The Curse of Yig (Modern Archie Mix)

(sigh)

Perhaps former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee should consider following Messrs. Perry and Walker through the exit. That is to say, if advocating lawlessness as part of his appeal to be the sworn executor of the laws and protector of the Constitution while crying about Liberty and Justice for All requiring Christian supremacism wasn’t enough, perhaps setting up Steve Benen for this kind of line ought to be the clincher:

On Friday, for example, President Obama nominated Eric Fanning as the next Secretary of the Army. No one has questioned Fanning’s qualifications, but GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee condemned the nomination because Fanning is gay. “It’s clear President Obama is more interested in appeasing America’s homosexuals than honoring America’s heroes,” the Republican said, adding, “Homosexuality is not a job qualification. The U.S. military is designed to keep Americans safe and complete combat missions, not conduct social experiments.”

It’s an “Archie Bunker” posture in a “Modern Family” world.

Yeah, thanks, Steve! Something about low hanging fruit goes here. To the other, why would Mr. Benen not? You don’t get excuses to throw out stupidly predictable jokes like that every day, no matter how hard Republicans might try.

(groan)

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Image note: Top ― Eric Fanning, left, the acting secretary of the U.S. Air Force, briefs reporters on the state of the Air Force as Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III looks on at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, 13 December 2013. (detail: Photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo). Right ― Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee waits backstage before speaking during the Freedom Summit Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa (detail: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Benen, Steve. “The perils of a small-tent party”. msnbc. 21 September 2015.

The Scott Walker Show (Virtue of Citizenship)

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) continues his curious cowardice.

BASH: Earlier this week you said that the Boy Scouts of America should keep its ban on gay leaders because the policy protected children and (INAUDIBLE) scout values. And then your campaign clarified to say that it was really protecting the scouts from the political and media discussion about that.

I’m having trouble understanding that. What―at the end of the day what is your position?

WALKER: I’m not talking about personal protection. I’m talking about―for me the reason why I didn’t have a problem with it is I just think it pulled scouting into a whole larger political and cultural debate as opposed to saying scouting is about camping and citizenship and merit badge and service awards instead of pulling all these other issues out there. And I just hope that they (ph) can (ph) stay focused. That’s all.

BASH: So, but should there be a ban on allowing gay men to be scout leaders?

WALKER: That’s up to the people who run the boy scouts.

One thing that people find unique, I guess, whether you like it or not, is I actually answer questions. People ask me a question, I’ll answer a question―

BASH: You’re not really answering this one.

WALKER: Sure. I said in this case that’s what I thought. I thought the policy was just fine.

BASH: OK.

WALKER: I (ph) was (ph) saying (ph) when I was in scouts it was fine. You’re asking what should the policy be going forward? It should be left up to the leaders of the scouts.

BASH: Do you think that being gay is a choice?

WALKER: Oh, I mean I think―that’s not even an issue for me to be involved in. The bottom line is, I’m going to stand up and work hard for every American regardless of who they are, no matter where they come from, no matter what their background. I’m going to fight for people and no matter whether they vote for me or not.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: On behalf of people is to do that properly you have to understand or at least have an opinion on who they are and where they’re coming from.

WALKER: But again, I think―no I don’t have an opinion on every single issue out there. I mean to me that’s―I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question.

So I’m just saying (INAUDIBLE) I don’t know what the answer to that is. And again I’m going to spend my time focused on things that I do know and what I can work on.

There is actually a lot going on in this exchange from CNN’s State of the Union, but the first thing to remember is that the questions come in a week when Boy Scout Leaders voted unanimously to approve a middling policy that lifts the formal ban on gay and bisexual employees and volunteers, reinvesting the question of discrimination at the troop level. Mr. Walker, apparently displeased with this turn of events, explained: “I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.”

Nebraska (Belfry Beats Mix)

“In a strongly worded opinion, the judge said it is not up to the court to decide whether homosexuality is sinful.”

―Alissa Skelton

This is just one of those lines we might read and then wonder for ourselves what sort of courses might bring our lives to such a moment. Judge John Gerrard felt the need to say it; Alissa Skelton had every reason to report it.

A federal judge will not allow a Nebraska woman to be a legal spokeswoman for God and his son, Jesus Christ.

Judge John Gerrard dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday filed against all homosexuals ....

.... Gerrard said Driskell lacked subject matter jurisdiction and cannot sue a class of unidentified defendants. Driskell did not set forth a factual or legal basis for a federal claim.

“The United States Federal Courts were created to resolve actual cases and controversies arising under the Constitution and the laws of the United States,” Judge Gerrard said. “A federal court is not a forum for debate or discourse on theological matters.”

The thing is that many journalists have seen entire careers pass without having an opportunity to write lines like these. To the one, we will see more explanations like this as the mass media overflow continues to grow into a market flood. To the other, yes, it really does seem like we are, as a society, dispensing with certain dignities quite suddenly seeming inconvenient as traditional empowerment majorities reel from the shock of learning that their bully privileges are being revoked. In this case, the tacit obligation of actually having a point has stretched so thin a judge felt compelled to make the point specifically.

These should be rare days.

After all, the election cycle is only beginning. Things aren’t supposed to get really strange until the Boone Straw Poll in August. And that’s still a whole state away.

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Image note: Naota winces in sympathy as Ninamori suffers the effects of N.O. (FLCL ep. 3, “Marquis de Carabas”)

Skelton, Alissa. “Federal judge dismisses Nebraskan’s suit against all homosexuals”. World-Herald. 6 May 2015.

Kilgore, Ed. “Ames Straw Poll Leaving Ames”. Washington Monthly. 12 March 2015.

Futility As a Scourge

Do you ever have those moments when you just wonder?

Is this real? Are people actually like this? It is one thing to say these people and ideas exist, but, really, is this real?

Lila Shapiro tries―and valiantly, at that―to explain for Huffington Post:

When asked why they’d come to the National Mall on a recent overcast Saturday, four days before the Supreme Court would hold its latest hearing on same-sex marriage, nearly all of the dozens of people I talked to opened with the same statement, pretty much word for word: “I believe that God’s marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Several added, as an afterthought, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” — looking at me frankly, as if that settled everything.

This is my third year reporting on the National Organization for Marriage’s annual “March for Marriage.” The past three years have not been kind to opponents of gay marriage in America, who have, with only minor exceptions, lost every significant legal, political and cultural battle they’ve fought. This year’s march was billed by NOM President Brian Brown as “our last, best opportunity to reach the U.S. Supreme Court before they decide whether marriage as it has existed throughout our history is unconstitutional.” But nearly everyone I talked to said they felt that moment had already passed.

“Honestly, I think it might be over,” said Mary, a 27-year-old woman from Virginia who declined to give her last name.

Nearby, two women in long dresses and sun hats were talking about the end of days. “It’s like my daddy always says, we’re going to hell in a handbasket,” said Jaime Smathers, 37, who’d come with her church from Virginia. She didn’t smile as she said it. There is very little joking at the March for Marriage.

Yes.

This is real.

This is happening.

This is what it looks like.

This is what it sounds like.

Naturally, the line seems overused: It all goes downhill from there.

This is what it is.

This is who they are.

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Image note: A Salute to Virtue: Participants in the March For Marriage pray outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 25, 2015, in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court meets on April 28 to hear arguments on whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed in the United States, with a final decision expected in June. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Shapiro, Lila. “Meet The People Trying To Seize The ‘Last, Best Opportunity’ To Stop Gay Marriage”. The Huffington Post. 27 April 2015.

The Sacrifice of the Intellect

“It doesn’t matter what custom you’ve got, it doesn’t matter what holy thing that you worship and adore, the gays are going to get it. They’re going to make you conform to them. You are going to say you like anal sex, you like oral sex, you like bestiality, you like anything you can think of, whatever it is. And sooner or later you are going to have to conform your religious beliefs the group of some aberrant thing. It won’t stop at homosexuality.”

―Pat Robertson

Dear Christian neighbors … er … um … never mind.

And our special thanks to Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch, who apparently watches 700 Club so the rest of us don’t have to. And, you know, really, it’s amazing what we miss for skipping out in defense of our sanity.

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Image note: Detail of Bug Martini, by Adam Huber, 25 February 2015.

Tashman, Brian. “Pat Robertson: Gays Will Force You To Like Anal Sex, Bestiality”. Right Wing Watch. 2 April 2015.

The Gap in the Line

Sometimes it is hard to know just how to respond. React. Perceive. Feel.

Author Peter Monn appears to be retiring from the fight:

I don’t claim to know or understand God. I know there is one and I’m not it. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel but I also believe in religious freedom. But this isn’t about religious freedom. What knowing LGBT person would want to spend their money or hire someone who so opposed who they are at their core? Not me.

But I’m tired of fighting. I’ve been fighting since I was 5 years old to have other people accept me for something I never understood in the first place. And if I couldn’t understand it then I know they certainly can’t understand. And I’m done trying. I’m tired of explaining to people who would never be affected by such a bill how it haunts me and once again makes me feel different; less than.

My life is probably more than half over anyway. This is for our children. I refuse to fight so that when I’m 80 I can have my picture taken for the local paper because it’s such an honor that they finally passed some ridiculous bill of rights that I should have had all along. Nope. I’m done fighting. And to me, that is freedom. It is obvious that my word is not important anyway. It is obvious that my life does not matter to those voting in fear, hiding behind religious freedoms that do not specifically affect their personal lives. The best that I can do is step away.

There must be something I’m missing, because the first thought to mind is bitter: “Go tell it to the headstones.”

To the other, many of us hid while others stood the line for us; it is hard to protest the desire to stop fighting and simply live.

There are others who will fill the gap in the line. This isn’t over yet.

Thank you for your service, Mr. Monn; we are all, truly, grateful.

Be well. You helped with the heavy lifting; we’ll take it from here.

And we will stand. We will speak. We will fight. And we will win. And then we can all get on with the business of living.

____________________

Monn, Peter. “How I Will Express My Religious Freedom in Indiana”. The Huffington Post. 24 March 2015.

Required Reading

“I hadn’t really cried for him with anyone—I’d cried alone, obviously, but this was the first time I’d broken down in front of a friend. ‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘My boyfriend raped me.'”

―Anonymous

It is a depressing read. It is also required reading.

Well, you know, inasmuch as required reading can exist under these circumstances.

Still, though, read.

I would plead with anyone who’s been sexually assaulted in similar circumstances to tell someone you trust, and don’t ever, ever pretend that it’s not a big deal. Context is irrelevant if you’ve said “no.” These things might happen in the dark, but they should never be kept that way.

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Image note: Detail of artwork by Nick Scott for Vice.com, February, 2015.

Anonymous. “Rape Happens in Gay Relationships Too”. Vice. 23 February 2015.

Last Month’s List o’Links

Notes from the Culture Wars:

• Kevin Thornton, or, queer alt country on being gay and forty in the twenty-first century. (HuffPo)

• Paige Lavender on Texas and the transgendered. (HuffPo)

• Tresa Baldas tries to explain the unfortunate intersection of compassion, hatred, and your doctor. (Detroit Free Press)

• Sam Levine, and this time it’s Kentucky and the transgendered. (HuffPo)

• Cavan Sieczkowski on Freud on homosexuality. (HuffPo)

• Two reports, from Tammy Mutasa and Casey Weldon on a die-in demonstration at Fountain Square, Cincinnati, calling attention to violence against transgendered. (WLWT, WCPO)

• Education? State? Justice? Jennifer Bendery reports that the transgendered also have the Department of Defense on their side. (HuffPo)

• At this point, Michael Tomasky’s piece tying social conservative politics to the precipitous decline spectacular crash of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential ambitions to … Jerry Falwell. (The Daily Beast)

Some Good News from the State Department

Celebrate:

I could not be more proud to announce Randy Berry as the first-ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons.

We looked far and wide to find the right American official for this important assignment. Randy’s a leader. He’s a motivator. But most importantly for this effort, he’s got vision. Wherever he’s served – from Nepal to New Zealand, from Uganda to Bangladesh, from Egypt to South Africa, and most recently as Consul General in Amsterdam – Randy has excelled. He’s a voice of clarity and conviction on human rights. And I’m confident that Randy’s leadership as our new Special Envoy will significantly advance efforts underway to move towards a world free from violence and discrimination against LGBT persons.

Defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally – the heart and conscience of our diplomacy. That’s why we’re working to overturn laws that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct in countries around the world. It’s why we’re building our capacity to respond rapidly to violence against LGBT persons, and it’s why we’re working with governments, civil society, and the private sector through the Global Equality Fund to support programs advancing the human rights of LGBT persons worldwide.

Too often, in too many countries, LGBT persons are threatened, jailed, and prosecuted because of who they are or who they love. Too many governments have proposed or enacted laws that aim to curb freedom of expression, association, religion, and peaceful protest. More than 75 countries still criminalize consensual same-sex activity.

At the same time, and often with our help, governments and other institutions, including those representing all religions, are taking steps to reaffirm the universal human rights of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. So while this fight is not yet won, this is no time to get discouraged. It’s time to stay active. It’s time to assert the equality and dignity of all persons, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. And with Randy helping to lead our efforts, I am confident that’s exactly what we can and will do.

―U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

Not all the news coming out of the Beltway is bad.

____________________

Kerry, John. “Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons”. U.S. Department of State. 23 February 2015.

An Example of Alaskan Virtue

In the early nineties, a disgruntled group of anti-abortion activists in Oregon decided to shift gears, and the Oregon Citizens’ Alliance rose to influence trying to compel the state to exclude homosexuals from societal participation; the ballot measure was so broadly worded that a “gay panic defense” would succeed in any question of murdering a homosexual or suspected homosexual, because prosecutors would be forbidden from not condemning homosexuality as “abnormal, perverse, and wrong”. While some of us frequently joke that marriage equality owes much to such merry bands of stooges insofar as they moved the question of gay rights to the fore as no gay rights activist possibly could, it was a grave time that even saw homophobes resort to terrorism.

Well, we didn’t call it terrorism back then, did we? It was just firebombing faggots, a method viewed at the time as questionable for its potential to create sympathy toward homosexuals.

Which is telling. But the aspect we might consider today is a persistent one: Why is the idea of consent as relates to sexual intercourse so irrelevant to the conservative political outlook?

I’m sorry, is that a harsh question?

Deal with it. We’ve been hearing this sort of talk for decades.

The latest manifestation comes from Rep. Don Young (R-AK):

At a Wasilla High School assembly Tuesday morning, U.S. Rep. Don Young didn’t temper his notoriously abrasive personality for his young audience.

Numerous witnesses say Young, 81, acted in a disrespectful and sometimes offensive manner to some students, used profanity and started talking about bull sex when confronted with a question about same-sex marriage.

(Hollander)

Then again, this is Don Young. The octagenarian congressman has a penchant for bigoted gaffes.

Which, in turn, says something about the virtues and values along the Last Frontier.

But here is the functional problem: This is part of a long-running rhetorical bit whereby social conservatives aim for comedic style points. The problem here is that in winning the debate on style points, conservatives are (A) dehumanizing their opponents, and (B) erasing sexual consent.