Justice Moreno gets it

Justice Carlos Moreno was the only member of the Supreme Court of California to stand up for us, and this is the best part of his dissenting opinion:

"There is no 'underlying' principle more basic to our Constitution than that the equal protection clause protects the fundamental rights of minorities from the will of the majority."

That does not apply only to the Constitution of the State of California, either. This is why we have constitutions; this is why we have a representative republic, not a pure democracy, because sometimes the majority will get carried away, and the minority needs someone to protect its rights.

Thank you, Justice Moreno, for understanding that.

Live Free or Die

"House Republicans said the Senate version had important flaws. ... They said it will lead to lawsuits against non-clergy -- those with strong religious beliefs that prevent them from participating in any phase of a gay marriage, such as catering or photography.

Rep. Peter Bolster, R-Alton, said, 'This does not protect the Christian conference center, the church with a social hall, or its individual members who run limousine or photographic services who may conscientiously object to participating in a same-sex marriage.'" --from the Union Leader

That is the dumbest god damn thing I've ever heard. Any self-respecting gay couple would not engage the services of someone who was so opposed to their having equal rights. A caterer isn't obligated to serve anyone's damn wedding, for whatever reason he or she likes. Homophobia is a nasty reason, but hey. It's a free country. Right?

I mean, really. I would find a gay-friendly caterer. Or a gay caterer. Come on. There are plenty of actual gay people working in the industries that serve weddings. Even in barely-civilized New Hampshire! No one is going to make anyone take part in a gay wedding.

I can't take this anymore. My heart is going to explode from frustration, hope, and disappointment.

Here are today's top stories

image snagged from Full Metal Democrat

I know I'm probably the last lesbian in America (in the world?) to jump on the Rachel Maddow bandwagon, but that's because I can't watch cable news shows. Even hosted by someone I probably totally agree with. But I've seen enough of her to know that she's super extra smart, articulate, and totally adorable, in an "if Harry Potter were a lesbian" kind of way. (Uh, that's a good thing, really.) Anyway, the reason I am writing about her today is because I watched her appearance on The Daily Show, and I have discovered my favorite thing about her is not that she's a super genius or that she's a big lesbo with her own news show or even that she wears glasses. It is how hard she laughs at Jon Stewart. Like, he is funny, obviously, but she just lets go a number of times in this interview, like what he said is the funniest thing she's ever heard in her life. That is so endearing. And he obviously admires and respects her, and as fun as it is to watch him totally tear those he disagrees with apart, I love watching him talk to someone who's on the same side of the political spectrum as he is. I don't like political debating--it gives me hives to watch people fight, even in a civilized manner. In fact, uncivilized fighting is much more easier to stomach, because then there's always at least a small chance that someone's weave is gonna get ripped off! And that is nothing less than pure entertainment. No, I like it best when it's two liberals lightly ripping on conservative bigots. I know that's immature and biased, but I don't know how to let somehow have a differing opinion on important issues without wanting to hurl. I'm working on it, and in fact one of my very best friends in the whole world and I agree on almost nothing politically, but it still makes me crazy when I think about it too deeply.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rachel Maddow

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Anyway, Rachel Maddow is adorable, and the way she laughs at Jon Stewart is utterly charming. I should really watch The Daily Show when it airs.

However! She doesn't own a tv! She claims she watches the good ol' Daily Show "on the online machine" (heeeeee), but is that for truth? At least she said she didn't own a tv without sounding like one of those snobs who think popular entertainment is beneath them. That's the other thing! This woman is so smart and so well-informed, but she's never come across as condescending. That's, uh, a minor miracle.

Okay. I am fully and utterly smitten starting right at this moment.

Politics and religion! Everyone's favorite topics for a blog post

Look, it's pretty clear I have no use for the Bible as some kind of guide to live my life, and for me it's basically a collection of ancient myths, which is what makes it interesting, but you know, that's just me. It obviously holds a much more significant meaning for millions of people, and that is just fine. But some of them take it far too seriously, and some of them twist its truth.

Anyway, I think every single Christian on Earth, especially those in America who have voted to legislate discrimination, needs to read John 8: 1-11. This story is my favorite story about Jesus, because he comes to the rescue of a skanky ho (ahem, I mean, an adulterous woman). If Jesus loved skanky hos, ain't no way he'd turn away from the fags. There are references to the unnaturalness of homosexuality in the New Testament, but never do they come from the mouth of Jesus. And Christians need to listen to Jesus, not to other Christians who may have gotten things a little bit mixed up. (I am looking at you, Paul.)

So don't use the Bible to condemn us. In fact, if you're Christian at all, you shouldn't use anything to condemn us. Condemning us isn't your job--it's your god's. And you know what else? In this religion, Jesus is God, so he is the only one who could condemn her. Does he?

According to Christianity, Jesus comes to the Jews to...revise the Law of Moses, to oversimplify things (as I do), which was much more strict than anything modern Christians follow. He gives them one commandment: Love one another. What a hippie freak. If he hadn't been turned into a messianic figure for a religion that brought about destruction and hate and division, I would love his ass. Anyway, since Christians no longer stone adulterers (and no longer follow, er, any of the laws laid down in Leviticus), I don't want to hear that book used to defend homophobia ever again.

It is November 15, the day to protest marriage inequality in the United States of America. Let's go, Americans. Act up. Fight hate.

More for me than anyone who might accidentally find this blog

So on Tuesday, I started watching the election results at my dad's house, and for a while the only states CNN would call were Kentucky and Vermont, which meant the electoral tally was eight to three in McCain's favor, and my dad kept saying things like, "If this were a baseball game, we'd have to be worried," and "it's only the first inning," and, during commercials, "what're they doing? must be a pitching change."

I dunno, maybe you had to be there, and maybe you even have to be my father's child, but that crap kept me laughing every time, even as I freaked the hell out that we might elect another pair of maroons into office.

Processing

What if there were a ballot measure that would amend your state's constitution so that only white couples could get married? Or only people of the same racial background could marry each other? Or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints could not get legally married?

Would you vote for it?

I still cannot fathom why we can even put civil rights to a vote. If you were to put desegregation of public schools to a vote back in the fifties and sixties, do you think it would have passed? Or even if you were to put those laws that outlawed biracial marriage to a vote, it's quite possible some of those laws would remain. Maybe even slavery would have withstood a vote to abolish it. In fact, I'd be willing to bet it could have, because we had to fight a war with each other to abolish it.

Letting people vote on whether or not gay people deserve the same damn rights as heterosexuals is just as ridiculous as letting people vote on whether or not black people should have the same rights as white people. It's a forgone conclusion: of course black people deserve the same rights as white people, no matter what a majority of voters would say.

Which is why it really makes me sad that so many black and Hispanic voters supported Proposition Eight. I would never, ever vote for anything that would deny them the rights that white people enjoy. I would be just as incensed if Proposition Eight denied black couples the right to legal marriage. Because black people are no better or worse than white people. Gay people are no better or worse than straight people. We are all equal. Everyone says we proved that by electing a black President, but Proposition Eight says different.

The way things are in this country right now, we are not all equal.

But I have hope that President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama will help us change all that. I freaked right out when he actually stood up and recognized that gay people exist in this country in his acceptance speech. I've never heard any politician do that in that manner. And no one would have even given it a second thought if he hadn't. For the first time, a man we elected to lead our country has stood up and said, "I hear you too, homos."

I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart.

I can't do anything about California, but

So in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Jersey, we have civil unions. I wanna know how we go about making those civil unions marriages. Connecticut just did it.

How did you do it, Connecticut?

I am at my wits' end with this woman

I read a thing on the internet the other day that said Sarah Palin actually asked women to vote for McCain because he picked a lady as his vice president, and Obama didn't. Really? REALLY? First of all, that's just as sexist as Joe Biden telling dudes to vote for Obama, because McCain's got a little lady on his ticket. Oh yes it is. Secondly, so what if Obama didn't pick Hillary Clinton as his vice president? That has no bearing whatsoever on his opinion of women. For whatever reason, he and his advisers decided Hillary Clinton was not the right vice presidential candidate, and I would bet my next seven paychecks that her gender had nothing to do with it.

As a matter of fact, I would say (boldly) that Senator Obama has a much higher opinion of women than you do, Governor. He would not strip us of our reproductive rights, and he would not support a Constitutional Amendment to prevent us from marrying each other. He also supports equal pay for equal work, which your running mate does not. And I am not one hundred percent positive on this, because I've not heard him say it, but I would bet seven more paychecks that he would never support legislation requiring rape victims to pay for their own rape kits.

How can you say a vote for McCain is a vote for women? How?

Spooked

Forgive me for this rant, but all the news that supporters of Proposition 8 are gaining ground has really freaked me out. Like, really.

I don't personally know anyone who lives in California, except my dad's younger sister, but I'm not sure how to broach the subject with her--however I am hopeful she's opposed to Proposition 8. Anyway, I am almost more worried about whether or not California--the alleged haven of liberal hippies--amends their constitution to ban the gay marriages it just legalized than I am about whether or not Sarah (motherfucking) Palin becomes this country's first female vice president.

Listen. The California Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage was, like, fucking landmark, okay? Because it equated a person's sexuality with her race or gender or religion. Just as the governments of this country cannot discriminate against people based on those things, neither can they discriminate against people based upon their sexuality. That's what the legality of gay marriage is about: stamping out discrimination against one group of people for something that is as unchangeable as race or gender--and as little of the government's business as religious beliefs.

I just do not understand how, in this country, where one of our most prized founding documents proclaims all men created equal, there are so many fucking people who think it's perfectly fine--no, not just fine, but necessary--to make sure certain American citizens are relegated to permanent second-class status. This is not about whether you think butt sex is a sin. This is not about the "sanctity of marriage." That doesn't exist--and it never has. Why are we pretending that marriage is sacred? That people don't cheat and divorce and all that? I mean, ideally, sure, marriages are supposed to be lifelong and monogamous, but that is just not the reality, and it never has been. Humans are fallible. So that argument, as I am the child of divorced parents, too, really chaps my ass. All of these arguments are strictly religious--it's not the government's business how you have sex or whether you're faithful to your spouse, so--I don't know--shut up! This is not about forcing churches to marry two dudes or two ladies. That's the great thing about this country--you can believe in whatever you want to believe in. You, as a private citizen. But the government of the United States of America (and its individual state governments) can only believe in one thing: equal rights, privileges, and responsibilities for every, single one of its law-abiding citizens. Every. Single. One.

Marriage is not something that can only exist between a man and a woman. Marriage is for any two consenting adults who have decided to make a lifelong commitment to each other. And if a government awards special rights and responsibilities for heterosexual couples who make that choice then it absolutely must accord those same rights to homosexual couples who make the same choice.

That's all there is to it.

So let's go, California. Shoot down Proposition 8, and keep the gay rights movement moving forward instead of seventy-billion steps backward.

PS: Congratulations, Connecticut!

You can literally register to vote while you're pooping

HollywoodDeclaresThemselves
by declareyourself

Look, I could register to vote on November 4 if I had to, because New Hampshire is crazy, but apparently, the rest of the states in this fine nation have deadlines. So hop to. Register. Vote. This country is a disaster, and the only way we have to fix it is voting. So let's go. Let's make some god damn changes.

There is one thing I hate more than Republicans: outright apathy toward our country's, toward the world's future.

Also, Sarah Silverman made me laugh, like, three times in this video, so I had to post it, since I'm pretty sure the three people who read this are all set for November 4. Also, is Tobey Maguire's head too big for his body or what?

So much better than fetch

Sarah Warn is a genius:

"I think the name 'Tina Fey' should become shorthand for smart, feminist, lesbian-inclusive behavior. As in, 'Donating money to fight Prop. 8 is so Tina Fey.'

"It could even be used in reverse — as in, 'Voting for Sarah Palin is so not Tina Fey.'"

Is it too late to move to California?

In other people hate Sarah Palin news

Regina Spektor is a genius. Plus, I really like her music. Plus plus, she loves the gays. Apparently, she did a few shows on Cyndi Lauper's True Colors tours, and why I never went to one of the True Colors shows, I do not know.

Also! She, like one of my other lady musician heroes, Alanis Morissette, recorded a song for a Chronicles of Narnia movie. "The Call" plays at the end of Prince Caspian, and it totally killed me both times.

And, some more: she did a song with one of my favorite boy musicians, Ben Folds, which I remember catching somewhere months ago, but then I forgot it, but then I read that blog post yesterday, and I was like, "Hey! Maybe Ben's album finally came out!" So I checked iTunes. It has not come out, but it was available for pre-order, and their song "You Don't Know Me" was immediately available. So I have been listening to it on a loop since then, and that is something I almost never. Ever. Do.

I remember the first time I ever heard her. The Potato and I were in the WDOM studio at 8:30 on a November morning (Tuesday? I think our shows were buttass early in the morning on Tuesdays that first semester), and I was looking through the new CDs that had gotten sent to the station. We were supposed to play ten songs from these new CDs, but since we only played female artists, we figured we could do five songs, because there were so many more male artists/bands in the station's add bin. Anyway, there was a 3-song EP from Regina, and it had a sticker on it with a quote from some reviewer that said she was like a cross between Bjork and Joni Mitchell. Carlos loves Bjork, and we both love Joni Mitchell, so I was like, "We should play this." I think we played "Us," and we both quickly dug it. "Carbon Monoxide" totally sold us, I think, but my favorite song from that little EP was "Ghost of Corporate Future." Eventually, I made it to the Providence Newbury Comics and bought her CD Soviet Kitsch, and I was head over heels.

Also, she does sound like a combo of Bjork and Joni Mitchell sometimes. She's pretty much the best new artist I've ever discovered. She may be the only new artist I've ever discovered all by myself... Whatever! Awesome. She is awesome.

In conclusion, I love when I discover that straight people I admire are awesome and eloquent allies. And when they share my opinions on horrifying politicians: "Then again, we are a heart beat away from having a very inexperienced woman (an insult to all actually deserving women out there) possibly lead our country off the deep end of the edge of human reason ... but that's a much longer post..."

Can't wait to read that blog post, Regina!

In other I hate Sarah Palin news

The Governor of Alaska is at the very least interested in banning books. When she was elected mayor of Wasilla, she allegedly asked the city librarian if she would be all right with removing books from library shelves if the mayor saw fit to ask her to do so. The librarian said no, like any good librarian would. Whether it went any further is up for debate, blah blah, but the fact remains that Sarah Palin thinks government censorship of what we are able to read is a-okay.

Oh it is NOT.

Anyway, children, the ALA's Banned Books Week is coming up (September 27 - October 4), and in honor of that, I have decided to read the ten most challenged books of 2007, according to info gathered by the ALA. These books are

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

And actually, I've read three* of them already, so I'm cheating and only reading seven. Also And Tango Makes Three is a picture book about gay penguins, so really, it'll be six actual books. The Nashua Public library had best have all these books, but I will totally buy the gay penguins book if they don't have that.

The Chocolate War and Huck Finn, I think, appear on the ALA's list of most challenged books of all time (along with some of my very favorites, like The Giver and A Wrinkle in Time), and I don't know about the Chocolate War, but Huck Finn is always challenged because of how many times the n-word appears in it. And like, um. That's kind of the point of Huck Finn--it's the racism of the 1830s South through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. Mark Twain wasn't racist; Huck isn't racist--the society in which this boy lives is racist. The book is not racist--it's not a Klan manifesto. God. People are so dumb.

Well. Duh. People who want to ban books are all idiots. Sigh.

Oh, by the way. What kind of books did Mayor Palin allegedly want to remove from her city's shelves? Gay ones, specifically Daddy's Roommate and Pastor, I Am Gay. Of course. Letting this woman anywhere near the White House is the worst idea I've ever heard.

*A token of my love and affection to anyone who can guess which three.

If you must insist on the comparison

You know, maybe Tina Fey could enlighten Sarah Palin as to what it is the Vice President of the United States of America does. There was this one "Update" when she was talking about Al Gore (so it was one of her first ones ever), and she said something like, "What most people don't know is that he's also the President of the Senate, so he sits up there on a throne with a lion," and maybe there was something else, but I forget, and it made me laugh so, so hard.

I used to have all the Jimmy and Tina "Update"s on my computer, but then it died, and I never recovered them, and that was a very sad day in my life, because the website that provided them totally doesn't have them up anymore. And! I can't even find a transcript of it, so...maybe I'm making it all up!

Your decision. Choose wisely.

Let's talk about Sarah Palin, shall we?

I don't even know if I can get this all out, but, like... What a ri-god-damn-diculous choice for vice president. I was watching The Daily Show last night, and they had an actual clip of this woman saying something like, "I wish I could comment on all this vice president talk, but I can't really say anything until someone tells me what it is the vice president does."

Seriously?

Okay, so we have this issue here that a lot of Hillary supporters don't want to vote for Obama, so maybe it would seem like kind of a good idea for McCain to pick a woman as his running mate. The thing about Hillary supporters, though, that the Republicans don't get is that they're not behind Hillary because she is a lady. They're behind Hillary because she is Hillary. Plus! He could not have picked a woman who is more politically opposite. I mean, she's anti-choice, pro-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (the governor of Alaska, people, wants to rape her own state), pro-NRA, and she's a creationist. She has nothing in common with Hillary Clinton except reproductive organs. Which was basically the point they made on The Daily Show.

How condescending is that, by the way? There are a block of voters who want a woman in the White House--we'll just pick a woman! Any woman will do! Oh! The best thing on The Daily Show was Samantha Bee's final word on the VP selection: "McCain knows that women don't vote with the big head--they vote with the little hood."

Not to mention she hasn't even been governor of Alaska for two years, and McCain's whole attack on Obama is that he doesn't have enough experience to lead the country. If you're running on experience, how smart is it to pick a second-in-command who's still wet behind the ears? It would seem that by picking this woman, McCain has totally doomed his chances, but... This country is terrifying.

But, really, there have to be other Republican women who have more experience than Palin. Why on earth did he pick her? There is nothing whatsoever to recommend her. You've already secured the religious right, Republicans. Do you really need someone who believes in teaching creationism in public schools on your ticket?

Listen. This woman cannot be our first female anything. And John McCain is old, people--what if he were to die in office? If Sarah Palin became the first female President of the United States of America, I would move to France. That's right, France. Because America hates France. Or maybe Spain. Just beacuse it would be easier to be somewhere I speak the language.

I hate that I have to bash this woman, too, because this country needs more women in high political office, but I mean... I can't just support her because of that. She is everything I hate about Republicans. How can a woman be anti-choice? (I can understand a woman being anti-abortion, but how can she deny other women the right to make that decision for themselves? How?) How can the governor of Alaska support destroying the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? How can a mother of four oppose gun control?

Also. People keep saying she looks like Tina Fey! Stop comparing her to Tina Fey! Tina Fey would be a much better first female vice president!

If Barack Obama is not the next President of the United States, I do not know what will become of me.

Some badly-articulated thoughts and feelings about politics

Look, you can just skip this one, but I had to get this out of my system.

So I had a big argument with my mother about Hillary Clinton. I’m the one who voted for her in our primary, but my mother is the one who’s saying, “How can you not vote for Hillary?” She totally said that since we’ve never had a female president, we have to back Hillary. I think that is re-goddamn-diculous (I think I stole that from Dr. Evil—thanks, Mike Myers!), and she would not listen to my argument for why you cannot vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman. Basically, it’s this: supporting for Hillary because she is the lady candidate is still reducing her to her vagina—it is exactly as bad as not voting for her solely because she’s a woman, okay? Now, I’m not saying that the fact that she is a woman can be, like, ignored, because it did factor pretty importantly into my voting decision, but like I said in January, I voted for Hillary because I think that she is the one woman active in politics today who could handle being this country’s first female president, and it is about damn time we had a female president. I don’t agree with her stance on everything, but I don’t agree with Obama’s stance on everything either—and I just think that Hillary would do a better job of running the country, regardless of the fact that we are in need of a female leader. Still, both of them are a billion times better than McCain and leaps and bounds more than a billion times better than George Bush.

Anyway, the important thing here right now is that neither Democratic candidate is a rich white man. As long as we get a Democratic president, we will be making history. It is also about damn time we chose a black person to run this country. If Obama were a woman, it would be doubly awesome. If Obama were a woman, running against Hillary, I wonder who I would have voted for. I wonder if the race would be anywhere near as close. I wonder if that could ever even happen in the near future: if the two Democratic front-runners for the presidential nomination could ever both be women.

God, I hope so.

So black men were given the right to vote (on paper, at least—I know it was pretty dicey for a while) about sixty years before women were. Let’s not wait sixty fucking years to elect a female president, America, okay?

Look, if Hillary were a dude—if she were Bill’s brother and not his wife—would I have voted for Obama because I want some diversity in the White House? God, I don’t know. It’s fucking stupid that race and gender have anything to do with these decisions we make, but when we’ve had forty-three old, rich white men run this country, you begin to want a leader who is different. Someone who represents you—or if the leader can’t represent you, at least someone who can represent a part of the population of this country which has never, ever been fairly represented. This is true of both African-Americans and women of all races in these United States. It is true of all minorities in these United States. We’ve let white dudes run the show for two hundred and thirty years, and it didn’t go so badly for a while, but right now, we are in fierce need of someone with a different perspective on life.

Anyway, my point is this: voting for Hillary because she’s a woman and voting for Obama because he’s not white are just as bad as the reverse. It’s still sexism and racism, albeit with a more positive result than you usually get from sexism and racism.

Well. Being a woman is not just about biology, and being a black person is not just about skin color. Minorities in this country experience things, have to go through things that white men will never, ever understand. Heterosexual white men have never, ever had their rights denied to them because of their sexual organs or their skin color—things over which they had no control. They’ve never been made to feel less than human—they’ve never legally been the property of someone else. So both Hillary and Obama have different perspectives to bring to the presidency, because they are both so different from the people who’ve held the highest office in the land since the beginning. They both belong to groups of people who have had to struggle—and struggle desperately—for the rights that every single goddamn citizen of this country should enjoy. The fact that it is 2008, and we have yet to have a female leader or a leader who is not white means that these groups of people are still struggling. And that is really unacceptable. For me.

A little late

Okay, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California is a Republican, and he wrote the decision saying the ban on gay marriage violated the state’s constitution. He is the only Republican I like. Because, come on, this is not about your personal beliefs—this is about an unbiased government offering the same protections, responsibilities, and privileges to every single citizen, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. This fellow recognized that. Let’s go, Republicans. Smarten up. This guy should have a long talk with John McCain. This guy and Ellen Degeneres should have a long talk with John McCain. Come on, John McCain. Ellen loves Portia in exactly the same way you love your wife—how can you tell her that that love is less than the love shared between you and your wife? HOW?

Especially since you left your permanently disabled first wife and married another woman nearly twenty years younger than you. But you know all about the “sanctity of marriage,” eh?