Libertarian Cock-Block

As you may have heard, the Libertarian Party has launched an appeal to gay voters, the "battered spouses" of the Democratic Party.  If this sounds even remotely like a good idea to you, your Head Trucker urges you to read Joe Jervis's post on the subject.  Excerpt:

But just for the sake of argument, let's tick off the official Libertarian agenda as posted on their website:

1. Abolish welfare.
2. Abolish Social Security.
3. Abolish the IRS.
4. Abolish the FDA.
5. Allow insurance companies to exclude any disease.
6. Dismantle the public school system.
7. Allow machine gun ownership and open-carry anywhere.
8. End foreign aid to starving nations.
9. Sell all national parks to private groups.

To be fair, the Libertarian Party does have reasonable positions on immigration reform, privacy, and the war on drugs. But the essential takeaway from reading their platform is this: "If you are impoverished, starving, desperately ill, unemployed, or uneducated...tough shit. Don't come to the government with your lazy unpatriotic hand out. Every American for himself. Get the fuck out of here."

Joe also posted links to Libertarian Party documents for each of the nine positions stated above. He also notes the fact that Libertarians generally run on the Republican ticket, not their own.

What I Say:  Ever since I first heard of Libertarians thirty years ago in college, your Head Trucker has always thought they were living in a dream world; a few good ideas, but a very loose grasp on reality. Look before you leap.

The Dems always seem to muff the ball when they get possession of it. Why that is, I have no freaking clue. But there's no real alternative in this country at this time.

And I don't know what would be. I don't know what the answer is to anything any more. I know too much about the course of history and the trend of human nature to feel any optimism at this point.  Like gripping the railing on a ship that is slowly, slowly, slowly sinking.  Meanwhile, the lights are blazing, the band is playing, and there's a big, noisy party in the main saloon.

Maybe that's just an old man's gloom and doom.  Maybe.  But I certainly wouldn't be painting a rainbow flag on the roof of the house, boys. Like Jimmy Carter, Obama is a good man, a decent man, even a fine man - considered as an individual, not as a leader. But if he is another one-term wonder, well fellas, just imagine what the regime that follows him will be like, starting just two years from now.

And you thought those long, dark years under W. were bad. 

BTW - does anyone besides me find it totally creepy that they have Liberty's face blacked out in their current party logo?  Compare with the old one, which I found at Libertapedia:

Love Potion Number 9

Rumor has it that longtime AIDS activist - oh, and um, ultra-famous movie star - Elizabeth Taylor, 78, is all set to hitch up with her ninth husband, Jason Winters, a man thirty years her junior.  Well, there's life in the old girl yet, good for her. 

But gotta love Joe Jervis's take on it:

Straight folks can get married again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. And most of us can't get married once.

Forget Uganda, Send American Gays to the Slammer

What a lovely thought for Sunday.  As Joe.My.God and TWO have reported today, American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer says all teh nasty gayz in America should be rounded up and sent to prison, where they can be turned into good, obedient heterosexuals:

If you believe that what drug abusers need is to go into an effective detox program, then we should likewise put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program. Secondly, I'm afraid you're simply wrong about the Bible's perspective on the law and homosexuality. Paul lists quite explicitly in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 the actions and behaviors that are the proper concern of the law:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality*, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine...

The bottom line here is that, biblically, those "who practice homosexuality" should come under the purview of the law just as much as those who take people captive in order to sell them into slavery. You express a belief in the Scriptures, and I trust your confidence in Scripture is not selective. If you believe all Scripture is inspired, then you are compelled to accept that legal sanctions may appropriately be applied to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

The Bible says!

Of course, this is a scared-shitless straight boy's fantasy of what the duties of Christianity are.  You notice he doesn't quote the other passages of the Bible that say things like "you must love your neighbor as yourself."  Hmm.  I wonder what kind of "reparative therapy" he'd enjoy the most.

As usual, Joe clinches the story with a bullseye:

Remember folks, the Christianist right is not about hatred and bigotry. It's about the gentle redemptive love of Jesus, forced upon you at the barrel of a gun in prison as they beat the gay out of you.

* - "Homosexuality" is a word first coined in 1869, in Germany. No such word appears in the original Hebrew or Greek scriptures; but a number of recent translations have paraphrased the original texts and inserted this anachronistic word instead. In my view, that doesn't alter the fact that the Bible writers were uniformly hostile to same-sex love, but it's important to get our facts right.

"All Hat and No Cattle": Shannon Minter Sums Up the Perry Case

From Pam's House Blend, a summation by Shannon Minter of the historic testimony in the Perry case, now in recess while the judge reviews all the evidence:

It has been an amazing two and a half weeks. This trial has been a truly historic moment for our community. It is the first time a federal court has heard, first hand, from real live witnesses, about the harm that the denial of marriage equality causes lesbians, gay men and their families every day. It's also the first time a federal court has heard the arguments in favor of marriage equality presented live in court by an array of internationally renowned scholars who are truly experts in their respective fields.

What stands out the most after having seen all the witnesses on both sides is how overwhelmingly one-sided the evidence in this case turned out to be. The plaintiffs, represented by some of the most skilled attorneys in the country, laid out a well-crafted, meticulous case, backed by the testimony of half a dozen of the most respected historians, psychologists, economists, and political scientists who study marriage, sexual orientation, and child development. Using the Prop 8 proponents' own outrageous and inflammatory words, ads, and emails, the plaintiffs powerfully demonstrated that Prop 8 was a direct product of hostility, fear-mongering, and demonization of lesbians and gay men. And through the deeply moving testimony of the plaintiffs and other members of our community, they proved beyond question that denying same-sex couples the right to marry causes great harm to LGBT people and their children.

Stacked up against this mountain of facts, scholarship, and science, the Prop 8 proponents - though represented by fine attorneys - were not able to come forward with a case of their own. Before trial, they dropped nearly every witness they had planned to present and relied entirely on two poorly qualified, ill-prepared expert witnesses, neither of whom was able to establish that banning same-sex couples from getting married has any rational or legitimate purpose relating to procreation, child rearing, tradition, or any of the other justifications that have been offered in the past in support of anti-gay discrimination. In fact, nearly all of the defendants' experts agreed with the plaintiffs that marriage equality would benefit same-sex couples and their families in many real, tangible ways.

It should not have come as a surprise that the defense's case turned out to be so weak. As our executive director Kate Kendell is fond of saying, the arguments against marriage equality have always been "all hat and no cattle." This trial showed more powerfully than ever that there truly is no substance to the arguments of those who would deny equality to our families. It has been extremely gratifying to see those arguments aired out in public, before a smart, independent-minded judge, in a way that's never been done before.

Minter, a transman and fellow Texan - from Sulphur Springs - was the lead attorney in the Marriage Cases ruling in 2008, in which the California Supreme Court held that same-sex couples were entitled to marriage as a fundamental right.

Bonus:  Joe Jervis quotes Maggie Gallagher's whining letter to the judge in the Perry case, complaining that

Our case for Proposition 8 has been deeply harmed. The public record has been impoverished and the information available to reviewing courts permanently reduced all because some witnesses feared retaliation as a result of the publicity.

Imagine that.  The swarming homos are bringing Western Civilization, and probably all human life on the planet, to a crashing end, and still they lack the courage of their convictions?  Observes Joe, with a snicker:

She is pre-arranging her victim status for her post-decision speaking tour. Delicious.

Bullshit Alert: Gay = Serial-Killer Nazi Monster

Here's a concrete example of what I meant in the last post about the difference between mere fence-sitters and actual haters, boys.  This twisted bastard and his cohorts bragged about how they delivered a "nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda."  Aye, and they will stand in judgment for all that too.

By comparison, Joel Osteen is just a silly little pretty boy, waving a feather fan.  Watch this video and see what I mean.  Also, go check out the rest of the video series and excellent coverage on all this by the guys over at Box Turtle Bulletin.




Honk to Joe.My.God.  Also worth reading at his site:

Anti-Gay Irish MP Iris Robinson Committed Adultery While Calling Gays Abominations

Joe hits it right on the money when he says:  "See? The UK isn't that different than America. The guilty dog barks the loudest there too."  Amen, brother.

Joe Jervis: Why Pride?

Joe Jervis writes a moving post on why Pride matters; here's an excerpt, but go read the whole thing:

I'm not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It's OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our "debauched" celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING.

All you suburban, lawn mowing, corpo-droid homos out there, hiding behind your picket fences, the ones wringing your hands and worrying that Pride ruins YOUR personal rep, listen up. Do you think that straight Americans worry that Mardi Gras damages international perception of American culture? America, land of the free, home of "Show Us Your Tits!"? They don't and neither should we. Our Pride celebrations are just our own unique version of Mardi Gras, only instead of throwing beads, we throw shade. No one has to ask US to show our tits. We've already got 'em out there, baby. And some of them are real. . . .

But sometimes I think we are the worst people in the entire world when it comes to standing up for each other. The gay people who'd like to soothe their personal image problems by selectively culling some of our children from Pride events? They disgust me. They appall me. They embarrass me. To them I say: the very road that YOU now have the privilege of swaggering upon was paved by those very queens and leather freaks that you complain about,as you practice your "masculine" and give us butch face. If you want to live in the house that THEY BUILT, you better act like you fucking know it. United we stand, you snide bitches. America's kulturkampf ain't gonna be solved by making flamboyant people go away.

I'll end this by making one final Jewish reference. Possibly you've heard the Jewish in-joke that sums up the meaning of all Jewish holidays? "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." My Pride version?

They wish we were invisible.

We're not.

Let's dance.

Confession: Joe's post has made me stop and think and re-evaluate my attitude. All these many years I've been working on doing the straight-acting thing, at least around the straights. But has that gotten me an ounce more respect from them? Hell no.

I've told the story of what happened after my husband died, and how cold and cruel the treatment from the townfolk was; and God knows we were the most un-flamboyant gays like ever, in Wranglers and boots, cowboy hats and pickup trucks and country music on the radio. But that made no difference; as I discovered, we were still hated by a large part of the populace just as much as any drag queens would have been in that little town.

I remember about 30 years ago, a favorite aunt of mine once made the pointed remark, apropos of nothing, when I was visiting: "I don't mind what gay people do as long as they aren't flamboyant about it." I hadn't come out to her - I never did, she's dead now - and I always thought that was a coded remark: I love you, and I know you're gay, just don't show it or talk about it.

In other words, Lie to me, don't be yourself, I don't want to deal with that. But would she really have loved me any less if I had come out to her?

Do the haters really hate me any less for keeping silent and looking straight?

Joe's post has made me realize the answer to both questions is No.

In that case, fuck it. You might as well live your life the way you want to, then. Keeping up a big act, living a lie, doesn't make any difference about who loves you in the end.

Thanks for the epiphany, Joe.

Photo from a hate-filled rightwing blog that gave it the title

"A conquering army on the march."

I'm loving it, enlist me. Where can I get a uniform like that?

More armies like this and the world would be a much better place.

Eat at Joe's

Several tasty morsels on the menu today at Joe.My.God. (sorry, no Cheetos):

--Topless photo of Christian role model Carrie Prejean, Miss California. Also, Joe quotes 1 Tim. 2:9, (how'd he steal my idea?) which apparently is one of those old dusty Bible verses that's totally outmoded and doesn't make sense in the modern world, so it can just be ignored (oh but don't you dare cut out a single word about the perverted homosexuals!).

--Speaking of pervs, erudite Joe the Plumber (no relation to the other Joe) defines the word queer for the uneducated among us, and says all his gay friends know he won't let them anywhere near his kids.

--Speaking of idiots, Muslim clerics in the African nation of Senegal are calling for all gay people to be killed. But even death is not enough: outraged believers have dug up the body of a gay man who died of natural causes last week and deposited the remains on his parents' doorstep. Twice. Only holy people are fit to be buried in a Muslim cemetery, you see.

--Speaking of holy men, a professor at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University - also pastor of a local church - was charged this week with "sexual object penetration" on a 21-year-old female student to whom he gave a back massage on the floor of his office, where she innocently fell asleep. Riiiiiight.

--On the Supreme Court's ruling in the Janet Jackson case, Joe does a nice job of summing up the blind hypocrisy of the modern world this way: "Thousands of gruesome murders on every channel at every hour, but $550,000 for less than a second of titty. Insanity."

--and he posts Rachel Maddow's take on the White House weasel-wording about DADT (it still doesn't sound good for us, guys):

For the record, here is White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, January 9, 2009:

Evil Gay Anarcho-Fascists: Protest Reax

Well, we got people's attention with all the Prop 8 protests last week. Some was positive, but here are some negative reactions: some funny, some hateful, some appalled.

As I've said before, nonviolence is the only way to go here, folks. Let's get smart, not stupid. Remember: we are the 5 percent, straights are the great big 95 percent. It's a new day in America, but even so, violence and vandalism on our part won't get us what we want.

I well recall growing up in the segregated South of the 1960's, and the reactions of my parents and their friends to the riots and violence of those times: "You see how the n*ggers are when you let them get out of line . . . " they would say. They ignored all the good arguments in favor of civil rights and focused only on the looting, burning, and spilled blood.

And in fact, the grown-ups of my childhood never were persuaded by even the nonviolent civil rights leaders; they simply acquiesced, eventually, in the face of the new civil rights laws and court orders. Of course, the anarchy and race war they feared would follow all that never came to pass; but fear is a powerful, dangerous thing. We need to lessen people's fears about gay people, not increase them.

I do pray the hotheads among us simmer down and listen to reason. Rex Wockner celebrates what he terms Activism 4.0:

We have now indeed entered Activism 4.0 or whatever the hell you want to call it. Our "leaders" let us down and you -- you, the average gay or lesbian citizen who just wants to have equal rights and maybe even get married -- you have seized power by using Facebook and your blogs, e-mail and Twitter, MySpace and text-messages to launch a new gay movement . . . . You don't have to listen to the gay "leaders" who failed you anymore, you don't have to give them any more money, you just have to figure out what you want to do next with the power that now is yours -- to get what you want: Full equality.

Yeah, well that sounds real nice, Rex. But I don't know. I'm all for grassroots organization; but without a clear leader, without a clear strategy, will the results be anything but mediocre, at best? It's one thing to alert a bunch of folks about a party in the streets and get them to show up; it's quite another thing to do the grueling long-haul work of educating and persuading the 95 percent to vote for equal rights.

Will all this grassroots energy coalesce into an effective, enduring force for change, or just peter out after the Next Big Groovy Thing comes along? I think some leadership is needed, and the national orgs are probably doing some much-needed reassessing of themselves right now. Sort of like the Republican party, you know?

Joe Jervis has a great post on the piggish Newt Gingrich, who is very sure of where this is all going:

I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion.

Joe also has pictures of Newt's three wives and tells how he got them, to show just how sincere Newt is about all his traditional religion.

Joe also has a long quote by ex-gay preacher James Hartline, who raises the anarchy warning in this newsflash from Heaven:

Each time homosexual activists attempt to force their agenda on California, there have been raging, massive, incinerating fires sweeping across the California landscape.

Today, people are running for their lives as 800 California homes have burned down and the firestorm is spreading like a nuclear holocaust. Yet, the radical homosexual anarchists rampage upon the streets of this state demanding the destruction of marriage and family, and the establishment of their socialistic dark vision for society.

You see, the problem is this: God has plans for California in the near days ahead. Thus, these attempts to force an ungodly tyranny on this state are being met blow with blow by God. God is saying, "California shall be a refuge for America when the catastrophes come. California belongs to Me, not the advocates of sexual anarchy."

Yeah, he's an idiot. But people listen to preachers like this, and believe them. They won't turn the channel and listen to us, especially if we are being ugly and violent. They will remember that one image to the exclusion of all others. Let's not give them the ammo to shoot us down with.

On AOL's Political Machine, blogger Liza Porteus Viana asks, "Is Anarchy the Answer in Proposition 8 Protests?" I'm not sure why she calls a handful of asshole incidents "anarchy" but I think the choice of words is telling: people's deepest fears are being stoked now. Liza says,

Yes, there's frustration, but funneling that frustration into more productive, effective methods of pushing your cause will do a lot more good than just further alienating those whose support you could use. If the idea is to encourage others to be more open-minded and accepting of those different from them, beating them into submission (metaphorically speaking, hopefully) might not be the best route.

And you should read some of the posted comments below Liza's story, which includes a local news clip of one of those incidents she mentions. A selected few:

Angiebaby: How is vigilante violence going to effect this cause? beating people, vandalizing churches and racial persecution never have, and never will, bring a positive solution to any problem.

reidgator: To the supporters of gay rights: be very careful. Your use of violence may incite others who disagree with other outcomes of this election. Can those who disagree with Obama as president use violence? Some of them may be declraing "We should fight!" Hw about por-life supporters? Can they use violence?

BH: The cause? What is the cause? Is it to turn our civilization into a dmonic III world country? God has set up laws and iit's time our country began to inforce the laws. Marriage has always been recoginized to be between a man and woman. Your cause is evil and children are watching. But more important, God is watching!. Turn from you sin and turn to God and He will deliver you and set you free.

Truth Man: Marriage is between one man and one woman. Thomas Jefferson never envisioned a bunch of queers demanding we change the definition of marriage.

BH, again: Enough is enough, if you want to live in sin in the privacy of your own house, so be it, but don't try to force it on our children, which you are doing in the schools now, and on decent human beings. There is good and evil even though the liberals are doing everything they can to turn our nation into something evil. The blood of the unborn is on your hands and God hears that blood crying out to Him for vengeance. Yes, he is a God of love,but He also is a God of judment. Americans need to rise up and stop this before it's too late.

me: am not gay but voted yes on Prop 8. Violent protestings will not gain a thing. They will only confirm what many already believe. You're going to screw things up for yourselves.

Listen to what these commenters are saying, people: there's a lot of fear and misinformation being spewed about us. Of course, they are totally wrong-headed, but they are part of the big 95 percent. What alternate, positive message have we got to offer to the fair-minded people? We have to persuade, we have to give respect if we want to get respect. Respect - and votes - can't be demanded.

So guys, please stop and think about what you're doing when you get loud and rowdy. Don't louse this moment up for all of us.

You want this to be a free country? Act like it. You want your rights, you better respect the other guy's, too. I'll close with an excerpt from a San Jose Mercury editorial:

Anger is not a strategy. Harassment will not change minds and can cause a wider backlash. Stifling others' rights of expression is destructive to the cause of a minority.
One ugly case was the boisterous protest by dozens of gay marriage supporters outside a small Los Angeles restaurant where the owner's daughter had contributed $100 to Proposition 8. The loss of customers threatened the livelihoods of employees, some of whom were gay and opposed the initiative.

Economic actions dating back to the Montgomery bus boycott are staples of any civil rights struggle. Gay marriage supporters are posting the identities of Proposition 8 donors, and people certainly are free to not patronize businesses owned by those who disagree with them. But the selective boycotts of small donors clearly is meant to send a message of intimidation and suppress the First Amendment right of expression. That is not just self-defeating but dangerous.

Supporters of equal rights would be wiser to focus on persuading others of the justice of their cause, which will only grow clearer over time.

Gay Violence: NO!

Last Friday night, a crowd in the Castro chased some street preachers out of the 'hood, and the riot squad had to escort them out in force, for protection. An ominous scene:

Joe Jervis says:

Over the weekend the story got major play on right-wing and Christianist blogs as another example (like in Palm Springs) of how inherently violent and intolerant gay people supposedly are. I'm not at ALL buying that things went like the Justice House people claim, but these confrontations are definitely escalating. Ugly and uglier.

I'm really worried about where this is heading. Somebody is going to get killed and we're all going to lose. I'm pissed, we're all fucking pissed, but this is going to a bad place. And I say that knowing that if I had been in the Castro on Friday night, I probably would have been right there in it. We've got the moral upper hand in this fight and every day more and more people see that. But we have GOT to keep these things peaceful. Yell, fuck yeah, YELL. But don't touch. Don't hit. Don't throw. Please.

Andrew Sullivan says:

Some of the fringe elements in the gay community risk undoing the massive, positive wave of peaceful protest this weekend with intolerance and even violence. Cut it out, morons. It's sickening. Christians - even Christianists, who seek to impose their religious convictions into laws that would actively punish gay couples - nonetheless have First Amendment rights that must be respected at all times.

What I say: Ditto to all the above. Look guys, it's a symbolic battle we're fighting here, not a physical one. I'm mad as hell too, but I know lashing out physically will only hurt us, not help us. It's not cool. It sucks. So DON'T DO IT. Use your big head, sober up, and channel that energy into what will help us and all Americans in the struggle for equality. Be men, not ugly babies.

Yeah, our rights are delayed, and most unjustly. But you ain't hurting that much, to get violent over it. We are all still going to our jobs every day, paying the bills, lounging on the sofa and watching TV at night, hanging with our friends, all the comfortable routines of modern life.

Meanwhile, FIVE MILLION people have died over in the Congo, and more every day, in a brutal decade of genocide. Do you know about that? Do you care? In a situation like that, retaliatory violence for self-defense might be justified. But that's not what's happening here, not by a long shot.

So let's put things in perspective, folks. Peaceful, nonviolent protests are fine. Anything more is just plain stupid. Period.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.

--Martin Luther King