May 31, 2009

Because We Haven’t Done a “Mormon Lesson of the Day” in a While

Snazzy Mormon
Temple Garments

And we’re not going to. Instead, we’ll point you in the direction of azrefugee at DailyKos, and the most informative (well, for those who were unaware of this “meat” before, anyway) article:

What you get in this succinct yet fun-filled package:

1. Blood Atonement

2. Temple Marriage

3. Garments

4. Swimming missionaries (or not) [A new one on us! — Sapph]

5. Becoming Gods

6. Differentiating evil and good spirits

7. The founder, Joseph Smith was certifiable

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Surprise… Not: George Tiller Murder Suspect Scott Roeder Has A Record — And Operation Rescue Ties

H/T to FreeStateDem for digging up some revealing — but completely unsurprising — background on Scott Roeder (such as a 1997 report from the ADL which notes the “sovereign citizen and tax protester’s” 16-month prison sentence “for parole violations following a 1996 conviction for having bomb components in his car trunk”), suspected of the murder of Dr. George Tiller this morning.

Also of interest (and of no small significance) is this comment on the Operation Rescue Web site in response to the article, “Pray in May to Stop Abortion, Wichita, KS, May 17-20, 2007” (which, disturbingly, includes a link labeled, “Click here to view our hot new video about abortionist Tiller!” as if plugging a sex video):

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Nevada Senate Overrides Governor Boozy McBlingBling’s Veto of Domestic Partnership Bill.

Backstory:

Adulterous, Twice-Divorced Worst Governor in America Determined to Veto Nevada DP Bill

Jim Gibbons is Being a Whiny Baby Re Obama (And, Oh, Yeah, He Vetoed the DP Bill)

Senators in Nevada have overridden Governor Jim Gibbons’ veto of a domestic partnership bill, the Las Vegas Sun reported Sunday.

Senators agreed 14 to 7 Saturday on the controversial bill that offers gay and straight couples limited guaranteed benefits associate with marriage, including matters such as community property and responsibility for debt. Private business would not be required to provide benefits such as health care to the domestic partner of an employee. But many employers do voluntarily provide such benefits to domestic partners.

“The only way for our state to treat its citizens is as equals under the law,” Jan Gilbert, a lobbyist for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a group in favor of the bill, said in a statement. “This was a resounding rejection of the governor’s intolerance and it is wonderful to have something to celebrate.”

. . .

Nolan said he received many “ugly, vulgar and threatening messages” from opponents of the bill.

. . .

Assemblymembers now get to decide if they will join in the override. The chamber’s original 26 to 14 approval falls short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the governor’s veto by two votes. Two members – one Republican, one Democrat – were absent during the original vote, but neither appear supportive of the bill.

Good on the Nevada Senate!

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Where’s the Indignant Outrage Over the DHS Warning About Right-Wing Extremist Groups in the Wake of George Tiller’s Murder?

“This is particularly heart wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”

— Family of George Tiller

So, the Department of Homeland Security’s assessment, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” was dead-on — not that we ever doubted that assessment for a minute, but to hear the right-wingers themselves talk, you’d think Barack Obama was leading the DHS in some big conspiracy to attack poor, little, shat-upon conservatives who never did anything worse than vote for John McCain.

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May 30, 2009

Because I’m Watching the DVD of “Chicago” Right Now, And Because I Saw It on Broadway, And Because I Love It, And Because These Are My Two Favorite Numbers, That’s Why

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If You Think the Wasilla Pastor is Nuts, Wait “til You Read the “Catholic Priestess’s” Letter to Obama (Plus: A Serious Caveat Re Mental Illness)

Backstory:

Hysterical Homophobe Tries to Crash Air Force One, Secret Service Carries Her Away, May 28, 2009

More on “Catholic Priestess” Brenda Lee: “Gay” Secret Service Agent, Not Mental Illness, to Blame, May 29, 2009

As “Grateful Atheist” wrote in response to Wasilla preacher Ron Hamman’s whackjob-o-nutter-rama-lama-ding-dong op/ed in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, “Will the Antichrist be a homosexual?“:

As an atheist, Ron, I really have to thank you for your honest opinion.

By making Christianity look stupid, hateful, and dishonest (yeah, I saw what you did with that elided quote from the book of Daniel), you do all the heavy lifting for us.

Again, thanks.

Ready? Read on…

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So, When Do You “Evolve” Into Action, Bill?

We should live so long to see Big Dog actually do something to right his own wrongs against us:

Presidents Bush, Clinton Team Up in Toronto; Clinton Says His View on Gay Marriage Is ‘Evolving’

This afternoon in Toronto, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush shared a stage for a “conversation with presidents” at Toronto’s Convention Centre, in a ticketed event (with a hefty payday for both ex-presidents) that was open to the general public. …

…while President Clinton mostly kept to his promise to “thwart” efforts to get 42 and 43 to tangle with each other, he offered an interesting insight into his thinking on gay rights.

On the issue of gay marriage — which Clinton, like President Obama, personally opposes — Clinton said of his position: “Frankly, it’s evolving” as he sees more committed gay couples raising kids. …

Christ on a crutch, Bill, will you puh-leeeze ditch that right-wing crap — that marriage is about nothing but children?

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Nice Going, Arnold, Not Vetting the Bigot

Parole board appointee who made
anti-gay remarks is rejected

The [California] state Senate on Wednesday rejected a former Long Beach City Council member appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the state parole board after lawmakers criticized him for anti-gay remarks he made in 1993.

Douglas Drummond was censured by the council for voicing support for Fidel Castro’s sequestering of the AIDS population in Cuba, applauding the fact that same-sex couples don’t reproduce and saying about gay political progress: “How do we deal with it short of killing them?”

Speaking to a private meeting of a conservative group, Drummond also said: “Do you know why I don’t worry about gay activity? I’m going to give you a clue. So far in San Francisco, over 10,000 have died. In Long Beach, over 1,000 have died. I’m serious.”

Drummond, 72, whom Schwarzenegger appointed to the $111,845-a-year-post last summer, told the Senate Rules Committee that he has changed his views, donated money to gay organizations and marched in gay-pride parades. He voted for his own censure in Long Beach.

“I was wrong,” Drummond said. “It was awful. I apologize, I really do.” …

Yeah, well, we might be more willing to give Drummond the benefit of the doubt, except: How often does a Republican really change his tune?

May as well ask: How often does it snow in Miami?

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Olson & Boies’ Filing to Overturn Prop 8

If you haven’t read it yet, do. I did, and I’m liking what I see — mostly. I wouldn’t have repeated the “emotional distress” angle quite so much; I would have instead concentrated more on precedents, definitely citing additional, very salient points from Lawrence v. Texas, Romer v. Evans, and certainly Loving v. Virginia and Perez v. Sharp (and those are just off the top of my head).

Now, I’m no high-falutin’ lawyer or constitutional scholar, but if it seems obvious to me to make a bigger dealer of these cases (and at least mention a few others)…

OTOH — and I’m just guessing here — perhaps the whole point of this request for an injunction is to make just enough of a case to the 9th Circuit to be taken seriously, but in reality to ensure its failure, thereby ensuring appeal to SCOTUS… which, ultimately (if you’re of the mind that this should have gone the federal route all along), is what we want… right?

Damn, it’s tough trying to read minds.

Anyway, if you haven’t read the complaint, do:

Related:

Ted Olson on Our Side? We’re Suspicious, May 28, 2009

Kmiec, Others Lay Split Odds on Federal Prop 8 Challenge, May 28, 2009

I Want Brenda Feigen To Be My Lawyer, May 30, 2009

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I Want Brenda Feigen To Be My Lawyer

You know how I said I didn’t know what to say about the Prop 8 ruling? I still don’t. Fortunately for me, there are other people who have found the words that elude me — and Brenda Feigen is one of them.

Lawyer, Ms. Magazine co-founder, ACLU Women’s Rights Project director, author, and the Radical Right’s worst nightmare, Feigen (who married her wife in California last July), has a few things to say about the incomprehensible Bad Decision by the California Supreme Court — pointedly, and in her own indomitable, very entertaining style:

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So, Can We Get A Million to March on Washington Again?

The MSM (at least in our neck of the woods) has picked up on the planned National Equality March — a.k.a. LGBT March on Washington V — promoted by the Meet in the Middle folks.

Speaking of which, as you can see, we didn’t go to Fresno today; we have our reasons, which I’ve explained before, and which I’ll probably explain again — but as things seem to be going well down there, I won’t poop on anybody’s good day.

As for Washington, I’m kind of het up on the idea. First, a national march is a national march — not limited to one backwards state that has failed its citizens, miserably, and whose Supreme Court has turned the very concept of equal rights — and itself — into a cruel joke. Second, past LGBT marches on Washington have been a good thing. (Third, it doesn’t hurt that Cleve Jones is in favor of the idea. I trust Cleve’s judgment. If you can’t trust Cleve Jones on a thing like this, who can you trust?)

I don’t know what we’re going to do yet — National Coming Out Day is four months off — but already I like the idea, a lot. If you’re on the fence about going to Washington, maybe these stories of past marches will help you make up your mind:

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May 29, 2009

Dear “GOP Hispanic Strategists”: Why, Exactly, Are You “Stunned” by Racist Attacks on Sotomayor?

“That’s Jeb’s kids from Florida, the little brown ones.”

— Vice President George H.W. Bush
August 16, 1988

Geez Louise, you’d think every minority group within the Republican Party was stupid or something, awash in denial about the GOP’s— Oh, wait. Every minority group within the Republican Party is stupid and awash in denial. And it’s simultaneously sad, and funny, and encouraging, and frustrating, when one of these groups is slapped, hard, into the reality that they’re just a bunch of chickens working for Colonel Sanders.

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Fabio Brandao Gets Slap on Wrist for Nine Charges in Four-Victim Gay-Bash

Gay-basher Fabio Brandao

This is justice?

Man is sentenced in antigay attack

A Framingham [Mass.] pizza delivery man pleaded guilty yesterday to nine criminal charges, including four civil rights violations, for beating and yelling homophobic slurs at four people in the South End last August, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.

Fabio Brandao, 29, admitted to assaulting three men and one woman, all between the ages of 23 and 27 at the time, as they walked on Columbus Avenue after leaving a nightclub early on Aug. 24, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office said. …

Judge Thomas C. Horgan ordered Brandao to pay the victims a total of $4,250 for medical bills and related expenses by Nov. 25. He also said Brandao must stay away from the victims and the South End, and must complete an anger management program. …

For shame, Judge Horgan. For shame.

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More Obamanians Seeing the Light

Prop 8 protest calls out Obama

Six months ago, black lesbian activist Chastity Kirven stood in the plaza of Dallas City Hall and led the crowd in a deafening chant of then-President-elect Obama’s campaign mantra, “Yes We Can. Yes We Can.”

On Tuesday, May 26, Kirven stood on the patio outside Throckmorton Mining Co. and blasted the Obama administration for allegedly failing to keep the promises he made to the LGBT community.

“I’ve got news for you, President Obama — we’re not going away, we’re here to stay,” Kirven told the crowd. “Tell President Obama, it’s not just the GOP that’s on his butt right now. He now has some pissed gays and lesbians who are going to hold him just as accountable. … All I’ve got to say is, I’m tired of you leaving your promises on the nightstand as you walk out the door after you’ve screwed me. Do something. Prove that you can make history to us. Don’t only be the first black president. Give equal rights to every American.”

While her remarks were perhaps the most incendiary, Kirven wasn’t the only speaker who took square aim at Obama during Tuesday’s Day of Decision Rally, which drew hundreds to the Cedar Springs strip to protest the California Supreme Court’s decision earlier in the day upholding Proposition 8.

It was by far the city’s largest gay-rights demonstration since the City Hall rally of Nov. 15 …

More at the link.

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Moqtada al-Sadr: “Eradicate Homosexuality”

AMY GOODMAN: Were you a supporter of Saddam Hussein?

ALI HILI: No, no, no, no. Actually, I’m personally, I have big hate for this person. He is the worst thing that ever happened to Iraq, maybe, until we saw these religious mullahs who were brought to the government to lead this country. We were much better off in the Saddam time, although he’s a tyrant.

— Iraqi Exile Speaks Out Against the
Targeting of Gay Iraqis by Shia Death Squads
March 23, 2006

So, this is what we “liberated” Iraq for? Betcha Obama won’t have any more to say about this than Bush did — although I’d love to hear The Big O’s reasoning about the way we should respect all deeply-held religious beliefs:

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More on “Catholic Priestess” Brenda Lee: “Gay” Secret Service Agent, Not Mental Illness, to Blame

Backstory:
Hysterical Homophobe Tries to Crash Air Force One, Secret Service Carries Her Away, May 28, 2009

The OC Register caught up with her after she went batpoo on the tarmack, and learned it was all A Ghey’z Fault!:

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Well, Barry, Are You Going to Write a Meaningless Note to Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, Too?

Consider the case of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, a career U.S. Air Force pilot, combat veteran of three wars, 18 years in, two months to go before retirement, who didn’t tell, but was outed by a civilian — and who is poised to lose his pension as he faces discharge for “homosexual conduct”:

Obama’s silence is as deafening as Obama is deaf.

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For the H8ers: Legal Precedents You Probably Don’t Really Want

Nice little smackdown from Forever in Hell, refuting the ravings of “Jose Solano, of the Opine Editorials, [who] makes either the stupidest or the most disingenuous argument about the Prop 8 decision I have seen yet” — and insists that Prop 8 must be retroactive:

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ProtectMarriage.com: New Begging Letter Targets Prop 8 Challenge (Or: Why We Need to Starve This Beast)

Lifted from InstantPride.com, e-mail sent by Protectmarriage.com on May 28, 2009:

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May 28, 2009

Comedy Gold: Because Nothing This Stupid Has Emerged from Wasilla Since Sarah Palin

You just have to read it to believe it — and make sure to read the comments, most of which are priceless! (My contribution, not yet approved: “The real question is: Does Wasilla need more funding for mental health services? If so, where do I donate?”)

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Let’s Hear It for Traditional Values! Another Uber-Christian Republican Busted on Child-Molestation Charges

How’s about a nearly two-year sexual relationship with a 12-year-old girl entrusted to his care?

Complete details (so far) on the sick freak at Conservative Bablyon:

Greg Nies

Claims to fame: Republican; Lititz, Pennsylvania, Borough Council member (1994-2001); two-time loser for mayor; mayoral candidate, 2009; husband, father; youth group leader, Lititz United Methodist Church; Santa Claus “at Lititz Springs Park during the Christmas season”…

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Senate Hearings on Uniting American Families Act June 3rd

Details at Immigration Equality.

Wow. Keep your fingers crossed!

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8: The Mormon Proposition

If you haven’t read Chino’s interview with Reed Cowan, director of the upcoming film 8: The Mormon Proposition — “the case against Mormons and … [the church’s] decades long work to damage gay people and their causes” — you must.

RC: What the Mormons did and what they continue to do against gay people needs to be a matter of record, because it is spiritually criminal. When these young people sitting in the pews grow up, I hope they can turn to my film and get the message that it’s OK to leave the organization that pulls them to its breast tenderly, while choking the spiritual life right out of them through assaults on their very civil rights. …

Right now it’s all about making this the most explosive, compelling piece of documentary film-making you’ve ever seen. And as I look at the wealth of material we have obtained, I just have to say: BRACE YOURSELVES. …

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Kmiec, Others Lay Split Odds on Federal Prop 8 Challenge

Backstory:

Ted Olson on Our Side? We’re Suspicious, May 28. 2009

Legal experts … don’t entirely share the pessimism of the gay rights community, saying the chances of a challenge under the federal constitution succeeding in the Supreme Court are a tossup. To many law professors, a challenge to Proposition 8 and the current status of gay marriage in California is ripe for the federal courts, particularly in the aftermath of this week’s state Supreme Court decision. …

“Legally, it’s hard to get a better case,” said Douglas Kmiec, a conservative Pepperdine University law professor.

Vikram Amar, a University of California-Davis law professor, said the current Supreme Court may not be ready to uphold gay marriage, but nevertheless doesn’t consider the federal lawsuit overly risky now that California’s high court has ruled.

“You have less to lose now,” Amar said. “You’ve already lost going the state court route.”

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Hysterical Homophobe Tries to Crash Air Force One, Secret Service Carries Her Away

“Crash” as in “crash a party,” not crash the plane. Not that that diminishes the threat to Obama; seriously, how did this Looney Toon get so close to AF1?

“On what grounds does Rev. Lee speak for GOD? Her credentials out weigh that of Benedict XVI and every other Christian, or religious leader in the world. They have not heard the VOICE of GOD and they do not have the gift of prophecy or healing. None are willing to meet her face to face and call upon the name of GOD, as of the days of old because they know that she ranks with John the Baptist and Saint Peter.
By the GRACE OF GOD elderly people with a Black Catholic priestess have united GOD’S CHURCH and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

— Self-described “Black Catholic Priestess” Brenda Lee

Video of this whackdoodle going batpoo crazy, and details of who she is and why she has a beef with Obama, after the jump.

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