinglease. Procreation is in the Mormon cult’s best interests, because the Mormon cult wants to take over the entire fucking world, and the Catholicks are big on procreation, too, because they also want to take over the world, even though to prohibit birth control is incredibly irresponsible and cruel, especially in the Third-World nations where there is starvation and disease and overpopulation, but the United States of America is not underpopulated (indeed, in Arizona they’re trying to drive all of the brown-skinned people out) and Homo sapiens is, um, the last time that I checked, not on the endangered species list (the omnipresent risk of nuclear annihilation aside, of course…).

And let’s carry the procreation “argument” out: So what if two old people, say a widow and a widower in their 70s, want to marry? We don’t let them because the only valid purpose of marriage is procreation? What about heterosexual couples of reproductive age who aren’t able to have children for medical reasons? Must we give fertility tests before we allow heterosexual couples to marry, since procreation is the only valid reason for marriage?

What about fertile heterosexual couples that never have a child? Should we annul their marriages in, say, a year or two if the woman doesn’t get knocked up? What if she manages to get knocked up but just can’t carry a baby to term, but keeps miscarrying? How many chances should we give her?

Um, yeah, one by one, all of the “Christo”fascists’ and other assorted wingnuts’ “arguments” against same-sex marriage all come down to their own backasswards, bigoted religious or personal beliefs.

The pro-Prop H8 wingnuts lost their case before Walker because they have no fucking case.

The wingnuts no doubt will crow that because Walker himself is gay, he handed down a personally biased ruling.

However, when the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, the court will be required to look at U.S. Supreme Court precedent, and Lawrence vs. Texas is precedent — fairly recent precedent — that isn’t friendly to keeping same-sex couples from marrying.

I put the chances of the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing with Walker that to prohibit same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution at about two in three.

The battle for same-sex marriage is pretty much all over except for the wingnuts’ crying.

It’s too bad that the Mormon cult and its allies spent more than $40 million pushing Prop H8 down Californians’ throats. Probably the best anti-Prop H8 sign that I’ve seen reads: “Jesus said: ‘Feed the poor.’ They said: ‘Sorry, Jesus, we spent $40 million on hate and fear!'”

I suggest that the members of the Mormon cult and the other “Christo”fascists, instead of trying to make their miserable, hypocritical, self-righteous selves feel better and superior by shitting and pissing upon others, actually fucking read what Jesus Christ actually fucking taught. And then fucking follow it. And then tell the rest of us what great fucking Christians they are.

God bless America, land of the free.

Amen.

‘8: The Mormon Proposition’

DVD review

Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones, both raised in Mormon families, were married in San Francisco’s city hall during the window period in 2008 in which same-sex marriage was legal in California. Their marriage remains legally valid, but Proposition 8 put an end to further same-sex marriages. Barrick and Jones are featured in the documentary “8: The Mormon Proposition.”

I’m glad that they made a documentary — a pretty good one, too — about the Mormon cult’s behind-the-scenes push for Proposition 8, the ballot initiative in California that in November 2008 wrote discrimination into the state’s constitution, invalidating the state’s Supreme Court’s May 2008 ruling that to prohibit same-sex marriage violates the rights guaranteed to Californians by their state’s constitutution.

Let me state right off that I fucking hate the fucking Mormon cult.

I could, but I won’t, go into detail about the Mormons’ fucktarded, backasswards beliefs, such as that non-whites aren’t white because they were punished by God (yes, the Mormons are huge old fucking white supremacists); that their “prophet” (a stupid old evil white guy named Thomas Monson, who even has his own website) literally receives communiques from God (Monson “is the only person alive who can receive revelation for the entire [Mormon cult],” his website proclaims); that their polygamous founder, Joseph Smith Sr., in the late 1820s transcribed golden plates given to him by an angel fucktardedly but appropriately named Moroni (these golden plates, which contained the Book of Mormon, reportedly were taken back by the angel, conveniently); and that when good Mormons die they get to be gods of their own planets (which is even better, I’m guessing, than the bevy of virgins that good Muslim men are promised in the afterlife).

Frankly, the Mormon cult is lucky to be able to get away with what it gets away with, most notably and probably most destructively, its routine brainwashing of its youth, who have no fucking choice. Those born into Mormon families, if they reject the toxic, bullshit belief system that is crammed down their throats from birth, risk being ejected from their own families.

When belief is tied to life’s necessities, such as food and shelter, that’s not spirituality; that’s the pyschological enslavement of other human beings (a.k.a., too often, as “religion”). And that is evil, and that is nothing that Jesus Christ taught, and there is nothing to fucking debate about it.

And this evil perpetrated by the Mormon cult on a daily business is perfectly legal. In fact, even non-Mormons support the Mormons’ right to brainwash and thoroughly pyschospiritually destroy their offspring for life. This is called “religious freedom.”

Speaking of which, I remember when a co-worker of mine and I happened to be walking around the state Capitol here in Sacramento on our lunch break in late October 2008 and we quite unexpectedly happened upon a large group of wingnuts demonstrating in support of Prop H8 in front of the Capitol.

On their blue-and-yellow “Yes on 8″ signs were the Orwellian slogans “Restore Marriage,” “Protect Marriage,” “Prop 8 = Free Speech,” ”Prop 8 = Religious Freedom” and “Prop 8 = Less Government.”

As I noted of these slogans/“arguments” just after Prop H8 narrowly passed in November 2008:

“Restore[/protect] marriage”: How do same-sex couples harm heterosexual couples’ marriages? If heterosexual marriages are in trouble, don’t the heterosexual couples need to do something about it? The divorce rate was sky high long before gay men and lesbians ever got the legal right to marry in any state.

“Less government”: Wait a fucking minute. “Less government”? The government telling two consenting adults that they may not get married is less government? How?

“Free speech”: Yes, you have free speech. You may hold the most hateful beliefs that you want and you are pretty free to say whatever hateful things you want. But what right do you have to infringe on someone else’s rights?

[“Religious freedom”:] These motherfucking haters, if it is their religious belief that same-sex marriage is wrong, are perfectly free not to marry someone of the same sex. Their religious freedom is in no way infringed upon by two other consenting adults marrying each other.

If we actually are to buy this argument that to offend someone’s religious beliefs is to infringe upon his or her religious freedom, then we must make interracial marriage illegal too if it should — gasp! — offend someone’s religious beliefs. (What about the eating of certain foods? Should pork be banned by constitutional amendment because its consumption offends some people’s religious beliefs? Where would it end?)

The bottom line is that the homo-haters have no actual legal, moral or ethical arguments against same-sex marriage. They have only blind hatred, and they fabricate “arguments” to try to legitimize and sanitize their hatred.

The overarching “argument” by the homo-haters that their civil rights — religious freedom, freedom of speech, parental rights, etc. – are actually being violated by gay men and lesbians being granted equal civil rights is beyond insane.

“8: The Mormon Proposition” — narrated by Dustin Lance Black, the gay (ex-?)Mormon who, ironically, won an Oscar for his screenplay for the film “Milk” — makes it clear that the stupid evil white men who run the Mormon cult are not satisfied with having control only over the hearts, minds and genitalia of their Mormon mindslaves. They want control over the entire nation, if not also the entire planet.

And it is at that point, when the Mormon cult no longer is content to mind its own fucking business, but wants to convert all of us to Mormonism, that the Mormon cult deserves to be brought down. (And no, I don’t rule out violence if necessary. An unprovoked, direct strike at our equal human and civil rights deserves a strong response, and if violence ever is called for, then so be it.)

“8: The Mormon Proposition” masterfully exposes how the Mormon cult has tried to hide behind its anti-non-heterosexual crusade by creating front organizations (most notably, the National Organization for Marriage* [which, ironically, actually is for fewer marriages]) made to look as though it’s a grassroots effort rather than what it actually is: a crusade of the Mormon cult. “The Mormon Proposition” also details the history of the Mormon cult’s involvement in denying equal human and civil rights to non-heterosexuals, starting with the battle over same-sex marriage in Hawaii in the 1990s.

“The Mormon Proposition” showcases two young gay (ex-?)Mormon men who wed when same-sex marriage was legal in California and follows their story, which includes ostracization from their family members (although the mother of one of the two young men is very supportive of him and the cause of equal human and civil rights for all Americans; she rocks).

I’m not decided whether the two young men are given too much attention in the documentary or whether it’s a strength of the documentary that their case is a thread that runs throughout it. In either case, though, they are an adorable couple, and if you are sane you can’t help but feel happy for them and you can’t imagine that anyone could be so miserable and hateful as to try to take their happiness away from them.

Also featured in “The Mormon Proposition” is Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate (now known as a national group called Rights Equal Rights), whose advocacy for equal human and civil rights and whose counter-crusade against and exposition of the “Christo”fascist Mormon cult I admire greatly (but I’m not big on his bid to run for president in 2012 on the Repunignican ticket; there’s no way in hell I’d vote for a Repugnican, but especially not for a gay Repugnican).

Karger’s Californians Against Hate website sums up the Mormon cult’s support of Prop H8 rather succinctly in a post on July 8:

During the summer of 2008, we discovered the active involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) in Prop 8. The Mormon Church had taken over virtually every aspect of the Yes on 8 campaign.

Mormon families contributed approximately $30 million of the $40 million raised, the Church produced 27 slick commercials, put up an expensive website, bused in thousands of volunteers from Utah [and] had massive phone banks, yet only reported a mere $2,078 in non-monetary contributions three days before the election.

Two weeks later I filed a sworn complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against the Mormon Church for not reporting its vast financial involvement in the campaign.

The commission prosecuted the case, and conducted an unprecedented 19-month investigation of the Salt Lake City-based church’s finances. Three weeks ago the FPPC found the Mormon Church guilty of 13 counts of late reporting and they were fined $5,539. That was the first time a religion was found guilty of election irregularities in the 36-year history of the FPPC.

How the Mormon cult retains its tax-exempt status regardless of its well-documented illegal involvement in politics eludes me. The Mormon cult should have been fined millions of dollars and lost its tax-exempt status. That it did not shows how scared the powers that be are of the “Christo”fascists of the Mormon cult.

One thing in “The Mormon Proposition” that I’m not thrilled about is to watch people cry over the passage of Prop H8 when the Mormon cult had to lie and cheat in order to “win.” When you have to lie and cheat to “win,” your “cause” is fucking weak. It’s actually good news that the Mormon “Christo”fascists had to resort to their anti-Christian deception and lies to “win.” It proves that unless they wear sheep’s clothing, the majority of the voters will recognize them as the wolves that they are. The Mormon “Christo”facists don’t have the power of the truth behind them.

And despite the tens of millions of dollars and the manpower that the Mormon cult pumped into Prop H8, it didn’t win by a huge margin. It won by only 4 fucking percent. That’s not what I’d call a fucking landslide.

The latest Field Poll on the issue, taken in late June and early July, indicates that if same-sex marriage were put on the Californian ballot today, Prop 8 would be reversed, with 51 percent supporting same-sex marriage, 42 percent opposed and 7 percent undecided. (It seems to me that most of the undecideds would end up in the pro-same-sex marriage camp, since the hardcore homo-haters already know who they are.)

My fellow non-heterosexuals need to stop crying and start fighting, which includes educating themselves and others on how and why Prop H8 passed in the first place. While I’m happy to see that the 52 percent support for Prop H8 in November 2008 appears to have dropped 10 points to 42 percent today, 51 percent of Californians in favor of same-sex marriage is still too close for comfort.

“8: The Mormon Proposition” is a great teaching tool, and I recommend it for everyone who gives a shit about equal human and civil rights for all Americans.

While I can’t support him for president, I wholeheartedly agree with Fred Karger’s proclamation that:

Younger people who begin to realize that they might be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer will soon be afforded all the same rights as their brothers, sisters, friends and neighbors.

That is what our founding fathers had in mind when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We will settle for nothing less.

Amen.

–

*Speaking of NOM, headed by the grotesque wingnut Maggie Gallagher, who really needs a dildo, a wingnut recently showed up at a NOM event holding this sign:

Yes, many if not most of the “Christo”fascists believe that non-heterosexuals should be executed — just like it is the case in theofascist nation of Iran. (Thus, I think of the “Christo”fascists as the “American Taliban.”) 

This is why I never rule out violence against the “Christo”fascists.