11/08/2010
Bryan Fischer's judiciary: Where false witness takes the stand
Sometimes the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer condemns gays with lines like "homosexuals in the military gave us...six million dead Jews." Other times he pretends our President is an eight-year-old boy who covertly sends messages via his middle finger. But today, Fischer is opting for the "If I say it, it'll make it true" page of his playbook, positing the following about what those of us who speak out in favor of an independent judiciary are supposedly seeking:
"All the arguments against throwing these hyperactive [Iowa] judges off the bench boiled down to one argument in the end: we need an “independent” judiciary.
This begs the question: independent of what? We can all agree that we need a judiciary that is independent of political pressure, bribery, and corruption.
However, that’s not the kind of independence our friends on the left want. They want a judiciary which is untethered to the constitution and the law. That’s something no stable society can afford. If judges operate independently of the constitution and the law, as these Iowa judges did, we no longer have the rule of law but the rule of men, something the Founders rightly despised.
The role of judges is not to make law but to apply it. When judges begin to legislate from the bench, usurping powers that properly belong to the legislative branch of government, they immediately forfeit their moral authority to exercise judicial power, and the people have every right to send them packing."
Fischer: An independent judiciary independent of what? [AFA]
Totally right, Bryan. Except, you know: For the "totally" and "right" parts (and perhaps even the "Bryan" part, as we've always been suspect of that iconoclastic "y").
The obvious reality: We who supported the Iowa judges and who continue to support judicial fairness in general are supporting the independent judiciary concept by its very definition. We are supporting a court that puts equal protection and due process above personal faith condemnations. A court that bases a ruling on the arguments that were actually presented to them. A court that does right by a minority population of tax-paying citizens, even when political pressure points to a markedly easier choice. A court that doesn't need well-financed out-of-state groups to convince voters of what they supposedly said, instead letting their reasoned rulings talk for them (reasoned rulings that the opposition voices never once encouraged their own supporters to actually sit down, read, and intellectually process, and in fact, actually went out of their way to unfairly clip or misrepesent).
Bryan Fischer is now seeking to define his opposition, continuing the hope that his supporters will take his hooked- and sinkered-line rather than actually listen to what judicial scholars have to say on the matter. Right, fine -- whatever. We just wonder what lies he'll use once a few more independent judicial bodies rule in the way that's written in both the cards and the constitution, and a long-duped band of social conservatives begins to see that they've been focusing their ire, cash, and time on the wrong band of activists!
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**FOR THOSE NOT FAMILIAR WITH FISCHER: He's the guy who's said that "homosexuals in the military gave us...six million dead Jews," who's said "homosexuals should be disqualified from public office," who has called on Christian conservatives to breed gays and progressives out of existence, has called gay sex a "form of domestic terrorism," who's said only gays were savage enough for Hitler, has compared gays to heroin abusers, has directly compared laws against gay soldiers to those that apply to bank robbers, who once invoked a Biblical story about stabbing "sexually immoral" people with spears, saying we need this kind of action in modern day, and who has spoken out against gays serving as public school teachers, and who has blamed gay activists for dead gay kids, saying that: "If we want to see fewer students commit suicide, we want fewer homosexual students."
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11/08/2010
Take this survey: Because it's time their 'Family Research' factored in their scapegoats
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**Note: Our name for FRC emails is "Lord, FRC is obsessed," providing us with never-ending joy every time they e-reach out to us.
**Note2: Not gonna tell you how to complete the survey. But it'd probably be best to avoid the (understandable) inclination to just lash out. Reasoned thought-food will probably send a stronger message.
77 Reasons For Which Trees Needlessly Gave Their Lives
Have $75 burning a hole in your pocket and scores of friends you care to indoctrinate with the belief that opposition to gay couples' civil equality -- *all* of which is undeniably rooted in certain people's personal faith views, regardless of the political framework that's been shaped and molded to support he discrimination -- is actually a logical position to take here in a fair and free America? Well then you're in luck, you oddly prioritized citizen of this great nation, for National Organization For Marriage affiliate Jennifer Roback Morse is out with a new pamphlet which attempts to provide cover for the modern anti-rights movement. And eager beavers can stock up for the low price of seventy-five hundred pennies per one hundred units:
Product Details [Ruth Institute]
Oh J-Ro-Mo: you can pamphlet-ize as many as you wish. You can deny that your impetus is dripping in religion (catholic in your case). You can list 177 "reasons" if you'd like. Reason itself has already written the script -- equality wins!
But the best part of the whole thing? Check out the stock photo that shadows the pamphlet. It's US Route 77, a paved path that starts way down in Texas and steadily rises until it reaches its high point in same-sex marriage-having Iowa. A perfect metaphor for the route equality will inevitably take, Roback Morse's roadblocks or not.
Lisa MIller's in hiding. We can now scratch SCOTUS building off places to search
Options are running out for Lisa Miller, the socially conservative "ex-gay" mother who is on the lam, flouting the law as she continues her fight to keep biological daughter from former partner Janet Jenkins (from whom Miller had requested and accepted child support in the past):
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has declined to step into a lesbian custody dispute between a woman who has renounced her homosexuality and her onetime partner.
Court refuses to step into custody dispute [AP via Yahoo! News]
Our thoughts remains with young Isabella.
Audio: Matt's just a dad trying to make it. Oh, in a world sans LGBT people or fair courts, that is.
On Saturday morning, I was literally three feet away from him. A young dad, like a million other dads, playing with cutely rambunctious kids who seemed excited to be in a new state for the weekend. To the young'uns, this Philadelphia journey was surely just a family vacation, one of many they've been able to experience in the past few years, thanks to dad's work travels. And dad was also surely thankful for this time to unwind with wife and children -- a pause to cherish the truly important things in life.
But Matt Barber's attire of a dress shirt, dress pants, and sensible suspenders indicated that his respite here in the hotel lobby was but a temporary one. While the rest of his family exited the revolving doors, off to see some of Philly's sites or perhaps hit up a local restaurant that a back-home friend told them was a "can't miss" destination, the patriarch had to stay back and conduct his usual business. Business that seeks to tell other kinds of families that it's their loving bonds themselves that they should put on pause. Business that ignores credible science in order to foster myths about the one, true kind of sexual orientation or gender identity that makes up the world's "norm." Business that is all up in everyone else's business, with a goal of stopping the progress that a vulnerable population has been able to make here in America.
Business that seeks to fire any judge who puts the the public's shared constitution above certain, cherry-picked portions of certain people's personal faith reads:
(← click to play)
*AUDIO SOURCE: Three Iowa Supreme Court Judges Voted Out of Office Because They Voted Against the Will of the People [LC]
Video: Making a statement, not realizing/admitting it ends in an abrupt period.
"Why I Voted Republican" [Signorile]
NOM loves CNN marriage poll; we love that civil rights are not to be popularity contests
The National Organization For Marriage is touting a CNN Exit poll from last week's midterms, which suggests this breakdown in marriage support among voters:
[SOURCE: CNN]
Okay, so first off: It's a poll. Salt/grain/take. Especially in a midterm election. Especially in this conservatively-charged midterm election, where "high tea" refers to American voter turnout rather than UK dining customs.
Secondly: We're not waiting for public opinion polls to do what's right. Public opinion has *never* been with the subject of any major civil rights struggle. History bears us out on this.
But perhaps more than any other takeaway: This poll, if taken on its face, shows just how woefully out of touch the current incarnation of the GOP still is on this issue of basic fairness. Look at the split between parties: It's essentially an even swap between the Dem. & Repub. Yes/Nos. One party that's admittedly still struggling to find its way towards the principled goal, but that is at least looking in that direction. Another party that's still struggling to halt the sands of time, no matter how ably the pro-equality team (with prominent guidance from Republican Ted Olson) has made the case in the court of constitutional law, or how easily marriage equality states have been able to legally bind same-sex couples without eliciting any of the ills that the conservatives keep promising will befall a gay marriage-d nation.
There are no two ways around it: It's the party of "NO!" that's most fully halting this, yet another deserved civil gain. Or more accurately: The GOP is the party that is trying to halt this train. Fortunately for us, the unforgiving arc of history cares less about polls and more about equal protection, due process, and justice in the face of unwarranted oppression.
11/05/2010
NARTH "Lift My Luggage" protest
NARTH "Lift My Luggage" protest
Jeremy Hooper
Remarks as prepared
So I'll be honest: I didn't know what I wanted to say here. But as I sat down to put together some thoughts, something so oddly, freakishly coincidental happened that I simply couldn't ignore it. Literally, as I was writing down words to say to you today, a comment came into my site, left on a post dated almost a year ago to the date. The subject of the old post was last year's NARTH convention. I had written a little post regarding NARTH's claims that the American Psychological Association has a bias again them. A claim to which I, at the time, basically responded, "No NARTH: scientific fact and biological reality are what have a bias against you, not the APA." Then I think I made some sort of a joke, put in a period, then moved on to something else. Probably something silly that Maggie Gallagher was saying on that particular day.
Now, it's very rare that someone takes the time to leave a comment on a year-old post, and usually when they do, it's because they have a negative bone to pick with whatever was written, not a positive one. And that was certainly true with this comment. It was from a NARTH supporter and it read:
"This article is simply a strawman attack on NARTH. In our culture, those who are dissatisfied with their unwanted homosexual attractions and choose to pursue change are often treated with disrespect, mockery and ridicule, as are the therapists who try to help them. It is ironic that some of the people who defend the freedom to embrace homosexuality are the same ones who mock those who want something different for their lives. Tolerance and diversity mean very little if differing worldviews are excluded."
Okay, right. So nothing particularly interesting or newsworthy about the comment itself. But why I mention it today, beyond the coincidental element, is because this is exactly the reaction I tend to get from pro-"ex-gay" critics. It doesn't matter how measured my words or how organizationally-directed my rejections, the "ex-gay" supporters almost always see our push back as some sort of personal attack. Like we're out to get the human being for the choices they've made in their life. Like we are picking on them just for the sake of bullying.
The truth, of course, is that the vast majority of us who oppose NARTH and the ex-gay movement in general are 100% supportive of people's right to get intimate inside of whatever adult relationship they choose for themselves. We are not threatened by their choice of partner -- even though that partner is oftentimes celibacy. We are not offended by their right to make their own determinations for their lives -- even if that determination means rejecting certain realities. We may feel sorry. I personally feel sorry for anyone who doesn't live his or her truth, whatever reason. But I have no desire to hurt or offend or unnecessarily pile on. The goal is not to make anyone's journey any harder.
At least, I should say, that's not *OUR* goal. That is, however, what the organized Ex-gay movement -- led by NARTH -- does to LGBT people's lives and loves. They prey on vulnerabilities, telling the most susceptible among us that most any bit of pain that an LGBT person experiences in life stemmed from their sexuality or gender identity. They target parents who are desperate to come to a better understanding with the movement leaders instead providing obfuscation. They also target us on a political level, working hand in hand with the so-called "pro-family" groups to provide cover in debating legislation like the Employment Discrimination Act or Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal. After all, if they can quote/unquote prove that homosexuality is not innate, then groups like Focus on the Family can tell their socially conservative supporter that it's okay to not support LGBT people in civil government, since we are supposedly nothing more than broken heterosexuals who are choosing our behavior.
And of course there's also the element of fact. Pure, raw data. It's become a political cliché to quote the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's words saying that 'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.' But this quote's a cliché because it's so true. We can all disagree. Matt Barber can come out from this hotel and tell me that my marriage is wrong or sinful or whatever. I can then look him back in the eye and tell him it's truly bizarre that a grown heterosexual man dedicates his life to gay people's bedrooms. Because it is. Truly. Bizarre.
But neither of us, me nor Matt, should create or promote junk science groups that are purposely designed to muddy the waters of credible research. Oh, but guess what? ONE OF US -- TOTALLY --- DOES --- DO --- THAT!!! And spoiler alert: It aint me.
So going back to that aforementioned commenter, I would just say: You are absolutely right -- nobody should ridicule, mock, or disrespect you. But pointing out simple facts is not mockery, ridicule or disrespect! Ridicule is telling a legally married man like myself that my family is wrong or broken or unfit for federal rights. Mockery is telling educated scientists that they have a quote/unquote "liberal agenda" anytime they put forth research that jibes with the realities of our known world. Disrespect is taking vulnerable people's money and telling them that something you know is unsupported by independent, peer reviewed fact is actually some sort of magical cure for a non-affliction that never needed a cure to begin with!
Inside this hotel, NARTH is trafficking in all three. Outside this hotel, I am telling them that I will work with every fiber in my being to drain. their. snake. oil. for. good!!
THANK YOU!
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*And now, video:
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***See Joe Jervis' great photo gallery: The Good Guys At The NARTH Protest [J.M.G.]
***More photos over at Truth Wins Out: Pictures from Truth Wins Out’s ‘Lift My Luggage’ Protest at the NARTH Convention [TWO]
