Today's Quote

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who resigned at the end of last year:

Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader. . . .

What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries; it is our internal divisiveness. We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future. . . .

All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment—and one that can be reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.

According to Wikipedia,

Mattis was raised in a bookish household that did not own a television. . . . During his service years, Mattis was considered an "intellectual" among the upper ranks. . . . He is noted for his interest in the study of military history and world history, with a personal library that once included over 7,000 volumes, and a penchant for publishing required reading lists for Marines under his command. He required his Marines to be well-read in the culture and history of regions where they were deployed, and had his Marines deploying to Iraq undergo "cultural sensitivity training."

A devout Catholic, Mattis has never been married.

President Obama's Farewell Address

Last night, the President addressed the nation for the last time from McCormick Place in Chicago.  An excerpt:

For 240 years, our nation’s call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation. It’s what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom. It’s what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande, pushed women to reach for the ballot, powered workers to organize. It’s why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan – and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.

So that’s what we mean when we say America is exceptional. Not that our nation has been flawless from the start, but that we have shown the capacity to change, and make life better for those who follow.

Yes, our progress has been uneven. The work of democracy has always been hard, contentious and sometimes bloody. For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back. But the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all, and not just some.

If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history…if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11…if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens – you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

But that’s what we did. That’s what you did. You were the change. You answered people’s hopes, and because of you, by almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.

In ten days, the world will witness a hallmark of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power from one freely-elected president to the next. I committed to President-Elect Trump that my administration would ensure the smoothest possible transition, just as President Bush did for me. Because it’s up to all of us to make sure our government can help us meet the many challenges we still face.

We have what we need to do so. After all, we remain the wealthiest, most powerful, and most respected nation on Earth. Our youth and drive, our diversity and openness, our boundless capacity for risk and reinvention mean that the future should be ours.

But that potential will be realized only if our democracy works. Only if our politics reflects the decency of the our people. Only if all of us, regardless of our party affiliation or particular interest, help restore the sense of common purpose that we so badly need right now.

Full text of the President's remarks here.



In the following video, celebrities as well as ordinary citizens share their most memorable "Obama moments":



And here is mine, from June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court extended marriage equality - and to me, Mr. Obama will always be the Equality President for his outspoken support for gay rights and the freedom to marry whomever you love:

I'm sure all my truckbuddies will join with me in saying,

Thank you, Mr. President, for this and for all the good things you have done. Despite fanatical opposition in Congress, and in the midst of a world racked with violence and terror, you calmly upheld the highest traditions of the Oval Office with dignity, intelligence, and grace, and did the nation proud. You will be sorely missed.

The Two Americas, Mapped

The New York Times has generated a couple of fairly large geographic maps showing the difference between the America that voted for Clinton and the one that voted for Trump.  The small snip below is just to whet your appetite, so go look at the real thing..

And in case you are wondering -- I have been surprised to discover that there is no single nationwide authority for the popular vote, which is still being counted in some states by election officials. However, it seems that two private websites that keep running totals of the vote are regarded by the general media as being more or less dependable; here they are:

The Cook Political Report

Dave Leip's Atlas of U. S. Presidential Elections

Not that the vote count really matters at this point; but the stats are there if you want to see them.

100 Million Americans Did Not Vote - Why?

The brown-nosing and sucking-up begins:
People magazine glorifies Trump on the cover of its next issue.
(Do I really have to point out the divine-halo effect for you guys?)

A summary of the popular and electoral votes from Wikipedia.

Some quick stats for you all to chew on: Nationwide turnout was, as of yesterday's estimates, only 56.9 percent of eligible voters (U.S. citizens over age 18), or by my calculation, 65.8 percent of registered voters. So about a third of the registered electorate just sat out the election, which is pretty much what has happened in every presidential election for the last fifty years.

Let me make the point one more time, for clarity:  out of the 220 million-plus Americans who are old enough to vote, 60 million and a smidgeon voted for Clinton, and 60 million and a speck voted for Trump, and about 100 million did not vote at all.  That is the staggering fact.

If 80 or 90 percent had voted, would we still be living in the nightmare of a Trump victory today? I can't answer that, but you all can meditate on the figures and links below if you can stand to.

Voting-age population characteristics from the United States Census Bureau,
posted on their website Oct. 28, 2016.  Click to enlarge.

Vox:  Trump was elected by a little more than a quarter of eligible voters

Heavy: Over 90 Million Eligible Voters Didn’t Vote in the 2016 Presidential Election


Politico: America hits new landmark: 200 million registered voters

United States Elections Project: 2016 November General Election Turnout Rates, by states

The American Presidency Project: Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1828 - 2012

Pew Research Center: Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education

Pew Research Center: How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis

(This last link has some very interesting items:  60 percent of white Catholic voters checked the box for Trump, as did 24 percent of Jewish voters.  Why, why, why?)

From Canada with Love

A refreshing note from abroad, for a change:

National Park Service Centennial

The National Park Service turns 100 today.  In 2009, 320 million people, nearly equal to the entire population of the United States, visited one or another of the 413 parks, monuments, battlefields, recreation areas, and historic sites. The annual budget for the Park Service is about $3 billion.

1916 map of the then-existing national parks and railroad routes to them, in a time when paved roads were still very few and far between.  Click to enlarge.

1938 poster for Yellowstone National Park.

More Churches Okay with the Gay

Results from the 2014 Pew Research Center survey of religious life in America continue to be assessed.  This week, the Pew folks released these charts showing the change in acceptance of homosexuality among various Christian denominations between 2007 and 2014 (click to enlarge):

And here's a chart Pew created last July showing where American religious groups stand on same-sex marriage:

Also of interest from last summer is this chart showing religious affiliations in major U. S. cities:

In case you are wondering, Wikipedia lists the major American metro areas and their populations here.


And of course individuals vary widely in how much time they devote to church activities, as shown in this chart released last month:

American Accents

Young people around the world attempt American accents - some of them do surprisingly well:




And some Irish folks find it all very amusing:




The interesting thing is, all these folks may not sound like us, but they sure look like us, don't they?

70 Years On: VJ Day in Color

Alfred Eisenstat's famous photo of the "Kissing Sailor" in Times Square on VJ Day, as originally published in black and white in Life, and as colorized by Swedish artist Sanna Dullaway in 2012.  Click to enlarge.

World War II ended 70 years ago yesterday.  Here are some scenes of jubilant crowds in America and England celebrating the victory in the warm August sunshine - and getting a little rowdy too.





Life magazine published some fascinating pictures taken that week around the United States, showing what life was like for ordinary folks, as well as some interesting commentary on what the end of the war meant for the world and its future. Worth a look here.

Today's Headlines

Via Newseum - click to enlarge:

LOVE HAS WON!

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

—Justice Anthony Kennedy, Obergefell v. Hodges majority opinion (emphasis mine)

Equal dignity in the eyes of the law:  the Supreme Court this morning in a 5-4 decision made same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

That makes it the law of the land.  Full text of the ruling, including dissents, in PDF format here.

THANK YOU, Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, and Kennedy. You have recognized us as fully human beings, inherently possessed of the same rights to liberty, equality, and human dignity as everyone else, and we are deeply grateful.

A new era has begun, a whole new world for us queer people. It's beautiful.

And I have lived to see this day.

Just rolled out of bed and speechless with amazement here.  I'll post more stuff on the ruling as I get to it.






President Obama spoke about the ruling from the Rose Garden this morning, saying: "Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens. And then sometimes, there are days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt."



Full text of the President's remarks here.


And love rules in Texas - OMG Texas fucking Texas:



See also this post I made last year on Dallas couple Jack Evans and George Harris, who have been a couple since 1961.


And go check out the delightful corporate responses celebrating today's ruling at Joe.My.God.


Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights reviews the constitutional standing of marriage in general, and explains why today's ruling is a win-win victory:




Your Head Trucker, by the way, respectfully disagrees with the learned Chief Justice Roberts, who in his dissent opined that "The Constitution has nothing to do" with gay marriage. As Matt just pointed out, it has everyfuckingthing to do with it, and with the promise at the heart of America - that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - the Chief Justice's deeply Catholic views on the subject notwithstanding.

But I fear that his dissent, as well as the clownish, apoplectic hyperbole of Justice Scalia's dissent - in his calmest phrase, he calls the ruling "a threat to American democracy" - are not merely unworthy of the highest court in the land, but will furnish ammunition for the haters for generations to come, and indeed invite a vehement, if not violent reaction.  By their dissents - which would callously deny to millions of ordinary Americans the equal protection and dignity of the laws -  they have disgraced themselves, and deeply dishonored the court and the country.

As much as we are entitled to celebrate this day - which by curious coincidence or design is also the anniversary of the Lawrence and Windsor decisions - we must not expect that prejudice, bigotry, and murderous hatred will simply dry up and blow away. The shooting last week in Charleston shows only too clearly that they can remain and fester in ugly, evil ways for many decades:  part of the sad, tragic story of our flawed human race.

And yet, sometimes we manage to lift ourselves above the level of the primordial mud and the law of the jungle, and approach towards the love that moves the stars - and today is one of those times.


Conservative commentator S.E. Cupp celebrates today's marriage ruling, and calls it a victory for conservative values that the Republican Party needs to embrace:




Andrew Sullivan, one of the earliest and most vociferous advocates for marriage equality, returned to his now-retired blog today to reflect upon the meaning of this victory:

This core truth is what Justice Kennedy affirmed today, for the majority: that gay people are human. I wrote the following in 1996:

Homosexuality, at its core, is about the emotional connection between two adult human beings. And what public institution is more central—more definitive—of that connection than marriage? The denial of marriage to gay people is therefore not a minor issue. It is the entire issue. It is the most profound statement our society can make that homosexual love is simply not as good as heterosexual love; that gay lives and commitments and hopes are simply worth less. It cuts gay people off not merely from civic respect, but from the rituals and history of their own families and friends. It erases them not merely as citizens, but as human beings.

We are not disordered or sick or defective or evil – at least no more than our fellow humans in this vale of tears. We are born into family; we love; we marry; we take care of our children; we die. No civil institution is related to these deep human experiences more than civil marriage and the exclusion of gay people from this institution was a statement of our core inferiority not just as citizens but as human beings. It took courage to embrace this fact the way the Supreme Court did today. . . .

I think of the gay kids in the future who, when they figure out they are different, will never know the deep psychic wound my generation – and every one before mine – lived through: the pain of knowing they could never be fully part of their own family, never be fully a citizen of their own country. I think, more acutely, of the decades and centuries of human shame and darkness and waste and terror that defined gay people’s lives for so long. And I think of all those who supported this movement who never lived to see this day, who died in the ashes from which this phoenix of a movement emerged. This momentous achievement is their victory too – for marriage, as Kennedy argued, endures past death.

I never believed this would happen in my lifetime when I wrote my first several TNR essays and then my book, Virtually Normal, and then the anthology and the hundreds and hundreds of talks and lectures and talk-shows and call-ins and blog-posts and articles in the 1990s and 2000s. I thought the book, at least, would be something I would have to leave behind me – secure in the knowledge that its arguments were, in fact, logically irrefutable, and would endure past my own death, at least somewhere. I never for a millisecond thought I would live to be married myself. Or that it would be possible for everyone, everyone in America.

But it has come to pass. All of it. In one fell, final swoop.

Know hope.

Here's YouTube's own celebration of marriage equality:




And to cap this momentous day in American history, here's a live shot time-lapse video of the White House bathed in a rainbow of light to celebrate the victory of love:



In case the video isn't working when you view this post, here's a screen shot I took - isn't it beautiful?

See more landmarks lit with the rainbow here and here.

Lovin' the Gay in the USA

Gallup released the results of its 2015 Morals and Values Poll yesterday, including this remarkable finding on attitudes to marriage equality:

Sixty percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage, as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on its constitutionality next month. This is up from 55% last year and is the highest Gallup has found on the question since it was first asked in 1996.

Though same-sex marriage continues to be politically divisive, support for its legal status has reached new highs among Americans of all political stripes -- with Democrats at 76% support, independents at 64% and Republicans at 37%.

Last month, Gallup estimated that about 780,000 Americans are in same-sex marriages.

Today, Gallup also released poll results on the morality of gayness:

In addition to their changing views on the origins of being gay or lesbian, Americans' views on the morality of same-sex relations have also shifted in recent years. Currently, a record-high 63% of Americans describe gay or lesbian relations as "morally acceptable." That became the majority view in 2010. Only a decade ago, a majority thought same-sex relations were morally wrong.

Since 2001, increasing percentages of both Republicans and Democrats say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable, though Democrats continue to be much more likely to express that view. Notably, for the first time, a majority of Republicans believe that same-sex relations are morally acceptable. Democrats crossed the majority threshold more than a decade ago.

You Spell Tomato . . .

Brits vs. Americans: Who's Smarter?

Anglophenia has a cute little YouTube series I'll be sharing here on the Blue Truck - here's Episode 1:

The Game of the States

I always wanted to have that board game as a kid, but never got it.  Anyway, here's the latest marriage map of the country, courtesy of Freedom to Marry:

Note that same-sex marriage is not effective in Minnesota and Rhode Island until August 1st.

BTW, the latest USA Today poll shows a record high of 55%-40% nationwide in favor of same-sex marriage. The only groups with majorities not in favor are, as you might expect, Republicans, Southerners, and the over-65's.

Having said that, it's rather amazing how closely their views align with those of Russian President Putin, who has just signed a law banning all gay pride rallies and any other public form of support - "to protect the children," of course. American conservatives have in fact already been sidling up to the formerly dreaded Ruskies, and the notorious Scott Lively, who got Ugandan politicians all fired up to pass the "Kill the Gays" bill a few years back, has just finished a 50-city speaking tour in Russia. He boasts that the new law substantially follows recommendations he made.

May he rot in hell, is what your Head Trucker says. Meanwhile, a small contingent of pride demonstrators was beaten and arrested in Moscow this weekend. This is exactly what them good ol' boy, Bible-believing, God-fearing American patriots want to see happen here - and worse, and would do in a heartbeat to you and me, if only they could.



And in St. Petersburg, antigay thugs broke through police protection to beat up the gays:




Bottom line: While we're all deservedly a bit giddy over the Supreme Court rulings here, give a thought to our persecuted brothers and sisters in other lands.  And don't bitch so much about life in America, Miss Thing. You could living be in a much worse place.

Tutu Speaks Truth to Power

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times:

I am deeply, deeply disturbed at the suggestion in “A Court to Vet Kill Lists” (news analysis, front page, Feb. 9) that possible judicial review of President Obama’s decisions to approve the targeted killing of suspected terrorists might be limited to the killings of American citizens.

Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours? That President Obama can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny than if the target is an American? Would your Supreme Court really want to tell humankind that we, like the slave Dred Scott in the 19th century, are not as human as you are? I cannot believe it.

I used to say of apartheid that it dehumanized its perpetrators as much as, if not more than, its victims. Your response as a society to Osama bin Laden and his followers threatens to undermine your moral standards and your humanity.

DESMOND M. TUTU
Aboard MV Explorer, near Hong Kong
Feb. 11, 2013

The writer, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town.

See also this article in the New Yorker, "Torture and Obama's Drone Program":

Nick Gillespie suggested that liberals’ lesser outrage at Obama’s drones than Bush’s “enhanced interrogations” amounted to a kind of intellectual corruption. “This isn’t ultimately about ideological hypocrisy—of liberals changing their tune once their guy is in office—but something much more basic and much more disturbing. It reveals that for all their crowing about being watchdogs of all that is good and decent in society, when push comes to shove, too many journalists are ready and willing handmaidens to power—including the power to kill.”

And this article in the Miami Herald, "On Use of Drones, Obama Overreaches":

But in its memo, which surfaces as the Senate ponders confirming John Brennan as director of the CIA, the Justice Department says its definition of “imminent threat” doesn’t require “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”

In other words, “imminent” doesn’t mean “imminent.” And if U.S. intelligence — which we all know is infallible, right? — determines you to be a member of al Qaida, that determination, absent any evidence of a planned attack, gives the government the legal pretext to vaporize you. Worse, the government contends this may be done without oversight, judicial or otherwise. The president becomes, quite literally, your judge, jury and executioner.

Cf. Targeted killing - and for a further thrill, National security letter.

And this chart. And this quote.

There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

--Ecclesiastes 7:20

Honk to Mimi, who first posted Tutu's letter on her blog.

Why American Health Care Co$$$ts So Much

There's a documentary on this topic airing tonight on PBS, if any of you fellas want to see it.  Here's a trailer:

Watch Documentary: Why Does U.S. Health Care Cost So Much? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

The Impossible Dream?

As we await the Supreme Court's judgment on the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare," this morning at 9 o'clock Texas time, your Head Trucker is filled with pessimism. I very much fear that the justices will eviscerate the law, which means the cruel, obscene lack of universal healthcare in this country will go on, perhaps for decades longer. And all because of the wicked, coldhearted opposition of the thieving, lying, greedy Republicans and their bloodsucking determination to make billions in profits out of human need and suffering.

For a full century now, ever since Teddy Roosevelt called for a national insurance plan in his 1912 "Bull Moose" campaign, the dark, cunning powers of the wealthy and the hypocritical have kept strangling this idea at birth, an idea that should be a vibrant reality, and the birthright of every American, indeed of every human being the world over. FDR, Truman, JFK, Clinton, even Nixon, for God's sake, have all tried to bring this to fruition, but all were rebuffed by the reactionary opposition of the profit-mongers.

With these thoughts in mind, I have turned my gaze once more to Canada, where is displayed what should be here in our own country: a humane, effective, and much-loved system of universal health insurance that covers all regardless of ability to pay. This little video made in 2009 is just one of many available on YouTube that illustrate the Canadian system; I share this one with you all because it makes the point so simply and so well that it brings a tear to my eye - perhaps when you watch it, you will understand why.



Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo writes this morning:

The fact that the Court might completely void the law is the consequence of an extremely esoteric oversight. The challengers’ case rests on a legal theory hatched explicitly to achieve a political end. That’s why most Constitutional scholars continue to believe the case for the law is strong, even if its legal chances have dimmed over the past several months. And that’s the reason why it would be extraordinary and condemnable if the Court throws the whole thing out anyhow.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said yesterday, "If the court does not strike down the entire law, the House will move to repeal what's left of it."

One small glimmer of hope in the gathering gloom, though: some think that if the mandate is struck down, it would in fact pave the way for a single-payer system nationwide.

And Ted Frier in Salon offers an instructive insight into the current Supreme Court, which for the first time in history counts not a single Protestant among its members, who include the buffoonish, openly partisan Justice Scalia:

I'm convinced Scalia would like to see the country governed just like the Catholic Church of his pre-Vatican II dreams while he and the bishops win back the faith and trust of followers through brute force and intimidation and showing the unlettered masses who's boss.

I've long maintained that one cannot understand the behavior of the current conservative Court majority without also appreciating its affinity for a traditional hierarchy that is an indelible hallmark of the autocratic Catholicism to which all five members of this right wing majority are devoted.

Both the Catholic bishops and the conservative Catholic members of the Court, after all, are attempting to resuscitate a discredited and disgraced elite and restore it to power. . . .

See also this interactive guide from the Washington Post on how today's ruling, whatever it is, will affect you.

BREAKING: Live from ScotusBlog at 10:13 a.m., Washington time:

The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government's power to terminate states' Medicaid funds is narrowly read.

Apparently a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative Republican and Bush appointee, uncharacteristically voting with the left of the court. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

10:20 a.m.: Justice Kennedy, the swing voter who often sides with the liberal wing of the court on social issues, surprisingly joined the conservative justices in voting against the law. The majority, however, held that the individual mandate is a tax, and thus well within the constitutional authority of Congress to impose on citizens.

10:28 a.m.: Justice Kennedy, writing for the dissenting minority, says, "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety." So God bless the Chief Justice, who either has an actual heart, or at least an eye to the history books.

Your Head Trucker cries Shame! Shame! Shame! and every condign imprecation upon on the heads of the four dissenting justices, whose names will most certainly be engraved in infamy.

10:35: So the entire ACA is held to be consitutional indeed, and the only penalty for an individual who doesn't obey the mandate to purchase insurance is a penalty that you have to pay when you file your income tax - I think it's $695, which is less than many people get back every year from the IRS. So a damn good win for the side of the angels.

10:38: The full text of the healthcare decision is now online.

10:45: It occurs to your Head Trucker that this decision makes Obama's victory in November much more likely now. If you doubt that, just consider what his position would have been had the Court thrown out the law that he staked so much of his prestige on. I'll bet his balls are clanking at every step he takes now.

If only the meek, mild, nicey-nice Democrats in Congress will now go out and pound the stumps and stir up some fucking enthusiasm before voting day!

10:59: The Court has now recessed until October 1, and the decision goes into the history books, allowing the life of the Republic to continue trudging along, as it so often as, sometimes slipping, sliding, or stumbling, but somehow in the long run always onward and upward toward a more perfect union.

Though many improvements remain to be made in our healthcare system and how it is funded, at least from this moment on, no longer will healthcare be the privilege of the wealthy and the well-off and the well-connected. From today forward, it will be considered not merely the privilege, but the inalienable right of every citizen - even if the Court has not used that language in today's ruling. From henceforth, universal healthcare will be regarded as the birthright of every American, rich or poor, high or low. It may yet take awhile for this realization to dawn in every mind, in every heart, but dawn it will, and that right soon, I have no doubt.

And I thank God for that.

The Supreme Court

What We Believe

Map showing the largest denomination (a plurality) 
in each U. S. county; black dots indicate a majority.

Since it's Sunday, here's some stats on religious belief you can meditate on. Keep in mind that no survey of human behavior can ever be totally accurate to the last decimal point; and people do sometimes change their, um, lifestyles beliefs as they proceed through life.

From the U. S. Religious Landscape Survey, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2007, based on about 36,000 responses nationwide:

For a breakdown by denomination, check the PDF summary here.

And you can cross-check the numbers with those provided by the Association of Religion Data Archives here.

Population of the U. S. at the 2010 census was 310,232,683. 

Homos included: latest estimate is 3.5 percent of the adult population, equal to the state of New Jersey, plus 700,000 transgendered folk. 

But that estimate came up with 1.8% bi, and only 1.7% gay or lesbian; your Head Trucker is just not sure that's entirely right.  Also, it ignores the fact that people are gay from birth on up, just like with race or sex, so the numbers are skewed.

Moving the Mountain

Andrew Sullivan on how the President is reshaping America, a step at the time:

[The healthcare reform bill] is the biggest single piece of social legislation in 40 years. The Congressional Budget Office predicts it will indeed insure 30m people.

And this is only the end of year one. In the stimulus package in the spring, Obama invested an unprecedented amount of federal money in infrastructure, with an unsung focus on non-carbon energy sources. He engineered a vast and nerve-racking banking rescue that is now under-budget by $200 billion because so many banks survived. He organised the restructuring of the US car industry. He appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina Supreme Court justice, solidifying his non-white political base. If market confidence is one reason we appear to have avoided a second Great Depression, then the president deserves a modicum of credit for conjuring it. Growth is edging back into the picture. . . .

The disillusioned are those who weren’t listening in the campaign or not watching closely in the first year. The right has failed to register his steeliness and persistence and the left has preferred to ignore his temperamental and institutional conservatism. Both sides still misread him — hence the spluttering gloom. And there is indeed something dispiriting about the relentless prose of government compared with the poetry of the campaign. But Obama is a curious blend of both: a relentless pragmatist and a soaring rhetorician.

In time, if the economy recovers, if black, young and Hispanic voters see the benefits of their new healthcare security, if troops begin to come home from Iraq in large numbers next summer, if jobs begin to return by the autumn, then the logic of his election will endure. His care to keep the tone civil, to insist on impure change rather than ideological stasis has already turned the Republicans into foam-flecked nostalgics for a simpler, whiter, easier period and has flummoxed those leftliberals who wanted revenge as much as reform. Both are part of an embittered past that Obama wants to leave behind. His clarity on this, and his refusal to take the bait of divisiveness and partisanship, is striking. That takes an enormous amount of self-confidence and self-restraint.

He has failed in one respect: the political culture is still deeply partisan, opportunistic and divided. But this, I believe, is not so much a function of his liberal pragmatism as it is a remnant of an American right in drastic need of new intellectual life and rhetorical restraint. In this respect, Obama has made the right crazier, which may be a necessary prelude to it becoming saner.

It’s worth remembering that America is a vast and cumbersome machine, designed to resist deep change. That this one man has moved the country a few key, structural degrees in one year, and that the direction is as clear and as strategic as that first embraced by Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (in the opposite direction), is under-appreciated. But the shift is real and more dramatic than current events might indicate. I wouldn’t bet on its evanescence quite yet.

What I Say:  No matter how disappointed we may be with Obama for one reason or another, just remember those eight long, long, looooooong dark years of Bush, fellas - and then smile, why don't you.