Lie of the Crier

Not sure what the hell Mike Huckabee thinks he's going to get out of bandwagoning and orchestrating the small (300 people? really?) pep rally for oft-married, recently converted super-Christian Kim Davis' release from county jail. If he thinks his single-issue preaching to the converted is going to get him so much as a low-level cabinet appointment in a never-gonna-happen Ted Cruz administration, he's even dumber than he sounds trying to defend this sanctimonious dunce.

Are her fifteen minutes up yet already? Again, who gives two shits what a handful of inbred rubes and jokers think about anything? They've already got their minds made up; we know who they'll be voting for next year and for the next ten to twenty years. There's no mystery about places like this. These are people who literally cannot decide whether or not they should be allowed to purchase alcohol. Are they Moooslims, or just stoopid?

Offensensitivity

Perhaps because the majority of the country has changed so much and so quickly on the issue, "gay marriage" is developing a set of meta-issues, and rather absurd ones at that. Now the question is longer whether discriminating against gay couples bears the same nasty whiff that discriminating against interracial couples did 40-50 years ago.

The most recent and persistent epiphenomenon is the martyrdom meme, perhaps best characterized in the self-imposed travails of Duck Dynasty honcho Phil Robertson and Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, the latter who was forced to resign for his contribution to California's Proposition 8 campaign back in 2008. So now Conor Friedersdorf's correspondent seems to epitomize the sort of person who feels aggrieved at whatever chilling effect is supposed to have taken place, as far as "allowing" what the aggrieved feel is legitimate difference of opinion.

And so it is, to a certain extent. Ostensibly, one of the great strengths of this country is that everyone has the right to be wrong, and even to be an asshole about it, so long as said opinion picks no pockets and breaks no arms. And that's where the problem arises, since in more than half of US states, you can be fired just for being gay in the first place, forget trying for a supposedly meaningless equal right to get married.

Nothing in life is absolute, and this applies to the Bill of Rights as well; you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, and you can't bring an assault rifle into a courthouse. There are balances that are struck all along the way in these sorts of debates, and hey guess what -- the First Amendment doesn't apply to companies and places of work. You can be an asshole, and other people can call you such. That's how it works.

That means that you can -- and should -- be fired from your job if you, say, host a website that advocates race war or features the crushing of small animals for the amusement of fucking creeps, even if such things happen not to be against the law (inexplicably, in the latter instance). You can, in fact, be fired from your job just for saying something impolitic, if your boss happens to feel that said speech costs the company sales and revenue. This is not exactly a secret or a surprise, and yet here you have grown-ass adults genuinely shocked that their sincerely, deeply held spiritual beliefs do not automatically grant them immunity from the consequences of discourse.

That's at least part of the reason why so many of us choose to blog in relative anonymity -- not to completely absolve ourselves from any and all consequences of what we might say out here on the internets, but because we are aware that even if we say something that is logical and accurate, we can still be held liable for it, if it has an adverse (or even a potential or perceived) impact on any organization we might be part of.

This particular issue is an opportunity to examine the idea that one's beliefs, no matter how sincere, do not automatically immunize them from participating in the same verbal scrum as the rest of us. I promise you, the small hint of opprobrium, of "hate" and "fear" as the CF correspondent put it, is a drop in the bucket compared to what "outsider" groups have felt even in the last generation or two, from gays to atheists to civil rights and antiwar protesters.

I think those folks and many others would find the idea hilarious, that someone could say something they have a pretty good idea will hit a significant portion of people the wrong way, and still expect to be exempt from even legitimate criticism (as opposed to, you know, the discrimination and violence that many dissenting groups have routinely faced). It may not be 100% "fair" to ostracize or fire someone for voicing the "wrong" opinion, but it is also not the duty of the rest of society to wait around for these people to start unpacking their ideological baggage, and letting it go, once and for all.

Freudian Slip

It never fails with these weirdos:

"And because you choose whether to be homosexual or not, this is not a civil rights issue," Nunn said. "It's going to be very difficult for us to agree with the other side on this one."

He opened up his Bible and began jabbing his finger at passages such as Corinthians 6:9-11, which lumps "homosexuals" and "sodomites" in with idolaters and thieves as being among those who "will not inherit the kingdom of God."

"I wouldn't want anyone to look at us and say we're just Bible thumpers, right-wingers, intolerant," Nunn said. "We speak out in love, not hatred. We're not going to be politically correct about this - we are going to do what's right and help people find their way."

By fighting to preserve Prop. 8 and urging gays and lesbians to go straight, he said, "we're not trying to jam anything down anyone's throats. We're just extending an invitation to see the truth."

[emphasis mine]

They just can't help themselves, can they? Actually, the more interesting quote to me is the one declaring that "you choose whether to be homosexual or not". I've made this argument before, but it bears reiterating: "gay gene" studies aside, insofar as one person can ascertain the basis for the sexual orientation of a person they have never met and don't know anything about, what if, for some people, it is choice? What of it, what business is it of anyone else's? What happened to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", the ability to chart one's own course in life?

The very notion that people should be able to live their lives the way they want, and be left alone by these fucking ninnies, never seems to occur to said ninnies. Which, I suppose, means that they're just living up (down) to their names.

Closet Cases

The most ridonkulous court case of the year finally winds down, and one side is getting a bit desperate in their closing argument:

Winding up a historic trial over same-sex marriage in California, the lawyer for Proposition 8's sponsors told a federal judge Wednesday that allowing only men and women to wed promotes responsible sex and child-rearing, and ultimately ensures the future of humanity.

During more than two hours of intense and sometimes skeptical questioning by Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, attorney Charles Cooper maintained that society is entitled to reserve its approval of marriage for those who can naturally conceive children.

....

But Walker, who presided over the nation's first federal trial on the issue, sounded dubious. He note that the state allows couples unable or unwilling to have children to marry, suggesting that the institution has a broader purpose that same-sex partners might equally fulfill.

"Marriage is a right which extends fundamentally to all persons, whether they're capable of producing children, incarcerated or behind in their child-support payments," Walker said, citing Supreme Court rulings that allow people in all those situations to marry.

I'm sure Walker -- who, as Prop. 8 wingnuts will no doubt scream from the rooftops the second this case is decided, is gay -- feels somewhat silly having to tell these goofballs what they already know. All together now, friends 'n' neighbors -- marriage is designed to protect property. Preservation of fambly valyews, while valuable, is purely ancillary.

But to insist that marriage's primary function is to encourage procreation is functionally retarded, seriously. Moreover, even if that were its function, it would be very difficult to argue that it's been even a qualified success, considering the divorce rate, considering the steady lessening of whatever stigma out-of-wedlock parentage once had.

The disingenuous arguments these morons have wielded are nothing short of legalistic quackery, a deliberate conflation of the obvious notion that children develop best when raised in a stable environment, and the ludicrous notion that heterosexual couples have some sort of sacrosanct monopoly on said stability. Go tell it to Larry King, chump.

The only witnesses for Prop. 8's sponsors were political scientist Kenneth Miller, who said gays and lesbians can protect their political interests without judicial protection, and David Blankenhorn, an author and advocate who said allowing same-sex marriages could lead to more divorces and fewer weddings for men and women.

At Wednesday's hearing, Walker asked Cooper whether Blankenhorn, who heads the Institute for American Values but lacks academic credentials, qualified as an expert witness. Cooper said Blankenhorn was a recognized expert in his field and Olson hastened to endorse him, saying Blankenhorn's testimony helped to discredit Prop. 8.

Olson makes a great point -- much like with "intelligent design", it is the proponents of Prop. 8 who tend to inadvertently make the opposition's argument for them. It's sheer forensic ineptitude, really. What sort of bozo thinks the "marriage should be reserved for procreating couples" argument will fly in an actual court of law, as opposed to some church basement bake sale for the, ahem, "Institute for American Values"?

Well, the sort of bozo who is unused to having to make an argument out of the scope of the usual choir-preaching hortatory rhetoric. The sort of bozo who wants to make "majority rules" the other cornerstone of his argument, apparently unaware that just in the last five years, opposition to gay marriage has declined, and will continue to do so.

As always, I am just mystified by people who are willing to spend precious time, money, effort trying to "protect" an irretrievably debauched appellation. At least half of the heterosexual couples who get hitched find a way to screw it up -- and that's just the ones who actually get divorced, not the ones who stay together "for the kids" or whatever they have to tell themselves.

And many gay marriage opponents, understanding the reality of long-term same-sex relationships, retreat to the bizarre notion of insisting that they don't mind if gay couples call their relationships "civil unions", even though functionally it is a marriage. People are bound to each other, legally, morally, familially, but these folks get all butthurt if any of the participants use the "m" word.

This is a very strange obsession, no doubt bordering on projection for many of them. Seriously, any straight person who feels "threatened" by a couple of dudes or a couple of chicks formalizing their monogamous relationship needs to get a grip -- and a hobby.