Facts Uncle Tom ignores:

The president he supported receives a PDB on 8/6/2001 entitled ""Bin Laden determined to strike in the United States"

Time to go play golf!

The vice president he supported was put in charge of a couple of different task forces...one was energy, one was terrorism.

One task force met 8 times, one met zero times before 9/11....care to take a guess which one met 8 times?

Yes, very interesting - particularly since the problems with marriage and stability in our society has nearly nothing to do with the faggots and dykes your "heroes" seem to be concerned about. Rather, the problems with society are caused by straight men who cannot keep their pants zipped and do not take responsibility for their actions.

As for the alleged link between marriage and procreation - do any of these men have a damn history degree? Do they know the history of the family in all centuries before the advent of modern medicine? The concept of life-long fidelity in marriage was very different when women had a life expectancy of barely 30 years.

Take a look at one family - Jane Austen's. Her parents, who beat the odds and were married long into their elderly years, had eight children, 6 boys, two girls. One of the boys was disabled and therefore did not marry. Their two daughters were lifelong spinsters, although both had opportunities to marry (Jane refused because she did not love the man, Cassandra was basically widowed during her engagement and refused to consider marriage afterwards). Of the remaining 5 boys, EVERY SINGLE ONE was widowed at one point or another. Almost NONE of their children were raised solely by their birth parents. Hell, the first grandchild, Anna, was two when her mother died and never knew her.

Children don't "need" a mother and a father, they need a loving home and guidance by responsible adults. Throughout history families have been cobbled together by bounds of family, marriage and friendship, and EVERY SINGLE type of family, in fact, has been able to produce decent, responsible human beings. That does not mean all families succeed, but I would rather see a dedicated single mother raise decent sons than a couple like George HW and Barbara "the bitch" Bush raise children - certainly all the advantages of a "traditional" family have not managed to produce good and responsible children in that household (just run through the history of addictions, adultery, and criminal activity that is now entering its third generation).

So are you claiming these things didn't occur under W's watch, or are you admitting they did but trying yet again to use right-wing spin and divert the discussion? We know the answer; anything to defend your beloved Repuglicans and the Bush.

Several other countries that do not permit gay marriages or even gay unions with low birth rates include Japan, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. Higher GDPs correlate with lower birth rates. Even you should be able to figure this out.

I see that the pope had to weigh in on this topic, calling gay marriage an "eclipse of God." Yep, and the rampant child and adolescent sex abuse that he and his cronies have repeatedly diverted their eyes away from was just what Jesus Christ ordered, huh? If you believe that, you believe that story about the duck swallowing the alien (or that Iraq had WMDs).

Meanwhile, Senator Ricky Santorum is on the floor of the Senate right now decrying sodomy and the Lawrence v. Texas decision. "Masturbation" and "oral sex" are also being condemned. So it's not about gay marriage, it's about these sex-negative wacko puritans who want to impose their hypocritical, pre-modern, oppressive notion of sex on everyone else. Just move to Saudi Arabia, Ricky, they're on the same wavelength.

I couldn't agree with you more, CPT! The traditional family structure has gone to hell with too many women having children out of wedlock and no fathers around to raise their children.

You'll forgive me if i scoff and laugh at the this amendment being brought up to disguise that fact. I don't hear Mr. Bush raising any proposals to bring families together or to stabilize the dissolution of straight marriages. Come on, these are far greater threats to the family life than letting a few gays and lesbians be allowed to marry.

I agree. I fear that the NY case will explode onto the pages of the news either during or shortly after this debate concludes. In fact, the timing of this announcement is purely Rovian. He's calculating that the NY decision will, in fact, come down soon and that the decision will be in favor of gay marriage, negating all the arguments those in the middle have on the issue. On top of that, what could be better than announcing it at the start of Pride month? Parades and public speaches will focus the media's attention on the most shrill among us, between clips of go go boys and drag queens, that is.

I watched a bit of Santorum making a fool out of himself this morning, too - after hearing Brownback do the same with his irrelevant and misleading charts and figures. Would someone from PA - that leaves you out, FT - please tell me how this guy managed to get himself elected as your Senator?

So as not to exclude you from this discussion, cf. diatribe, FT, exactly what are you doing to change things other than trotting out your little word-pageants here or waxing bitter in faculty meetings over coffee? The same goes for anyone else who does nothing but criticize the efforts made by anyone, at any point on the political spectrum, to actually DO SOMETHING about the problems you perceive: what have you done and what are you doing in a constructive manner to bring about change? To those who so/too quickly criticize LCR for issuing press releases and open letters, what are HRC, Stonewall Democrats and "your" groups doing any differently? Answer: NOTHING.

So go on, keep carping aimlessly and making lots of noise without accomplishing anything. It's a liberal thing; I guess I'll never understand.

Memo to fellow Californians: BE SURE TO VOTE TODAY!

And it is not just straight men. Just last night, Larry King had a convicted child rapist as his guest, along with the rapist's victim/spouse. That's right, good old Mary Kate "the 12-year-old and I are in love" Latourneau was on with her "husband," otherwise known as the boy she raped repeatedly. Funny, no laws against their marriage - I guess the "sanctity" of marriage is maintained even when it is based in violence, lies and crime.

Well for one thing we dont get in bed with the party who has a stated goal to write gay people out of the Constitution.

Note to gmg - read the GOP platform.

I wonder if catholics ever see the irony in a bunch of never-married men with no families telling the world about marriage and families.

Goose-step away popie, dont you have some child rapist to shuffle around?

Sorry to burst your fantasy bubble, but in addition to co-running a program this year, I've served on multiple hiring and admissions committees, while also advising honors undergraduate students and a doctoral student. I have little to "wax bitter" about over "coffee," which in any case would occur OUTSIDE faculty meetings, which are usually quite cordial, efficient and productive. I'm quite happy in my position, with my colleagues and my students. They're smart, wonderful people, and even the problematic ones are at least smart. Perhaps read a little less David Horowitz and spend time at a university before you expound again on what's going on in one.

Actually, these groups are "your" and every other LGBT persons'. In addition to being active in several advocacy groups, including MoveOn, which actually helped to elect a number of progressive Democrats, I canvassed and attended meetings and rallies on behalf of Barack Obama, who is now the junior senator from Illinois and 1,000 times better than the Republican he replaced or the Democrats he was running against. I've also been working on behalf of a number of local issues. Years ago I worked to get Bill Clinton elected; I've written letters and pushed to get civil unions recognized in New Jersey; I considered joining Bill Bradley's presidential campaign; and I also contributed some humanpower for other progressive Democrats over the years. So I have been active, and I can see that the groups I've been affiliated with have had an effect. They aren't always successful, but they are having a positive effect for LGBTs, people of color, women, working-class people, and so on. There is a reason most--MOST--of the Democrats are going to vote against the anti-gay amendment.

You and the Uncle Tom Log Cabinettes can issue all the press releases you like, but the fact remains that moderate and liberal Republicans increasingly do NOT get the support of the Republican voters, and the people who your party's voters keep electing, the DeMints, the Crapos, the Santorums, are always ready to throw you under the train wheels at the first pass. You ask how can Santorum get elected, or Brownback, but why don't you go down the list? The VAST MAJORITY of the GOP Senators are for this legislation, aren't they? You can count the Republicans who actively oppose this hateful nonsense on one or two hands (Snowe, Collins, Sununu, Specter, Chafee, McCain, maybe Gordon Smith and George Voinovich). Why is this? What effect are you having? Why are so few moderate and progressive Republicans getting elected to national positions? What effect are you having? Does any sane person think that if Al Gore Jr. or John Kerry had been president either one of them--or any Democrat for that matter, or any Libertarian--would have wasted precious time, amidst ALL the other problems we're facing, to give a speech to push this hateful crap? And if your Republican elected officials had pushed it, do you think Al Gore Jr. or John Kerry would not have denounced it. Bush & Co. have gone FAR beyond DOMA; they want to amend the US Constitution to oppress you. How can you defend this? You can't, because like so much that the Rethugs have wrought in recent years, it's totally indefensible.

<small>[ June 06, 2006, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]</small>

Maybe we need to be a bit more historical and question this idea of the timeless "traditional family structure," which has always been variable (there are numerous histories of marriage and families in European and American societies, and the nuclear family has not always been the norm). Then there's the gross hypocrisy of people like Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or Kit Bond, or George Allen, or Mitch McConnell, all of whom have been divorced, claiming that homos and gay marriage are threats to their marriages?* How, exactly? How did homosexuals getting married destroy their marriages? How did homosexuals getting married destroy the marriages of adulterers Newt Gingrich, or Bob Livingston, or Neil Bush? That's right, I thought so, they didn't. No, they decided to "eclipse God" by whoring around and taking their marriage vows as if they weren't even as valid as a Boy Scout oath. And now they're all clamoring to ban homosexuals from sharing an equal right to behave just as recklessly. It's so disgusting it's comical, except that we're talking about a Constitutional amendment, so it's ultimately as serious as cancer. Sickness doesn't even begin to describe them.

--
*I'm not sure where Republican John Warner stands, but he did marry and divorce Elizabeth Taylor, about as major a gay magnet for a previous generation as there ever was....

<small>[ June 06, 2006, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]</small>

Finally, we get something of substance from FT about what he's actually DONE and DOING to back up his words. I'm glad, even if I disagree with his choice of party and candidates, that he's actively involved, and his involvement comes close to mine in many ways; "how else to explain why several GOPers will vote against the FMA?" Now, what about the rest of you critics? Don't hide your lights under any bushels, now!

I disagree that the HRC or Stonewall Demos "speak for me or to my needs." They don't and I've consistently found that their tactics and goals do NOT match or advance mine. So, no thanks, I'll make my own choices about which groups will represent me, TYVM, and I don't need any recommendations from you in that department.

What would any FT post be without his usual name-calling and diatribing, with a little dissembling thrown in for good measure? The FMA is not about "outlawing gays;" it's as silly a pose to cater to the radical religious right wing of the GOP as to claim that "the Constitution is being amended to oppress us" for the benefit of the left. Yes, the President is wrong to honor it with even as shallow a press conference as he held yesterday, and while I'm tempted to say this too shall pass, it's more accurate to state that it ain't goin' nowhere.

As usual, you're only a little right in claiming that so few moderate - I decline to substitute "progressive" for "permissive" as you consistently do - GOPers get themselves elected; today's primary vote in CA has more than a few GOP moderates running and in the most closely-watched one in our 50th CD, moderate Brian Bilbray - he of the pro-gay Workplace Fairness Act of the late-'90s - is running against one of your "progressive" Demos. Mind you, he won a hotly-contested primary in a wealthy conservative traditional GOP district to be our nominee, so so much for how your claim operates out of the Bible Belt.

Finally, you ask again what we've achieved by our methods. Here in CA, Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed more pro-gay legislation than any other chief executive in the country. Of course, the gay left can't forgive him for 1) doing so, 2) being a Republican, and 3), vetoing the gay marriage bill just as any Democratic governor would have, so it's all for nought as far as they're concerned. But LCR had real effects in getting that legislation signed here, where Demos' "in your face" approach didn't stand a chance. So, as I've said before, however much you cavil and cant against us, the more determined we become to achieve real change our own way, whether you like how we do so or not.

Excuse me, but you're lying outright by saying I claimed that the FMA would "outlaw[ing] gays." I did not say that. Did I? No. It is an attempt to write oppression of a specific group--homosexuals--into the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps you have no problem with this, but I do.

What proof do you have that a Democratic governor--Gray Davis or anyone else--would have vetoed gay marriage legislation that was enacted by the people's state representatives? You don't. You want to find any excuse to defend Schwarzenegger, but the fact remains that he acted in a way that directly negated the hopes and dreams of so many California lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, as expressed by their state legislators. Oh, but wait, our state legislators don't count if they're pushing legislation to help homos, right? Or are you going to find yet another way to defend the GOP, which almost uniformly was against this pro-gay legislation?

Brian Bilbray may be "moderate," but I ask you, is he going to vote with the GOP or according to his moderate principles when legislation comes down the pike? It must pain you to admit that Francine Busby would be 100% better for homosexuals than a representative of your party, but until you can "change from within" enough, that's how things will remain. As I asked in the earlier post, where are the results of the Log Cabin members' push to elect national Republicans who would support pro-gay legislation, or at the very least not be homophobic? I'm not not talking about the longstanding Republicans like Snowe and Specter, but new GOPers? Where are they? You may not like Obama, or Ken Salazar, or Bob Menendez, but I'll tell you one thing: they aren't out there taking up Senate time trying to scheme up ways to deny you your equal rights because you have a homosexual orientation. As I said before, the GOP position is indefensible.

Good point, gmg! I wish El Presidente would take a cue from the "Governator", Arnold: You don't have to be hostile to the minority GLB community in order to gain points with the populace. Let's not forget the fact that Arnold's chief of staff is a lesbian AND a Democrat. He has been more inclusive than our previous Democratic governor was.

How's that "real change" going?
Your president wants to write you out of the Constitution.

"Inclusion wins!"

Schwarzenegger only selected the lesbian Democrat chief-of-staff after seeing his referendums soundly defeated. You do remember this, right? The voters FORCED him to move to the center, where he supposedly was. That is, when he originally was elected, as a moderate, pro-gay replacement for Davis.

FT, you just can't control your rage, can you? It's not enough to say "you misquoted me," you must put it down as "you're lying!" I could have sworn I saw the phrase "outlaw gays" in one of your recent posts, but then you edit them so frequently, who knows? Perhaps one of your comrades in arms used it, but I'll admit I don't see it under any of today's petulant posts from you, at least as they now appear. Is that an apology? No way! The gist of your message comes thru loud - too loud, actually - and clear.

Would the FMA be oppression? Sure, if it were enacted, but that's not going to happen, as I've said along with condemning the rationale behind even wasting time on it. So if you're determined to cavil, do so on your own time. And don't discount the efforts of those who have spoken out against it just because they doin't want to ally themselves with you.

Ex-Gov. Gray Davis stated several times that he would not sign a gay marriage bill if it came before him, so naturally the gay lobby laid low on that one during his terms. Same for Jerry Brown, the last Demo Governor CA was saddled with. In fact, ex-Gov. Moonbeam was just quoted the other day in his race for AG stating he'd not hesitate to enforce CA's law against gay marriage. And you forget that the first time the gay marriage bill came before the CA Assembly under Arnold's term, it failed to pass that Demo-controlled outfit. Only after the expediency of embarassing the Governor by putting a bill before him that he - like his predecessors - had already said he'd never sign, did the Assembly Demos do so, within months after they initially declined to do so. It was a pure political ploy designed to embarass the Governor; it had everything to do with gay Demos' grandstanding and nothing to do with gay rights.

Your comments reveal that you know as little about Brian Bilbray as you do about the intracacies of CA politics. Do you even know what the WFA was? If you did, you'd know Bilbray's record and not ask rhetorical and speculative questions like what will he do next. Are you aware of Busby's gaffe on illegals' voting the other day? If you did - she told an illegal that he didn't need to show citizenship papers to register to vote, but then quickly adjusted her Freudienne slip - you'd probably have agreed with her "wonderfully inclusive approach" of allowing illegal aliens to vote. But you've never let ignorance stand in the way of your pontificating, have you? No, that might require some restraint and self-control.

I wouldn't define either the views of the religious right or those stated in the GOP platform as stating those of all GOPers, any more than I'd define those of Howard Dean or the Demos' platform as those of all Demos. But you know this, of course. What you don't know, and perhaps will just never understand, is how some of us just don't buy into you little programme for social[ist] change. We'll achieve what we need to for gay rights our own way, thank you, even if it takes a little longer to do it the right way.

Yes, we're familiar with that plan. Bite your tongue like good Uncle Toms and stay at the back of the bus. Just wait "for the governement to catch up" ala Mary Cheney.

Good plan!

You categorically claimed, using quotes no less, that I'd typed something I hadn't. That's lying. Then you try to smear me by noting that I edit my posts; well, yes, I try to clear up grammatical mistakes from fast typing. I do it. But I also admit when I'm wrong, and I've apologized to you, MIB and others more than once in the past, which is more than can be said for you.

I made a point of noting that there are different kinds of Republicans, so once again you either did not read my post or read what you wanted. I asked why you hadn't elected more "moderate" or "progressive" Republicans, so obviously I don't lump the entire GOP together. You can attempt to discredit me by mentioning "social[ism]," but the fact remains that we would not have ended slavery, gained voting rights for women and people of color, gained civil rights for Black Americans, ended the overt oppression of gay people, and on and on by begging and scraping. Your ability to have gay sex (or not) in California or to be an out attorney didn't come about through someone's largess, it occurred through overt activism and electing people who weren't going to slit out throats as soon as the Christianists came calling. I'm sure you know this, but I'll just state it in case you don't. Proceed on your path, and when you've swayed the majority of GOP Senators and Bush, who're behind FMA, do let the rest of us know.

You err by equating working within a system, the GOP here, to change it with "begging and scraping." Moreover, you know full well that it was the original Republicans who ended slavery in this country, helped, as the original Progressives, get votes for women and later secured votes and civil rights - does the year 1964 ring a bell? - for Blacks. You also know that many of your precious Democrats - or Dixiecrats as they were known then - stood firmly against these advances. Was the work these GOPers did then any less "activist" because it was done quietly, behind doors, with reason and intelligence, and not in some ridiculous, short-lived, attention-grabbing street theatre? Hardly.

More recently, what about the work of elected Republicans who had the courage to say "Enough!" when anti-gay bigots sought to bar gay teachers from the classrooms, as then-Governor Reagan did in opposing the Briggs Initiative in CA in '77? That is conveniently forgotten because his independence from cant of all kinds extended to the leftist version too, when he rightfully called for downsizing government and lobbied for the other reforms that brought this country out of the doldrums of the Carter debacle. But you know this, too, because we've had this debate before and you haven't learned a thing from it. Instead, you prefer to keep throwing your word-bombs with wild abandon, hardly as accurately aimed as you'd like to believe.

I don't owe my privilege - admission to the bar is not a "right" - to practice law to anyone but myself. I was there from Day One in the '70s, even before I entered law school, then during and after, working to secure both OUR rights and MY privileges.* While doing so, I was confronted - literally - with the alternative version of "progressive activism" - I'm not quoting you here - you espouse, but I recognized it then just as I have ever since as false, juvenile, bizarre and unacceptable to the majority of the American people in seeking to achieve our goals.

So keep living in your world of slit throats and imagined slights. I prefer to work in the real world, doing real things for real people in real ways. When you catch up with that reality, you let me know. I don't hide behind a screen name; you'll know where to find me.
____
*I'm not going to cite the published cases I've handled evidencing my efforts here; you're equally aware of them even if you choose to ignore them.

Thanks guys for turning this into the gmg-FT show. I was hoping to log on to find an interesting discussion on the amendment, instead discovering your usual personal beefs. Can we get back to the topic at hand?

BTW gmg, from one attorney to another, the practice of law is not a privilege, but a right to all qualified persons, so I don't know where you got that from. Not to be argumentative with you personally, but I wrote a well researched academic journal article on ethical challenges in bar admissions, so I'd like to think I know something on the topic. And since I strongly believe knowledge is power, I don't want laypersons getting an inaccurate perception of the legal profession:

"The practice of law is not a matter of grace, but of right for one who is qualified by his learning and his moral character." Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, 401 U.S. 1, 8 (1971).

Until the Supreme Court ruled on bar admission processes in the 1960s and 70s, the idea that being a lawyer is a "privilege" was used by many states to discriminate against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and holders of unpopular political views.

Back to the topic at hand, is Frist going to bring up the amendment again next year? Although it looks like it's dead on arrival, I'm sure there are enough Republican politicians running for various offices in the next 2 years who want to throw meat to the Christian right with another amendment effort. It's pretty clear that Frist is himself is positioning himself for a presidential run, so the cynic in me thinks this isn't the last we'll see of this stupidity.

That's funny. I never knew gay people were IN the Constitution.

Note to Raze: read the Constitution.

I love it(!) when someone calls you on posting such left-wing playbook comments and your response is always "defending the Republican thugs" or other such childish nonsense. Earth to fantomas: just because someone criticizes you for repeating the ultraleft's playbook doesn't mean that that person is a Republican, a Republican supporter, or anything related to a Republican.

You never do fail to provide amusement with your posts, I'll grant you that.

I really hate hijacking threads and getting off topic, but I absolutely cannot let misrepresentations go unanswered. I have to chuckle when I see Republicans trot out Honest Abe and the various pieces of civil rights legislation as hallmarks of Republican altruism.

Lincoln waged war against states' rightists and, in winning the war, established the dominance of a strong central federal government, something that the modern day GOP (well, at least the pre-November 1994 GOP) battled against. I doubt Abe would have a seat at the modern day GOP table.

The civil rights movement was championed primarily by LBJ and only passed due to *Northern* politicians' votes. Upon signing this legislation, Johnson knew that it was the end of the Democrats' dominance in the South for at least an entire generation. He was right. Who replaced those Democrats? Bigoted Democrats who found a more welcoming home within certain dark corners of the GOP and Republicans who got themselves elected speaking code to their largely white audiences a la the Nixonian "Southern Strategy".

Republicans absolutely cannot be allowed to argue that *they* were responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act, particularly when you can see that the only group that was 100% against the Act were southern Republicans. Here's a breakdown of the voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, via Wikipedia.

By Party and Region

The Original House Version:
Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)
Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)

The Senate Version:
Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%)
Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%)
Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%)
Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%)

CNN just reported that the amendment failed 49-48, they couldn't even get a majority!

Dana Milbank has a humorous story in today's Washington Post about the week's debate. The article also mentions a family from Utah who spent their family vacation money to come to D.C. to stand outside the Senate with a sign that read: Look out, they're coming after your lube. This has to border on child abuse. As CPT. noted above the vote came in 49-48. I think someone's going to be pissed they didn't blow their money on Disney World.

<small>[ June 07, 2006, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: shawnq ]</small>

Clarence Page has a wonderful editorial in the Chicago Tribune today.

Note to Republicans: The party's over



<small>[ June 07, 2006, 08:17 AM: Message edited by: Allen ]</small>

Oh my goodness...if same sex marriage "endorses masturbation", and same sex marriage has been illegal all these years, has it really been opposite sex marriages that has endorsed masturbation? I mean my straight, opposite sex parents were at one time married, and I...well you can guess, I'm sure. wink

Damn opposite sex marriage!

Of course gay people are IN the Constitution! I think that's the problem. Some of us don't think we are and some of us don't think we belong there.

Must See TV:

Bill Bennett on The Daily Show last night, convincing Jon Stewart that same-sex marriage is Bad For You. (Courtesy Crooks & Liars)

[ June 07, 2006, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: fenwayguy ]

Jon wiped the studio floor with the poor man . It was truly compelling TV. Gotta say it made Steven Colbert look like an clown. His show afterwards with Christianne Amanpour (sp?) was really juvenile in comparison. Love Jon Stewart.

Aquaman provided you with the necessary historical lesson, so I won't recapitulate it, but it's clear that despite your self-important "word bombs," you are totally lost when it comes to understanding US history or the central role that political activism, and by that, I mean overt political activism and engagement, has played in transforming things for the better. You love to decry "street theater," which is fine, but were it not for decades--not just "working within"--of deliberate activism and agitation, we would not have achieved the numerous gains across the board that we have, with EITHER party.

If you don't believe that FMA is a real "slight" and not just an "imagined" one, then there's little more I can say to you. BTW, Alabama voters enacted an anti-gay marriage ban, pushed by Republicans there, last night. When the Republican Party as a whole gets behind equal rights and treatment under the laws of the states and the federal government, do let us know.

BTW, "progressive activism" might seem "false, juvenile, bizarre and unacceptable to the majority of the American people" in your eyes, but most Americans do appreciate the gains of progressive activism and legislation, like public education and land grant universities, child labor laws, Social Security, minimum wages, women's right to vote, an end to legal racial segregation and so on.

Milbank's article makes a great point, which is that there is no logical, causal link between gay marriage and the failure of heterosexual marriage. Allard and the rest can't answer basic questions about this. The push for the FMA arises out of bigotry and cynical political calculation, that's all. Despite the recent focus on Latino immigrants, homos continue to be an easy target. Outside of a few Republicans like Lincoln Chafee, it probably won't hurt the GOP and may help some of its more supporters, like John Kyl, who might find themselves in closer-than-expected races this November.

Im pretty sure we're covered by the "We the People of the United States" part.

Im not sure how that works out in the make believe world that you live in, judge.

Well, getting back on the topic of gay marriage, I'm pleased to see the amendment fail. Unfortunately, it looks like while this battle may have been won, the war is far from over.

A brilliant cartoon on the subject:

Down So Low?

Great cartoon, RGMike! The only reference it was missing was to the Catholic priesthood preying upon altar boys while railing against gay marriages. That bit of irony is far from lost on this viewer of hypocrisy.

How they voted.

rethuglicans for: 47
Democrats for: 2

"Inclusion wins!"

<small>[ June 07, 2006, 12:17 PM: Message edited by: RazorbackTX ]</small>

Was one of those two Dems. Zell Miller???? I wonder.... wink

Nope

They were Zell Miller Jr, aka Ben Nelson, and Zell Miller Lite, aka Robert Byrd.

Pardon my (relatively) late arrival to the fray; I was up late celebrating GOP moderate Brian Bilbray's much-watched win in a Congressional twofer, "openly gay" SD LCR member Ralph Denney's nabbing the GOP nomination for a CA Assembly seat - and my own repeat win of a seat on our county Central Committee.

Neptune, you're correct on the law and I should have used a better word than "privilege." But we're not at odds when you consider that getting the necessary qualifications in terms of a legal education and possessing a good character - which itself has been used to bar some from admission to the bar in the past - does make one "privileged" in the sense that he must attain certain attributes in addition to just showing up and applying to practice law. That is what I meant by privilege, not that it was something that could be arbitrarily or capriciously dispensed at will.

As to the return of FMA, someone will probably try to bring it up again, but whoever does so will surely have to confront the fact that people are getting tired of this drumbeat and will probably tire of it even more within the next two years. If it does return, so will LCR to fight it, and everyone should remember that but for our efforts in getting those Senate GOPers who voted against it to do so, IT WOULD HAVE PASSED! That may be an inconvenient truth for some, but that's the way it is.

Aquaman, I understand your argument, but disagree with it, particularly in its admonition that "Republicans absolutely cannot be allowed to argue that *they* were responsible for the passage of the Civil Rights Act."* Not only does that argument conflate Northern GOPers with Southern ones, but it ignores the fact that without the eventual support of ALL Republicans, the Act would not have passed. I understand full well that LBJ was the sponsor of the Act - he was in a tight race with Barry Goldwater for the presidency and his sponsorship was designed to attract Black voters to his cause as much as it was to remedy the wrongs he and his fellow Southern Democrats had inflicted on them for over a century. So say what you will about the off-topic issues of big government, but the fact is the GOP was founded to eliminate slavery, and it did so. It continues to offer the only real alternative to the slavery of entitlement programs and quasi-socialism that Democrats consistently endorse.

I wonder if CPage read the CA election results before he put pen to paper? Actually, I agree with him on the senselessness of a flag burning amendment, as well as that of the FMA, of course, but we differ on the demise of the death tax.

Finally, here's a fun article from the LATimes telling just how powerful as power brokers LCR can be! wink
_____
*Am I quoting only you here? This sounds like an advocacy group's talking point to me. And I'll waive any statistical challenge, for now at least, since your figures don't come from a reliable source - recall the Wikipedia data dustup from about a year ago - and they don't appear to reflect the final votes on the bill.

Frist is leaving the Senate in January, thank God! Although it's so he can run for President full-time, so that's a tradeoff... gone but not forgotten. I feel sure someone else will crawl out from under a rock by then to continue the jihad.

Oh? Prove it. Show me where in the Constitution gay people are located or mentioned. Anywhere.

Nowhere is homosexuality mentioned in the Constitution. Gay people are NOT in the Constitution. Nor are straight people, of course. People are. Classifications to which you refer cause these divisions.

True, the constitution does not make distictions between people (except for persons and freed-persons). The point those above are trying to make is that republicans, in a desperate attempt to retain control of the house and the senate, are attempting to write a distinction into the constitution. In other words, "All men are created equal...except gays." Or, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States...except gays; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...except gays; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws...except gays." I know that's not how the proposed amendment would read, but that's essentially what it would do.

-breathlessly awaiting your smug retort,

Falcon56

It struck me earlier what's really behind some people's thought process who are for this amendment. It occured to me while watching the Daily Show. John Stewart was interviewing a former Secretary of Education, who was arguing (basically) that gay people should be happy that they are free to be gay, but they don't get to be married. It struck me the prevailing thought is, those, as straight Americans, feel they have allowed us to live how we want. "Allowed" us, like we owe them something for just being able to live. That's even more infuriating.

It's as if we needed their permission to love and be loved. frown

GMG: yes, you are quoting only me there. Advocacy group? Uh... no. But thanks... I think? (Wait a minute -- is that an insult?? wink )

I think I made it clear in my post that it was *Northern* members of Congress who, with LBJ's drive, made the Civil Rights Act a reality. The problem I have is that GOPers always claim that *they* were the ones who made it happen and that today's current GOP should get credit for it. Not true. Northern politicians from both parties made it happen. Given that the Dems were in the majority, and that they were the dominant party of the South, it stands to reason that *some* Dems would vote against the Act. I recognize the contributions of people like Everett Dirksen, a Republican from the North, whose vote may have helped put the bill over the top and made it law, but most Republicans -- yourself included -- routinely try to take all the credit for its passage.

As for those Southern Dems -- the Dixiecrats, the ones you like to use as some kind of weapon against today's Democrats -- they were soon extinct, replaced by members of the GOP whose positions on race (and other issues, but primarily race) fell more in line with certain countours of so-called "values" of alienated white voters in the South.

[ June 07, 2006, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: aquaman ]

Some GOPers may try to take all the credit for the 1964 Act's passage, but if you re-read my post, it should be clear that I'm not one of them. I specifically said they helped to secure its passage, and I noted that LBJ sponsored the bill, although not for reasons as altruistic as most Demos would have it. As for ending slavery, I specifically said "it was the original Republicans" who did so, not some of the current breed. My point is that just as with the WA equal rights bill that became law last January, these advances wouldn't have been made without GOP support, just as the FMA would not have been killed today without that same support. Clearly, to support something cannot be read as doing it all by one's self.

Similarly inconsistent is excusing the actions of the Dixiecrats as inevitable in opposing the Act, based on the Demos' majority at the time, but taking to task their regional brethren in the GOP who did so, even though they were in the minority. That one-sided forgiveness extends into today and into the whole gay rights debate, where unfriendly Demos are consistently given a pass while, most recently in the case of Gov. Schwarzenegger, supportive Republicans are demonized at the drop of a single veto, regardless of how much gay-friendly legislation they may have signed or how much their own overall record on our issues eclipses that of their Democrat counterparts. To me, that is pure partisan bomb-throwing and while some of my colleagues prefer to take the high road and ignore such hypocrisy, I will continue to confront and criticize it wherever I find it.