On Prop 8

Next Tuesday, Americans will be voting for more than just a new administration. In some states, there are a few ugly little ballot measures that will be voted on at the same time. One of these is "Proposition 8", a California proposal to ban same-sex marriage. Prop 8 has gotten a lot of attention and support from the usual religious right suspects -- in spite of the fact that it's a state initiative, money for the campaign to convince Californians to vote "Yes" to Prop 8 has been pouring in from bigots across the land.

There's some pretty paranoid and hateful propaganda being disseminated by Prop 8 supporters, the latest being the claim that equal marriage somehow undermines religious freedom and free speech. No, don't even try to understand the tortured logic needed to draw such a conclusion -- a more straightforward interpretation of what Prop 8 proponents are really saying is offered up by Ann Althouse:

"I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth -- all things Broyles wants -- it's important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong."

Bigots!? Who knew!!???

UPDATE (Nov.1st): Still hideously close, but the good guys seem to be winning (50-47).

"Kill him"???

And we're the ones right-whiners call "incivil"??:

""Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience." (emphasis mine)

Of course, Palin immediately rebuked this despicable response, because that's, um, you know, the right thing to do, and -- what? She didn't? No, she just carried on with her hateful rant, pleased with the mindless fury she was whipping up in her audience of vicious, brain-damaged rednecks. And McCain? Hell, he's just as bad as she is.

UPDATE: JA Baker has more, including McCain's own suspicious ties.

(h/t - just another willy loman)

Wall Street -- Who's to blame?

Last night the US Senate voted to cave in to the extortionist thugs on Wall Street and pass the bailout bill. The bill has one more stop in the House before it passes, thus assuring those who get rich making insane financial decisions that they can keep doing it with impunity.

Who's to blame for this mess? The wretched little greedheads on Wall Street? The Religious Right has the answer: "It's Teh Gheys!" No, really:

“Companies that promoted anti-family policies have learned the hard way that such policies are bankrupt,” said Mathew Staver, dean of the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University School of Law. “K-Mart learned its lesson several years ago. Washington Mutual and Wachovia, both of which actively promoted the homosexual agenda, have come to realize that anti-family policies will bankrupt the bottom line.”

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council blamed the lack of family values for the meltdown. “As there’s a breakdown in the family and the family weakens, it’s only logical it will hit Wall Street,” Perkins said. “A nation cannot be strong just because of a financial structure alone. It has to have strong families and values.”

Rainbow, pot of gold -- get the connection? You only wish I was kidding.

About 19 kinds of dumb

Eeeek:



But it's interesting, as ellroon points out, that McCain's name isn't mentioned once.

(via rants from the rookery)

Bring Chris Reid back!!!

Sure, I'll get in on some of this "Chris Reid blog-on-blog action". From Birth Pangs:

"In another coup for the blogosphere, a Conservative candidate who was outed as a
right-wing. gun-totin’, fetish fetishizing nutbar by Big City Lib has withdrawn from the campaign.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Blob Blogging Wingnut and her unsavory pals want him back.

Chris Reid is pro-life.Proudly pro-life. I’ve seen him publicly defend unborn children in facebook debates.

But Suzanne, he’s gay…

So I’ll say a rosary for him.

So, there we have it. Nutopia priorities. Gays marginally tolerable if anti-choice.

We at Birth Pangs agree. Bring Chris Reid back! He’s the perfect example of the havoc the Conservatards will wreak if they get a majority.

UPPITY-DATE: From the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department: Some staunch homophobic nutbars Conservative supporters do not want him back. Seems he represents a ‘homo plot’ to torpedo the Reforma-Tories."

Yes, please please pleeeeeease by all means bring Chris Reid back because he's a fetus fetishizer, but make sure you pray feverishly for him -- he's got Teh Ghey!!!

Do these people even know what disgusting hypocrites they are?

UPDATE: Montreal Simon weighs in, in his inimitable way.

Oh boo hoo hoo!

Somebody call the wahhhhmbulance! A California couple who got married in a church refuses to get a state marriage license because the licenses say (cue ominious music):

"Party A" and "Party B"

rather than "Bride" and "Groom". SHRIEEEEEEK!:

"Last month, Rachel Bird exchanged vows with Gideon Codding in a church wedding in front of family and friends. As far as Bird is concerned, she is a bride.

To the state of California, however, she is either "Party A" or "Party B."

Those are the terms that have replaced "bride" and "groom" on the state's new gender-neutral marriage licenses. And to Bird and Codding, that is unacceptable.

"We are traditionalists – we just want to be called bride and groom," said Bird, 25, who works part time for her father's church. "Those words have been used for generations and now they just changed them.

In May, after the California State Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal, the courts mandated state officials to provide gender-neutral licenses and other marriage forms. "Bride" and "groom" became "Party A" and "Party B.""

No Bridie/Groomie, oh boo hoo hoo. Who cares what the government calls you on a license? Not me -- we're all just shit on a stick to them anyway. But this odious little foot-stomping tantrum goes deeper than just the designations on a license -- I doubt they'd have any problem with the change if it had been made as a matter of administrative course, and had nothing to do with (cue ominous music)

same-sex marriage.

But, haha, the happy bigoted couple's decision to opt out of a marriage license has brought up a whole raft of other issues, like Party A not being able to sign up for Party B's medical benefits. Which they're bitching and whining about, somehow blissfully unaware of the irony that this is why the licenses were changed in the first place.

The evil swirling vortex of stupid claims two more victims -- Victim A and Victim B.

(via pandagon)

Huh!?

What the fuck?

National Enquirer, keep writing those cheques!

That's why we call them "lying liars"

In the wake of the KLRVU debacle, it's worth remembering that social conservatives are against more than just abortion, and are equally disingenuous in how they champion their other pet causes.

I mean, who could possibly forget the feverish campaigning they did against equal marriage in the run-up to the last election? In anticipation of a socially-conservative Harper government taking the reins and rolling back the ridiculous right for gay couples to celebrate their love just like anyone else, a number of "Defend Marriage! Think of The Children!"-type websites sprung up overnight. They were all run by the same people, but the noise they were able to generate made them seem like a far greater number than they really were. Like when they freep online polls. Or conduct you-know-what kind of phone POLLS.

The methods the socons used in their anti-equal marriage campaign are uncannily similar to their campaigns against abortion and, most recently, against Morgentaler's Order of Canada -- a lot of noise being generated by not that many people. Buckets wonders if their movement can even properly be called "grassroots", or is it something else?

Is he or isn't he?

Only the wingnuts know for sure.

Wingnut response to the horrific Greyhound bus killing has been -- well, I'd like to say "enlightening", but unfortunately it just confirms what we already know about right-wingnuts and those furious little pretzels of paranoid madness they call... "their brains".

At FD, they're in a quandary:

"Maybe"!? No doubt! But who cares, because:

Or a Unitarian Universalist, eh pally? But then again...

Damn straight. A cover-up:


But suddenly, Realitus interruptus:


"Worked hard all week, went to church on Sundays, went insane." D'oh!

Now I'm waiting for someone to notice that in the arrest picture, the killer appears to be wearing ...Birkenstocks!, notorious Official Footwear of Leftoid Hippie Feminist Gay Libtard Barking Moonbats everywhere!

Not quite ready for prime time

As the rest of society relentlessly evolves towards the celebration of diversity, the last few dinosaurs left behind continue to grunt and squawk and corporations inexplicably continue to pay attention to them. Last week a Heinz Deli Mayo TV commercial in the UK featuring a kiss between two men was pulled after 200 viewers went batshit berserk and andandSHRIEEEEEK!:

"A mayonnaise advert showing two men kissing has been withdrawn after it led to more than 200 complaints.

Heinz confirmed last night that it had withdrawn the television commercial for its Deli Mayo following 'consumer feedback'.

The ad was launched a week ago yesterday and had been due to run for five weeks.

Heinz said it was no longer aired after last Friday."

It doesn't surprise me that there'd be a few nitwits who'd object to a scene of men kissing (though it also wouldn't surprise me if these same people stealthily switched the channel to "Queer As Folk" when wifey left the room). The weird thing is that commercial wasn't making any kind of statement about same-sex relationships at all -- it was trying to convey the idea that Heinz Deli Mayo gives sandwiches a "New York deli" flavour, like having a New York deli chef working away in the kitchen instead of the Little Woman (or Man -- ha!).

It's pretty sad when people are so obsessed with sex and so bigoted against gays that they can't even see the real message of a commercial like this through their own perverse filters. Shame on Heinz for caving in to these jerks!

Won't someone think of the children?

Here's a story to get your week off to a running pissed-off start on a Monday morning.

You have to wonder about the mentality of some of the people that bitch and whine about being persecuted for hate speech, when someone among them turns around and does something like this:

"A four-year-old girl found a severed pig's head bearing a slur against Muslims on the front steps of her family's home in Ottawa's west end over the weekend."

The Ottawa police hate crimes unit is investigating the incident, said an Ottawa police news release. Investigators believe the animal's head was left between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. Saturday."

Don't even ask me what I'd do if that was my kid. Just ponder: why do Islamophobes hate the children?

AFTERTHOUGHT: I'm well aware that not every xenophobic nut is hateful enough to engage in the kind of activity described in this story. But it's worth pointing out in relation the ongoing issue of "threats to free speech", since douchebags like this are themselves threats to free speech, they just don't seem to know it.

More equal than others

Well, it's been a few days since Tom Lukiwski rolled around whimpering and pissing himself on the House of Commons floor (the same floor that's riddled with trenches from the constant dragging of knuckles by the "A" guys). That seems to be the end of it -- Prime Minister Chubby McChubster says the apology was offered, so accept it, mothahfuckaaahs, and move on.

Oooooh. No consequences?

Where are the consequences conservatives are so quick to demand whenever someone makes a mistake... even one that doesn't involve maligning an entire community... something like, oh, I don't know, accidentally getting pregnant?

Or the consequences Saskatchewan First Nations are threatened with when one of their own barfs up some stupid, bigoted comments, apologizes and is reinstated in his position? (Whether you agree with FSIN's decision to reinstate Ahenakew is irrelevant -- it's their decision to make, and theirs alone.)

Well, that's apparently a little different: There Could Be Consequences for that decision, the Con-gov thunders -- big time consequences, affecting thousands of people. One couldn't be blamed if the "H-word" came to mind, as stageleft adroitly points out. (EDIT: Ahenakew ultimately declined the position, but the point is the government immediately went ballistic in one case, but did nothing in the other.)

But as Bruce also aptly explains, not all bigots are equal -- some are more equal than others.

And as knuckledragger apologist John West would say, "Don't even try to deny it".

Who are the knuckledraggers?

Too funny -- someone in the media finally articulated what just about everyone knows, but outside of the blogosphere, refuses to acknowlege. From Canadian Cynic, on last night's CTV news, anchor Robert Fife dropped the "K-D"-bomb:

"Just a few minutes ago on CTV's The National, Lloyd Robertson questioning colleague Robert Fife about the Tom Lukiwski incident, during which Fife says (paraphrased, from memory), "Well, everyone knows there's some knuckle-draggers in the [CPoC] party ...""

"Knuckle-draggers in the Conservative Party?" Well no shit Sherlock! You probably couldn't hear a jackhammer over the sound of knuckles scraping the floor as the "Conservatives" file in to the House of Commons. I'm sure by now they've dug little trenches all over the surface of the hardwood.

Of course, conservatives are shocked, shocked I tell you, at this characterization, and demand to know: "WHO? WHO are the knuckle-draggers? Name names!"

Well, obviously Tom Lukiwski's knuckle-dragging cred is impeccable. Another one who swings from trees and walks with dinosaurs is Stockwell Day, and... well, pretty much all of these guys. Anyone who came to the CRAP from the "Reform" side: knuckle-dragger. When you think about it, with the possible exception of MP Josee Verner, I don't think it's going too far out on a limb to say "ALL OF THEM". Even John Baird, card-carrying gay man that he is, acquieses somewhat too much to his knuckle-dragging masters to be considered anything but a knuckle-dragger in drag.

So much for the Great Conservative "Moderate" Makeover!

Behind the muzzle

Ho ho! Now we know for sure what we've always suspected -- the reason Harper keeps such a tight leash on the braindead pitbulls he calls "MPs" is because when the muzzle falls off, bad things happen:

"Mr. Lukiwski, then a Progressive Conservative campaign official, speaks directly to the camera at one point in response to a question from the camera operator.

"There's A's and there's B's," he says with what appeared to be a beer bottle in his hand.

"The A's are guys like me, the B's are homosexual faggots with dirt under their fingernails that transmit diseases."

Niiiiiiice. I guess you can take the rube out of Saskabush, but you can't take the rube out of the rube. Or something like that.

Oh well, it's all good because Mr. Lukiwski is sorry, so sorry, that he was such a tool...

You bet your ass he's sorry -- sorry he got caught. Sorry he wasn't somewhere else that night. Sorry the videocam was ever invented. Lukiwski might be one of the sorriest assholes I've ever seen.

SORRY-ASS UPDATE: I've seen a few comments to the effect that this tape was old, people can change. I agree, people can and do change. Unfortunately, it's clear that Lukiwski isn't one of them: his much more recent voting record on equal marriage speaks for itself. And things like this (from 2005) are anything but helpful:

"At 8 p.m., Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski makes a final speech. So raucous is the chamber, so loud the press gallery that I can barely hear him declare that the bill represents “a very slippery slope” that could lead to polygamy."

And fox terrier-fucking, let's not forget that. Arf!

"EWWW" UPDATE: Montreal Simon has the creeeeeeepy video of this bozo, caught in the act of being a slimebag bigot.

(h/t to toujoursdan in the comments at CC)