The truth will out (no pun intended)

Remember those video recordings of the lawsuit against gay marriage, the recordings that anti-gay activists didn’t want anyone to see? They’re coming out.

Video recordings of the trial over California’s gay marriage ban should be unsealed, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

District Judge James Ware in San Francisco said in a court order that there was “no compelling” reason to keep the digital files under seal.

This is a serious setback for those who believe in the right to harass and oppress others from the safety and privacy of court-protected anonymity. In this case, however, I think the interests of society as a whole outweigh the privileges of the oppressors.

In defense of marriage

Over at the Huffington Post, Alvin McEwen writes:

It’s time for this “we need to protect marriage” con to die. And it will. It could happen in North Carolina or Minnesota. Both states are facing anti-marriage-equality votes next year. Or it could happen before then. But rest assured, it will happen.

Amen. I’m all for defending marriage, provided we recognize that the biggest threat against marriage right now is excessive government intrusion into people’s private and personal business. Let’s defend marriage—gay or straight—from the legalistic machinations of bigoted busybodies who want to take it away. And when it comes to putting that kind of protection into the Constitution, I’m all for that too.

Gospel Disproof #3: Christian homophobia

One sure sign of a made-up God is that the people who make Him up invariably ascribe their own prejudices and biases to Him, in order to make them officially binding on everyone else. Christians and their Jewish predecessors demonstrate this by their traditional portrayal of God as a virulent homophobe and bigot who does not wish merely to deny gays the right to get married, but wishes to deny them life itself, if they are ever so presumptuous as to become intimate with each other as heterosexuals do.

[Read more…]

The Amazing vanishing post

I got a really intriguing snippet in my Google Alerts mail today.

Why Christians Don’t Want Government Defining Marriage
Crosswalk.com (blog)
It’s not uncommon for Christian pundits to agree with certain candidates who are conservative in a number of areas but castigate them profusely when those same candidates don’t support a government ban on homosexual marriage. …

When I click on the link, it takes me to Crosswalk.com, a Christian web site dedicated to Bible study and evangelism. But the post is gone.

Hmmm.

Support your local Republican

Never thought I’d say it, but a report in the New York Daily News may force me to support a few Republican politicians.

ALBANY – An anti-gay marriage group is launching a billboard attack against Republican senators who voted in favor of same-sex unions.

The National Organization for Marriage plans to place billboards in the districts of four GOP state senators who broke ranks and voted to legalize gay marriage in June.

Head Bigot Brian Brown says the group is planning on spending $40,000 on the initial run of billboards, in addition to $150,000 already spent on direct mail campaigns attacking the senators and seeking their defeat in the 2012 elections.

I suppose if they succeed, it will at least simplify the process of telling the good guys from the bad guys.

PS: Check out the actual URL for that article and see if you can figure out which side the web guy(s) at nydailynews.com might be on…

Bigotry backfires on Christian consultant

The Christian Post reports that anti-gay author Dr. Frank Turek is finding it just a little bit harder to sell his team-building consultancy services after publishing a book promoting discrimination against many of the employees and customers of his prospective clients.

Just months after being fired from Cisco Systems in California over an anti-gay marriage book, Christian consultant Dr. Frank Turek was also given the boot from Bank of America.

“I get a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Turek said this past week on American Family Radio.

He’s being just a bit dishonest, of course. If all he were doing was defending the freedom to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, then that would be fine. It’s a bigoted and ignorant opinion, but freedom of speech means that people are allowed to hold bigoted and ignorant opinions, as long as they don’t try to force their bigotry on others in a way that violates their civil and human rights. That last bit, however, is exactly what Dr. Turek and his fellow believers are trying to do, which is why he’s taking some heat for it.

[Read more…]

Bigotry is as bigotry does

CNN reports that Rick Santorum isn’t too happy about being labeled a bigot.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum defended his position on gay marriage Tuesday while speaking to students at Pennsylvania State University, and slammed CNN’s Piers Morgan for questioning him as a “bigot” in a pre-taped interview that aired Wednesday night.
“I had Piers Morgan call me a bigot, because I believe what the Catholic Church teaches with respect to homosexuality,” Santorum said, heatedly. “So now I’m a bigot because I believe what the Bible teaches.”

Yup. See, here’s the thing: “bigotry” is when you pick a certain group of people to treat as inferiors—denying them the same rights as everyone else—simply because they are different in some way. The question of “bigot vs. not-bigot” is not a question of where you get your ideas from, it’s a question of whether or not you do what bigotry does.

It is nice that he gives the Bible and the Catholic Church full credit as the source of his bigotry though.