Same-Sex Marriage Bill in the House of Lords

The noble lords are now at the report stage of the bill, and conservatives are making a last-ditch effort to derail or change the bill.  Click here to watch the entire day's debate from the start.

Or read a much-abbreviated live blog of today's debate here.

For the record, your Head Trucker agrees with a couple of points the conservatives have raised:

1. It makes no sense, and is manifestly unfair and unequal not to allow adultery or non-consummation as a reason for divorce with same-sex couples, as they are for opposite-sex couples.

2. I would allow a grandfather exemption for current marriage registrars who do not wish to perform same-sex marriages on grounds of religious conviction; though of course any future registrars hired after the act comes into force should be told that it is a condition of employment in the job. There is nearly always more than one marriage registrar in local offices, or one from another area can be brought in to do the job. Your Head Trucker does not like to see anyone lose their livelihood on account of personal conviction of any kind.

But the noble lords on the Government benches keep airily and blithely waving away all such objections, and the vast majority keep voting them down, so there you go. Charmingly, all the noble lords of whatever persuasion are unfailingly polite and respectful of one another, even when they bitterly disagree, which is so astonishing to see in this modern world - very refreshing.

Your Head Trucker also emphatically agrees with this conservative British columnist that calling someone "gay" - or, I will go further to say, even calling someone "queer" or "faggot" - is not and should not be considered a hate crime.  If you start making every insult a crime, then there is no end and no limit to all that; and you will only embitter the speakers and breed in them a vengeful fury.  There must be no thoughtcrimes or Thought Police in our land of the free. 

In the flush of victory and social change, if we are to deserve all we have won, we must all resist the cruel, Stalinist urge to rub people's noses into the dirt and force them to bend to our every last demand of political and personal correctness.  If you are sincere in believing that liberty is a great American principle, you must concede that freedom of dissent and disagreement, even the expression of disapproval, are essential to our democratic values.  Otherwise, how are we morally different from the bigots who tyrannically demand silence, singularity of opinion, and extreme conformity to their point of view?

As I have said many times before here on the Blue Truck, it is but one small tiny baby step from being oppressed to being an oppressor - you have only to read the daily headlines from all around the world, not to mention any history book.  Victims can, and have, and do switch with great glee to being full-throttle victimizers in a heartbeat.

And yes, I am talking to you, Miss I'm-So-Liberal-It-Hurts-My-Fake-Tits.  That's not liberalism - it's self-righteousness, and very, very ugly.

So behave yourselves, guys, and have some humility, and some humanity.  It's the right thing to do - and much sexier, too. 

Free Speech is a Civil Right

Much ink and many pixels have been employed recently over the oppostion of Chick-Fil-A's Chief Operating Officer, Dan Cathy, to marriage equality.  The mayors of Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D. C., have called for the company to be banned from opening stores in their locales.  But pardners, that just ain't the American way.  Giddown off your high horse for a minute and give a listen to Kevin Naff in the Washington Blade:

It’s true that the bigots at Chick-fil-A are on the wrong side of history, but unfortunately so are HRC and the groups that support government retaliation against a citizen on the basis of his political views. Does the LGBT movement really want to find itself on the losing side of a debate over freedom of speech? Sure, criticize Cathy and his views. Organize boycotts and protests of the restaurants. And use this ugly episode to make the case for the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, because surely Cathy’s LGBT employees lack job security. But endorsing government attacks on a business over its president’s views — however offensive and wrong — is reckless and ignores our community’s long, painful history of being victimized by government officials. . . .

Members of the LGBT community ought to be the most aggressive in defending the freedom of speech. We continue to use it in powerful ways to advance our equality. To now applaud politicians who would deny business licenses to companies based on the political views of their owners might feel good, but are we so desperate for validation that we want to stoop to the ugly (and unconstitutional) practices of our opponents?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg got it right when he said, “trampling on the freedom to marry whoever you want is exactly the same as trampling on your freedom to open a store.” Dan Cathy deserves the right of free speech. He’s entitled to his views and welcome to spend his money funding our enemies. It’s ultimately a losing fight so his money is wasted. We should counter his message of hate and intolerance by pressing for justice. This controversy should be Exhibit A in the case for ENDA.

Let's think this through here, fellas. What is the purpose of a business? To sell a product or service to the public, and thereby make a profit for its owners. As long as the business pays its taxes, complies with the laws that prohibit selling shoddy or dangerous merchandise, as well as the laws regulating pay and treatment of its workers, you're good to go here in the U. S. of A., right?

There is no political or religious test for running a business. And do you really want to see that here, friends? The proprietor can be an atheist or a Holy Roller - a flaming liberal or a die-hard conservative - a member of PETA or the NRA. None of that matters a bit, nor how the proprietor votes or what he thinks about any issue of the day. Our government simply takes no notice of all these irrelevant things. Nor should it.

They don't ask to check your gay card when you walk up to the counter and order a scrumptious chicken sandwich and waffle fries, do they? Which is a treat your Head Trucker dearly loves - but I won't be eating any, anytime soon. That's also my privilege in this land of the free and home of the brave. 

But frankly, this whole uproar is getting much more attention than it deserves - to reduce marriage equality, which means so much to so many, to a goddamn chicken sandwich is just so fucking 5th-grade that I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So can the government - local, state, federal - take any action against a company run by a bigoted owner? Um, no. No more than the government can tell you what neighborhood you can or can't live in because of your political views, bucko, or where you can or can't buy your groceries. It's called freedom, ya know?

So Russ, you're asking me, does that mean the government can never touch a business that's behaving badly? Well, it can - when the business breaks a duly enacted law. It's called the rule of law, ya know?

Take a little walk with me back to the Civil Rights era of the 1960's, to a controversy involving another Atlanta-based outfit. The government did indeed step up to the plate then to prosecute businesses that broke the law - but it was because they violated the law, not because the owner shot off his mouth in one direction or another. That is always an American's privilege - yours and mine and even the buffoonish bigot, Lester Maddox, whose Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta was smack-dab in the middle of a major civil rights confrontation back in 1964. From the New Georgia Encyclopedia:

Maddox refused to serve African American patrons. He kept ax handles--called "Pickrick drumsticks" near the restaurant's front door to discourage African Americans seeking to eat at the restaurant.

Following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Maddox chased two African Americans away from the Pickrick at gunpoint. Maddox publicly announced he would go to jail before serving African Americans, even after being charged in court for pointing a gun at the men. On July 22 in a case against the Pickrick and the white-only Heart of Atlanta Motel, a federal court upheld the Civil Rights Act and issued an injunction beginning August 11 against both businesses prohibiting them from denying service to customers based on color or race. Lawyers appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which heard the case in October; while waiting for the court to hear the case, the Heart of Atlanta began accepting African American customers, and Maddox closed the Pickrick on August 13.

On September 26 Maddox opened the Lester Maddox Cafeteria in the Pickrick's old location and announced he would serve "acceptable" Georgians. During a trial for contempt of court on September 29, Maddox argued that he was not in contempt because he was no longer offering service to out-of-state travelers or integrationists. In December 1964 the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Civil Rights Act. On February 5, 1965 a federal court ruled Maddox was in contempt of court for failing to obey the injunction and ordered him fined two hundred dollars a day for failing to serve African Americans. Maddox closed the restaurant February 7, 1965 blaming president Johnson and communism for putting him out of business.

Maddox had to close his restaurant not, be it noted, for his opinions on race, but because he violated the law - though the notoriety got him elected Governor of the state of Georgia at the very next election. And so for four years, he was Bozo-in-Chief of the Peach State, until succeeded by Jimmy Carter in 1971.

Still, it's the rule of law that is the lesson here. White, black, gay, straight - everybody can speak their mind in these United States, even if it's the mind of a dipshit jackass. And if you don't agree with that, you don't deserve the freedom to speak yours.

Picket, protest, abstain, do whatever peaceful thing you want to do - but just remember: what goes around comes around, fellas. We may be gay, but we're Americans first.


Here's some clips of Lester at his asshole best, I thought you boys might get a chuckle out of them. The first is from 1964, when a few black activists tried to enter the Pickrick, and Maddox arrogantly turned them away:



Another clip is from 1968, when then-Governor Maddox was interviewed by Joe Pyne - forgotten now, he was a hard-hitting forerunner of Phil Donahue:




See also: Rob Tisnai's brilliant post, "Hating Hate Speech Laws."


Bonus: The Rev. Baxter Wynn, of First Baptist Church of Greenville, South Carolina, and a nephew of Lester Maddox, compares his uncle with another Atlanta boy, Martin Luther King Jr., in this fascinating excerpt of a talk (I wish someone had posted the whole thing on YT):

Florida Teacher Suspended for Anti-Gay Facebook Comment

Gedankenpolizei insignia?

From the Orlando Sentinel via Towleroad:

Jerry Buell, a long-time Lake County social studies teacher, said during a recent Facebook exchange that he "almost threw up" in response to a news story about legalized same-sex marriage in New York.

On the same July 25 Facebook post he identified the same-sex marriages to being part of a "cesspool." He went on to call the unions a sin.

The comments were made on Buell's personal Facebook page but were visible to friends in his network. Buell argued he made the post on his own time on his personal computer.

"It wasn't out of hatred," he said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. "It was about the way I interpret things."

And here is the comment your Head Trucker just posted to Towleroad, beginning with my reaction to some other commenters' remarks:

"We don't want people like that teaching our children" . . . Jeezus, people, where have we heard THAT before? Notice how quickly the language of intolerance - and plain old snootiness - is adopted here.

Which just goes to prove the old, old story - being oppressed does not necessarily make you wiser, kinder, or enlightened. Both history and today's papers are full of examples to show that it is just one tiny step from being oppressed to being an oppressor. And a really mean, haughty, ugly one at that.

I totally disagree with Mr. Buell's attitude, and I hope it changes, just as I hope all my deeply conservative relatives have a similar change of heart and mind one day. But in the meantime, Mr. Buell made the remark well away from his job and his students, and in my opinion is firmly within his Consitutional right to do so.

The First Amendment doesn't give you the right ONLY to agree with the next guy, ya know buds? Nor does it guarantee you will never hear anything you don't like. Freedom of speech means freedom of speech. Deal with it.

Because tomorrow it will be your ass on the line over some small but politcally incorrect remark. And you won't like that a damn bit.

What do you say, fellas?

Angels in America

Judith and Samuel Peabody

. . . is the title of today's must-read Frank Rich column in the NYT.  Which is remarkable for two things:  first, his recounting of the story of Judith Peabody, socialite and early champion of the AIDS crisis, who died last week.  Read more about her wonderful life in the NYT's obituary article.  Thanks so much, Judith - I'm sure there's many stars in your crown.

The Rich article also has some very pertinent remarks on the Perry case and Judge Walker that you ought to check out.  Excerpt:

There has already been an attempt to discredit Walker, who has never publicly discussed his sexual orientation but has been widely reported to be gay. The notion that a judge’s sexuality, gay or not, might disqualify him from ruling on marriage is as absurd as saying Clarence Thomas can’t rule on cases involving African-Americans. By this standard, the only qualified judge to rule on marital rights would be a eunuch. No less ridiculous has been the attempt to dismiss Walker as a liberal “activist judge.” Walker was another Reagan nominee to the federal bench, recommended by his attorney general, Edwin Meese (an opponent of same-sex marriage and, now, of Walker), in a December 1987 memo residing at the Reagan library. It took nearly two years and a renomination by the first President George Bush for Walker to gain Senate approval over opposition from Teddy Kennedy, the N.A.A.C.P., La Raza, the National Organization for Women and the many gay groups who deemed his record in private practice too conservative.

The attacks on Walker have fizzled fast. With rare exceptions from the hysterical fringe — Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich — most political leaders have either remained silent about the Prop 8 decision (the Republican National Committee) or punted (the Obama White House). Over at Fox News, Ted Olson silenced the states’-rights argument in favor of Prop 8 last weekend by asking Chris Wallace: “Would you like Fox’s right to a free press put up to a vote and say, well, if five states have approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do?” (No answer was forthcoming.)

Most of those who do argue for denying marriage equality to gay couples are now careful to say that they really, really like gay people. This, like the states’-rights argument, is a replay of the battle over black civil rights. Eric Foner, the pre-eminent historian of Reconstruction, recalled last week via e-mail how Strom Thurmond would argue in the early 1960s “that segregation benefited blacks and whites and had nothing to do with racism” — as if inequality were O.K. as long as segregationists pushing separate-but-equal “compromises” claimed their motives were pure.

What I Say:  The other day a famous gay blogger slimed a less-famous but well-respected conservative gay journalist as a "quisling" - for the mere reason that Maggie Gallagher's National Organization for Marriage used a quote from the latter as part of a statement against same-sex marriage; in the excerpt they quoted he was favoring civil unions as a more winnable achievement.

Which ignores the fact that this writer has written numerous articles, and an entire book for that matter, arguing the case for gay marriage.  And in fact did marry his partner earlier this year in D. C.  So, far from being a traitor to our cause, he is indeed working on the same team - with us, not against us.  Having read his blog articles many times in the past, I believe this conservative blogger is making the case for achieving a solid, permanent goal of equal marriage rather than a Pyrrhic victory that will remain questioned and unsettled in the public mind for years to come, like Roe v. Wade.

Which is a legitimate concern, and a worthy subject for discussion and debate; and while your Head Trucker wants to see equal marriage the law of the land in this country as quick as we can get it, I also admire greatly anyone who can make a clear, cogent case for something in impeccable English, based on logical reasoning and a command of all the relevant facts.  It's important to consider carefully who is and who is not the enemy.  As Frank Rich makes clear in his column, Walker's nomination was fiercely opposed by gay groups at the time - but supposing they had succeeded in blocking his appointment to the bench?  Where would we be today with the Perry case, under some other judge, eh?

Of course, even reasonable people with a fine command of facts, logic, and language can still disagree on ways and means to a worthwhile goal - and what seems best at one moment in history may be found later to have been an honestly mistaken view; that's the whole idea subsumed in the concept of freedom of speech, which is the very bedrock of our frame of government and democratic society:  the lifeblood of our body politic.  Disagree if you like with someone's conclusions, but disagree with respect for the other guy's character, if not his point of view.

If you are going to claim American values, it's important to live them yourself.  Otherwise, you are morally on the same level with the enemies of individual liberty.  You want freedom for yourself, you must want it for others as well - or you are simply being a self-centered hypocrite. Acting the part of a nasty brat.

Which is what your mama and daddy were trying to get across to you when they made you share your cookies with the other kids, and not wolf down the whole box all by yourself, ya know?

Hate Speech IS Free Speech

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

--Voltaire

I have sworn upon the altar of Almighty God eternal hostility towards every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

--Jefferson

Attention, please:  the class will now come to order.  Take your seats and spit out that damn bubble gum. 

Time for a very elementary civics lesson, boys and girls:  freedom of speech means you are free to say what you think.  Whatever you think.

You are equally free, then, to say out loud and in public that you approve of something, and equally free to say that you disapprove of something. 

If your approval extends all the way to love of something, it's okay, you can say that.  And if your disapproval extends all the way to hatred of something, that's okay too, you can say that as well.

It does not matter whether anyone else agrees with your approval/love or with your disapproval/hate.  It does not matter whether your stated opinion is fashionable or unfashionable with any particular group.  It does not even matter whether you are right or wrong.

Freedom of speech means you are free to say whatever you think.  Even if what you think offends someone else's idea of what is right or wrong.

Because freedom of speech - which of course includes not merely oral utterances but also any form of written utterance as well, and even silent demonstrations of opinion - is another facet of an even larger, more important concept that we call freedom of belief, aka freedom of conscience.

A free man, or woman, - unlike a slave - has the inalienable right to think whatever he pleases, believe whatever he pleases, and express whatever he pleases.  Is that point very clear?  Free people can think and say whatever they want.  Slaves and prisoners and children cannot.

Which is why totalitarian regimes always clamp down first on freedom of expression; once that is taken away, the process of converting people to slaves of the State is halfway done.

Continued after the jump . . .

Today in Texastan: "Gay Jesus" Play Cancelled

In the face of outrage from the local Christianist Taliban and criticism from the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, not to mention security concerns, student director John Otte's professor has cancelled the workshop performance of Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, which was to have been performed this morning at 8 a.m. before a small audience of classmates and family members on the Tarleton State University campus in Stephenville.

Kudos to university president Dr. Dominic Dottavio, who while asserting his belief that the play is "offensive, crude, and irreverent," nevertheless firmly upheld academic freedom and the student's First Amendment right to produce the play.

Otte:  "Never did I choose this play to attack Christians. I am one."

If you can bear to sit through the painfully amateurish TSU student news broadcast below, you will hear interviews with local mullahs preachers, Dr. Dottavio, and Otte himself.

And get a pretty good idea of the backwards, small-minded, fundamentalist-controlled world your Head Trucker lives in out here on the prairie.



Story begins at the 4:10 mark.

Update:  Houston ABC news report interviews Tarleton State students, who say "Homosexuality is the one unforgiveable sin in our society."

And that, my friends, is what you're up against if you're a gay man living in Texas in the year 2010.

Welcome to the Corporate States of America

The Supreme Court's five conservative justices have just driven a stake through the heart of American democracy by opening the floodgates of corporate funding for politics.  Check out these reports and be afraid.  Be very afraid.

First up, Rachel explains the radical overthrow of a century of law restraining corporate power over the political system, and Barney Frank goes ballistic in his inimitable way:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Next, Obama finally - please God - takes off his Mr. Rogers sweater and gets ready to rumble with Wall Street and the banking gang, so he says:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And finally, Olbermann paints a chilling picture of what to expect in the new whorehouse of American politics resulting from this, the Dred Scott decision of our time:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Andrew Sullivan, in a post entitled "Now Fight!":

The seismic events of the last few days ends, in some respects, the phony war of the first year of Obama's presidency. As is the case in truly fracturing democracies, the opposition simply does not and cannot accept the fact that it is out of power. The incoherence of the opposition to Obama - that he is both Jimmy Carter and Adolf Hitler, as Stephen Colbert pointed out last night - reveals the irrationality of the hate. It began immediately on the FNC/RNC right. And the ferocity of the campaign against Obama, the sheer dickishness of the GOP and its acolytes, the total oppositionism to everything he has done and indeed anything he might do... suggests that any hope for some kind of cooperation from this rump is impossible.

But the truth is that these forces have also been so passionate, so extreme, and so energized that in a country reeling from a recession, the narrative - a false, paranoid, nutty narrative - has taken root in the minds of some independents. Obama, under-estimating the extremism of his opponents, has focused on actually addressing the problems we face. And the rest of us, crucially, have sat back and watched and complained and carped when we didn't get everything we want. We can keep on carping if we want to. But it seems to me that continuing that - as HuffPo et al. appear to be doing - is objectively siding with the forces of profound reaction right now.

Don't get me wrong. Criticism is still vital. I'm not going to give up on advocating marriage equality or a carbon tax, rather than cap and trade, or for an independent investigation of Bush era war crimes. I think pushing Obama to a more populist position on banks is well and good. But given the alternative, I am going to step up my support of this president in the face of what he is confronting, even when he is not exactly doing everything I want. In my view, you should too.

Look at what we are facing right now: a take-no-prisoners right, empowered by a massive new wave of corporate money unleashed by the Supreme Court, able to wield a 41 seat minority to oppose anything Obama wants, setting up a cycle of failure for a president whom they can then pillory at the polls, and unrepentant about near-dictatorial powers for the presidency, and the routinization of torture in the American government. These forces cannot be appeased. They simply have to be confronted. . . .

But I have come around to thinking that the one huge mistake right now would be to surrender the Senate health reform bill. . . .  This is about more than health reform and we have to see it in that context. This is about a cynical nihilist attempt to break this presidency before it has had a chance to do what we elected it to do by a landslide vote. It is an attempt to destroy a majority's morale, to break a president's foreign policy autonomy, to prevent engagement in the Middle East peace process, to stop action on climate change, to restore torture, to increase tensions with the Muslim world, to launch a war on Iran. We cannot delude ourselves that if Obama fails, this is not the alternative. It is. . . .

So fight, Mr President. And to the House Democrats who won't go along with the only way to salvage health reform: this is the only sure-fire way you will lose in November. If you pass this bill, you may also go down in this climate. But you will have done something you can be proud of. Politics cannot always be about narrow self-interest. If it always is, nothing important can get done.

Do your duty. And grow some. Fight back. Explain why you're right. Tell the liberals they can always come back later to reform the bill. Just get this passed.

Bash back, Mr. President.  As Barney said, this might be your Waterloo, for which the Republicans and the bigots are devoutly praying - but by God, you can man up and go down fighting.

And as Winston Churchill said, even when overwhelmed and outnumbered by the enemy, and facing certain death:  "You can always take one with you."

Fight, goddammit.

Whiner Alert: Bus Ad Hurts My Feelings

The Washington, D.C., Metro Weekly, an LGBT paper, reports this December 12 post from Full Equality Now's website:

The bus is a particularly painful place for these advertisements to be located, as they cannot be avoided. Because of these advertisements, countless LGBT citizens are forced to stare down discrimination as they board the bus to go somewhere or are even passed by an advertisement on the street. The irony is that public buses were the birthplace of another struggle for equality under law not too long ago. For LGBT citizens to have to experience discriminatory messages as they go about their daily life is unacceptable and must be stopped. For this reason, we demand that WMATA remove all advertisements posted by Stand for Marriage DC as soon as is possible.

What I Say:  Oh fuck you, Miss Mary.  What a whining, sniveling complaint - just like the Princess and the Pea.  This is a democracy, not a gay Disneyland; every political ad in the whole freaking world is "offensive" to somebody - grow up and deal with it, honey.  And buy a case of Kleenex, if you're that pitiful and sensitive; you'll need a lot of them in this cruel world.

Your Head Trucker is seconded by the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance - who express themselves more politely:

As supporters of civil marriage equality, we also embrace the principle of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which makes our own advocacy possible. Indeed, the then-named Gay Activists Alliance thirty years ago won a court battle against WMATA for the right to place educational posters in Metro buses with the message, 'Someone In Your Life Is Gay.' WMATA is a quasi-governmental body and is thus subject to the First Amendment. We, the undersigned, therefore urge you to reject the misguided censorship advocated by Full Equality Now DC.

Send Granny to Jail?

According to the Daily Telegraph, 67-year-old Pauline Howe may be facing hate crime charges for writing a single letter to her city council, protesting against the city's first gay pride march:

"I've never been in any kind of trouble before so I was stunned to have two police officers knocking at my door," she said. "Their presence in my home made me feel threatened. It was a very unpleasant experience."

Christian campaigners condemned the police action as "alarming" and warned that freedom of expression was under threat, while the homosexual equality group Stonewall said the officers' visit had been "disproportionate".

The pensioner had written to Norwich [England] council complaining about its decision to allow the march in the city centre in July, at which she claims she was verbally abused. In the letter, she wrote: "It is shameful that this small, but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals." Mrs Howe referred to homosexuals as "sodomites" and blamed "their perverted sexual practice" for sexually transmitting diseases as well as the "downfall of every Empire".

She argues that she is not homophobic, but was expressing her deeply held religious beliefs. However, Bridget Buttinger, deputy chief executive at the council, replied to Mrs Howe in September, warning that she could face being charged with a criminal offence for expressing such views. "As a local authority we have a duty along with other public bodies to eliminate discrimination of all kinds," she wrote.

"A hate incident is any incident that is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hatred. A hate crime is any hate incident that constitutes a criminal offence. The content of your letter has been assessed as potentially being hate related because of the views you expressed towards people of a certain sexual orientation." She added: "Your details and details of the content of your letter have been recorded as such and passed to the Police."

What I say: This is bullshit, it makes me want to throw up. Grandma getting it off her chest in a letter - probably written in a pretty, cursive hand with pen and ink - is not a fucking hate crime.

Remember guys, it's just one short step from being oppressed to being an oppressor. While we fight for our rights and freedoms, we must also tolerate other people's right to speak their minds, even if we totally disagree with what they say: that's the American way.

As long as the other guy is free to say what he thinks, you are too. That's very, very important.  Because nobody is above criticism - man, woman, black, white, straight, or gay. 

I'm with Grandma on this one, guys, bless her little tea-sipping heart - how about you?

Update:  In case anyone is still confused, this is a hate crime: 

A gay man is fighting for his life today following a vicious gang beating in Liverpool city centre.

The 22-year–old, who the ECHO understands is a trainee constable with Merseyside police and has been named as James Parkes, was attacked by up to 13 people at 10pm last night when out with three friends on Stanley Street.

He is currently in hospital with multiple skull fractures, a fractured eye socket and a fractured cheek bone.

You Can't Be a Christian and a Democrat

. . . at least not at Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell. University officials have ordered the student Democratic Club to disband and cease all mention of the party on campus, including on students' Facebook and Twitter accounts. Why? Because

The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the "LGBT" agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc).

Rachel Maddow reports on this bullshit invasion of free speech rights:

What I Say: As this incident makes clear, Bible-belt religion is not about being sweet little Sunday-school Christians, full of mercy and goodness and brotherly love. Whatever it might have been in the past, it is now a fascist, mind-controlling, totalitarian political movement: reminds me very much of the Pharisees that Jesus so roundly condemned.

You can't be a Christian and a Democrat. That, my friends, is the unfortunate strong belief of not merely some wingnuts scattered here or there - but of many millions of people all over the Bible Belt, including your workmates, neighbors, and even kinfolk, as well as mine.

Insult the King, Go to Jail

No, this is not a story about the Bush administration. The Times of London reports:

An Australian novelist was jailed for three years by a Bangkok court on Monday, the latest in a growing number of Thais and foreigners prosecuted for the crime of “insulting” the family of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Harry Nicolaides, a 41-year old teacher and part time writer was convicted on the basis of a 103 word paragraph about the alleged sexual peccadilloes of the royal family, particularly Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn.

He could have received a sentence of as much as twelve years and his decision to reverse an earlier plea of not guilty persuaded the judge to hand down the minimum sentence possible for the crime of lèse-majesté, or insulting the monarchy.

“He has written a book that slandered the king, the crown prince of Thailand and the monarchy,” the judge told the court.

“The court has sentenced him to six years, but due to his confession, which is beneficial to the case, the sentence is reduced to three years.”

Mr Nicolaides appeared emaciated and emotional as he was led into court in orange prison overalls and leg irons.

“This is an Alice in Wonderland experience,” he told reporters before the beginning of proceedings. “I really believe that I am going to wake up and all of you will be gone... I was aware that an obscure law existed, but I was not aware it would apply to me.”

His offence was to publish a novel entitled Verisimilitude in 2005, containing references to rumours about the “romantic entanglements and intrigues” of the Crown Prince. A few dozen copies were printed and only a few of these sold. But in August last year, he was arrested as he attempted to fly to Australia after several months teaching English at a university in the
northern city of Chiang Mai.

He joins a list of people, including several foreigners, to have been prosecuted for lèse-majesté. The present law was enacted in the 1950s but has never been invoked by members of the royal family themselves.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Speaking to reporters before the verdict was announced, Nicolaides said he had endured "unspeakable suffering" during five months of detention. "I would like to apologize," he added. "This can't be real. It feels like a bad dream."

Nicolaides, who had been an English teacher in Thailand, was detained Aug. 31 as he was about to board a plane home, apparently unaware that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.

"At nighttime he's in a cell with at least 50 other people," Nicolaides's attorney, Mark Dean, said in an interview last month with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "The sanitary conditions, to put it mildly, are basic. People suffer from TB and HIV. There is violence within the cell."

A news release about the novel, posted on a blog called Costa del Gangster, called the book "an uncompromising assault on the patrician values of the monarchy." It said the book was "savage, ruthless and unforgiving" in revealing a society "obsessed with Western affluence and materialism."

Nicolaides reportedly printed only 50 copies of the book - a paperback, with a bright blue butterfly on the cover - and sold just 10. Long out of print, it is not listed on Amazon.com or other booksellers' Web sites.

"I think it's reasonable to say that just writing a simple paragraph in a novel, to expect that would land you in such serious legal trouble, must have come as a surprise for Harry," Andrew Walker, a fellow in the Asia-Pacific Program at Australian National University, said on ABC. "I think Thailand is trying to send a message to international media, to writers, to bloggers, to people who are putting material on the Internet that the royal family is out of bounds."

You can read more about the case in Australian newspapers here and here. A CNN video report is here. There's no mention of a wife or kids . . . but that would be beside the point anyway.

Lèse-majesté sounds so 18th-century to our American ears, don't it? Have no idea how anybody can help this poor fellow, but I'm sure going to include him in my prayers tonight. Bless him.

There's a lot that needs fixing about America right now, but thank God there's a lot that's still right about our country. Not since the Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed has it been a crime to criticize the President in writing or speech. Even Bush didn't dare bring that back.

Good thing too, because half the population would have been in jail the last 8 years, huh?

King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit. According to Wikipedia, "the lèse majesté laws are not really designed to protect the institution of the monarchy. In the past the laws have been used to protect governments, to protect military coups. This whole [royal] image is created to bolster a conservative elite well beyond the walls of the palace." Sound familiar?