Gov. Christie wants cake, eats it too. Wednesday, Jan 25 2012

So, New Jersey’s Gov. Christie nominates Bruce Harris, America’s first openly gay African-American Republican elected official, mayor of tiny Chatham Borough, barely a few months ago, to the State Supreme Court one day, and the next day says gays have no “right” to get married. So, 8 out of 9 justices on the court can get married by law, and the ninth, well, tough noogies? And what does Mr. Christie tell Mr. Harris on the day of the swearing in? “Oh, too bad old fellow, you can rule on all the matters of the state but are not good enough to have your relationship recognized by the state over which you hold sway?” Is that what Mr. Christie will say, or something of the like? Odd, he seems to want his cake and eat it too.

For one cannot say that a gay man is of good enough stature to be on the highest court in the state, but is not of good enough stature to marry the man of his dreams. It’s just political pandering – to whom, it’s hard to tell. For why would he nominate the hitherto obscure Mr. Harris to such an esteemed position and then tell him he’s not worthy of a legal marriage? Here’s the article from which I feed: http://news.yahoo.com/nj-gov-says-hed-veto-gay-marriage-bill-182600917.html

It’s clear that Christie, who deigned to run for president, would certainly love to be vice-president, and I guess he’s got to appease the voters of New Jersey and the Republican faithful – my, what a tight rope the man must wander. And for a man of girth, a man who has abandoned all thought of the sin of gluttony, that’s astounding. For I doubt Mr. Harris was the only qualified person to be found among the 8 million people of New Jersey to sit on the high court at this moment. For what purpose would he nominate Mr. Harris? Surely it is for some political reason? Or could Mr. Harris, toiling in obscurity lo these many years all of a sudden be the wisest man in the land?

And when the whole issue comes before the state’s Supreme Court, as it will do, one way or the other, by one side or the other, perhaps as to whether the touted amendment passes muster, or is required, or is something or else, or should be stricken or upheld if it passes or fails, no doubt the forces arrayed against gay people will of course demand he recuse himself – for these heathens are sure that no gay judge shall ever have a right to rule on a gay matter – they have made that clear in state after state, case after case. Indeed, no doubt the forces against gay folk’s very existence will be enraged that a gay man is on the court at all, rather than in some religious “reparative” therapy center at the age of 65 or whatever Mr. Harris is. He’s not a young’un that’s for sure.

So Christie says: “Let the people of New Jersey decide what is right for the state.” Yes, well, what else then should be put to the people’s vote? After all, if this is so important that the duly constituted legislature is not to be trusted, no doubt no other matter can be trusted to the Representative Republic in which we live – and not the Athenean Democracy which Mr. Christie now seems to think we live in. Hell, Mr. Christie, of “lower the taxes” fame, and “cut the union’s” power demeanor – why not put those matters to be decided by the people? You have not called for one other thing to be put to the people – but have cajoled the legislature to do your bidding. You haven’t called for a vote of the people on one single matter in your tenure as governor – and now, of a sudden, the people are paramount and the governor and legislature is to be shunted aside? Then resign, and let every matter be a people’s vote. Be consistent — on truly important matters — and not the tiny thing of gay marriage – for we cannot be this important.

From the article: “Christie told a town hall audience that an issue of such magnitude should be decided by residents and shouldn’t be treated as ‘ political football.’” Oh really? Don’t make it a “political football.” Well, sir, how on earth could making a political referendum for the people’s vote on a constitutional amendment not be a political football? You will have to launch the campaign – a year or two prior to the vote – with politicking galore! With gay folks to be kicked around in unholy nastiness and vitriol by political figures of all sundry and sordid sort. Do you think, sir, that there will be no politicking about the issue? Will not every political group, PAC, political hack, political ads, political campaigns, political advisers, and every politician in the state being importuned by every two-bit NO GAYS! nit wit in the land come to the Garden State to politic? Of course they will. Please, spare me the “no political football” nonsense – we have long been out of the huddle, and under the steely gaze of the front-line men to be unaware of the politicking to come on the issue.

Indeed, to take the football away from the politics you should sign the bill and shush. But to say you don’t want it to be political and then throw it into the political arena is astounding mush. Particularly, the day after you nominate a gay man to be on the state’s highest court which will wind up ruling somehow someday on the very matter of the referendum. Not to mention, New Jersey doesn’t really have a referendum process – I can recall not once in my 45 years of cogent life that New Jersey ever put any matter before the entire electorate to be decided – perhaps I’m wrong, but I dare say no.

“He said a proposed constitutional amendment should be drafted and put to a referendum, a position he also held when he campaigned for office in 2009.” Yes, well, again, I can’t recall a single other amendment to the constitution of New Jersey ever put to the vote of the entire people – which usually means some 35% or so – for that’s the usual turnout in elections in that fair state.

“Of such magnitude…”? Really? What magnitude? Who will be affected by gay marriage? Gay folks of course, will get to have a little legal protections and benefits now denied, though they pay the extortionate tax rates of New Jersey that Mr. Christie is trying to quell. This buggaboo about heteros being “impacted” by gay marriage – I keep pointing out: are heteros so unsure of their sexuality? Are their marriages so built on sand (seems so, given the divorce rate and the adulterous bed-hopping) that they must deny “marriage” to gay folks lest their own marriages fall by the wayside like a seed on stony ground? Is the happiness, even bliss, of gay couples so inimical to the hetero conscience that only preventing the legal recognition of the practical on-the-ground reality that necessary?

And he’s all for civil unions, this Mr. Christie is, and so apparently the good heteros can handle the concept, but what, not the word “marriage”? Are heteros that unsure and unsteady of themselves? Meanwhile, we gays are clamoring for marriage in ways and strengths that the “conservative” Mr. Christie should marvel at. Indeed, as some commentators at National Review and the American Spectator, hardly pro-gay publications, and Christie lovers of note, have marveled at the strongly professed desires and commitments to marriage that gays demand and insist upon – as we have been doing so since Frank Kameny stood before the gates of the White House in the late 1950s. Gay groups have been insisting on this for decades, this is nothing new.

“Whether or not to redefine hundreds of years of societal and religious traditions should not be decided by 121 people in the Statehouse,” he said. Oh really? Besides the fact that nothing is being “redefined” but a hitherto matter of equality expanded to cover more people, the erstwhile reason for this Republic. Or was “voting” redefined” by letting women vote? Was “freedom” redefined by getting rid of slavery – and in one fell swoop with nary 121 legislators of any sort or style, state or federal, did Mr. Lincoln, first Republican president, of Mr. Christie’s own party, get rid of slavery — and certainly no public referendum. Poof, gone. By imperial writ even, of a sort never before or since contemplated. The Emancipation Proclamation was the most far reaching single act of a single man ever carried out in this Republic of legislatures. Nary a public referendum, court order, legislative vote or even consultation with anyone more, apparently, than a few cabinet members of the time and Mrs. Lincoln – and poof, Mr. Lincoln got rid of slavery. 121 now deciding would be some 120 more than Mr. Lincoln did to rid a most pernicious “societal and religious tradition” of the land.

Not to mention – religion doesn’t belong in the law. Strange how it seems only gay folks are subject to religious reasons for laws – no other matter is of “religious tradition” that should be enshrined in law, or any law subject to it. But apparently for gays there’s a religious test for mere citizenship, and everyone else free to throw their Bibles into the swamps of the Meadowlands. Where was the public vote on gambling? On divorce? On allowing women to vote? On lowering the voting age? On getting rid of the adultery laws? Of changing any law indeed — no matter was ever as important as the use of the word “marriage” by gay folks? Pshaw, it just can’t be so. Where were those votes, Mr. Christie?

Not to mention, but I shall, over 350 years of societal and religious traditions about women voting, gambling, divorce, adultery, liquor, the state income tax, abortion, welfare, slavery, black voting rights – all of them highly contentious “societal and religious traditions” and of quite a “magnitude” indeed – ones affecting every citizen of New Jersey – not a one of them were ever put to a referendum for a constitutional amendment. Not once did any “societal or religious” figures ever come to the fore and demand a public vote of everyone (or such as could be mustered,) to preserve the previous arrangements and the 121 people in the statehouse were deemed well qualified, as they should be, to deal with the matter. And legal “marriage” – the mere use of the word even, for Mr. Christie says, in effect, that “civil unions” are “just like marriage” – only affects gays, for no hetero will go down to the local gay bar (from which taxes are paid to pay Mr. Christie’s ample salary, public home and perks, and food galore,) and find a gay guy to hitch.

And, since I always like to point out that gayness is such a different thing, that it’s never “Republicans hate it, Democrats like it” nonsense of the gay chattering classes and the big media – Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat sponsoring the bill, said civil rights issues like the right to marry are guaranteed under the state constitution and do not require a public vote.” “Civil rights is not to be placed on the ballot,” Sweeney said – just several years after he was quite against it – well, if Sweeny swept away his concerns, so could Christie cross the aisle and join the future, instead of being mired in the past, when his own state, following societal traditions, used to incarcerate gay folks, never mind let them buss at the altar or the “civil union” clerk’s office.

Indeed, where does one get this vaunted “civil union” piece of paper in New Jersey? Is there a separate office from the Marriage Office? Do we get a special window, for we’re special? Are we conferred with this “special right” while all the heteros go to some other bureaucrat for their paper? Indeed, it must perforce even be a different form, a different drawer, even, in the desk of some flunky, for the form to be pulled. How unequal, how special, how ridiculous.

Even more astounding, here and now, in this time of growing acceptance of gay folks – spurred, directed, insisted, demanded by gay folks ourselves, starting with our very families, still denied to see us in matrimony while our siblings – paying the same taxes, and to vote on the same proffered referendum no doubt – are accepted into the fold with one word, we are given another –> what a thing to tell a mother – “your gay son is less worthy than your hetero son” – so much for societal and religious traditions about the equal love and worth of a mother’s two sons — and the utter abdication of family reality – now comes this: Earlier Tuesday, 127 professors from 48 law schools around the country signed a letter saying New Jersey’s civil union law cannot be fixed. No, the whole concept of “civil union” is mush – it’s “marriage” without the word, supposedly.

Is the word that sacred? A mere word? Why, the Supreme Court already recently ruled that anyone in the land might say “God hates fags” and I’m sure all the religious fanatics of New Jersey can bar the church house doors and say “God Hates Fags” to their great delight and safety and gays go get married elsewhere. Is the mere word the thing? Is this only then what “marriage” is, a word? Seems so, what with the astounding disregard heteros use towards it. Why, they stand, in traditional and societal approbation galore on altars from High Point to Cape May and solemnly swear to God and State, family and spouse: “till death do us part” and within the fortnight or twenty years are down at the never-referendumed (if I may coin a term, for such are these times of mush) divorce courts; themselves paid for with gay tax dollars – which divorce was illegal and not sanctioned in New Jersey from inception of statehood until the 1960s – when 121 people in the statehouse threw those laws out. And now you all but clearly state: “separate, and unequal” — so much for our nation’s traditions — and not some church’s.

Come now Mr. Christie – you have not only made this a political football – you have picked it up and thrown it to the rabid rioting fans who are sure that gay people have not only no right to marriage, but no right to existence itself. For your Catholic Church, which was mentioned, which you referenced as the font of your beliefs that the mere word “marriage” shall not be sullied by gay folks, while heteros disdain it with alacrity — and which all the anti-gay forces will mention – the Church want us gone from this earth. So much for their societal traditions: eradication! Let us vote, the people, on their tax exempt status.

And while we’re at it, let us put every legislative act to the people’s vote – and let us merely make the legislature a law proposing body, and the governor a rubber stamp – of what need we you anymore if the “People” are to decide everything? – rather than the representative body of the people it is supposed to be? One that was designed specifically by the founders of this nation to remove the rule of the mob, to forestall the politicizing of every issue by base emotions of the moment, and place them squarely in the hands of 121 people in Trenton to make decisions for the state. Ah, but now you propose to get rid of the legislative purpose, and bring about the mob, which shall be frenzied up in a riot that only fans of English football love. And gay folks will be kicked and punted and chased off the field. Bah, sir, Bah!

Cut the pandering, cut the politicizing – and lead. You claim to be a leader of your state, and now, like a callow dog, you seek to follow. You sought your position to make New Jersey a better place, and now you throw gay folks like a split pig skin to the very forces that would have us removed from society – for tradition, they say. That sir, is not leadership – putting the matter of gay happiness to the public’s preference is nothing but “political football” of the lowest sort. For not individuals will be involved as individuals – but the concept of “homosexuality” – that’s what will be put to the public – not John & Joe, or Jane & Mary in bliss – but “homosexuality” – and not a happy couple will be seen (hell, the media can still with impunity ban us from the airwaves and printed press), but the preconceived notions of what any voter will think of some abstract – rather than a man like Bruce Harris, who just the day before you utter mush, you nominated to the highest court of the land. How you can say he’s worthy and unworthy within twenty-four hours is beyond me, truly it is.

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Hey Santorum: “Anti-Family” Gay man compiles Family History Monday, Jan 16 2012

I find it not very funny when the Fundamentalists, Catholic hierarchy and many a politician and religious figure keep up the constant ill-considered drumbeat that gay men are “anti-family.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, it’s rather nasty and moronic to keep saying it. No gay man ever attacked a family or tried to kill one off or worked to prohibit or inhibit any family whatsoever. In fact, it seems, especially today, that gay men are so embedded within their families that this absurdity is obviously all the more monstrous.

And particularly come to this conclusion as I am spending some six weeks going through my family’s history – some 2000+ photos, 300+ letters, and some 300+ ephemera, or items that don’t particularly fit any category. I’m the owner of these things, having inherited them from my recently departed mother. And I’m the one sending out photos to the relatives and speaking to aunts and uncles and cousins galore to relay to them what I have found. And I can trace my family – on many branches – back to at least the late 1700s, and some a tad earlier. Since they started out in the Czech Republic – itself longer under the thumb of the Catholic monarchs known as the Hapsburgs of Austria – many of the letters and items are in Czech. I’m the only one here on these shores among my family who can translate these things. And all my family awaits eagerly the next installment.

I read recently that Rick Santorum has family in Italy – turns out they are all Communists – die hard so. They seem to be appalled at Rick’s “conservative” stances – only he’s no conservative, he’s a radical religionist hellbent on making this nation an outpost of the Catholic Church. Sure, he doesn’t say so – but virtually every thing he says is right out of the Pope’s policy book. And that’s scary. I find it hysterical, that while his family is a bunch of Communists in so-called Capitalist Democracy Italy (no, not really, it’s a socialist country, and hence, of course, broke and going broker,) – my family in former Communist Czechoslovakia are staunch true capitalists and for a freedom of conscience that Santorum is ill-prepared to consider. For he seems to think if one does not think like him and the Pope one is “evil” and somehow “Against” whatever it is he is for. And what he seems to be for is a Medieval mindset worthy of Catholic Hapsburgs.

I’ve not had time or inclination to publish on this blog for a number of weeks now – for I am busy pulling together and making sense of my family’s history. And then, from time to time, I go read some news stories of the current political scene all I keep finding is this anti-gay mush about we gay folks being “anti-family.” Frankly, it is infuriating. It’s disheartening that no one in the press simply says “What on earth are you talking about?” Instead, the mush heads of the press seem to wish to indulge the morons running for office and attempting the passage of all sorts of anti-gay laws. From Tennessee’s attempt to outlaw the use of the word “gay” – a perfectly fine 800 year old English word meaning, well, meaning “gay” and instead instituting some nonsense of a modern 1890s German scientific word “homosexual.” It’s mind boggling.

Then there’s the efforts in North Carolina and Minnesota to “protect” marriages by passing State Constitutional Amendments banning marriages – while permitting divorces and wife and child abandonment with, um, wild abandon. All because these heteros are so fearful that they will all of a sudden wake tomorrow and want to be gay if a nice word is said about us.

Then there’s a creep of this “Ex-gay” (or more rightly, “re-heteroized” since our opponents are quite clear in the belief, without fact, that we either “choose” to be gay, or are “made” or “recruited” to be gay – despite all our protestations to the contrary – and thus, in fact, by their own nefariously ludicrous logic – start out as heteros – so we’re not becoming “ex-gay” so much as returning to hetero. As if.) This guy, who’s name escapes me, but who is the head of Exodus, some cockamamie organization that in nearly three decades of attempts has changed not one homo to hetero. The concept being so absurd, so beyond reality, that one wonders why they keep trying – but try they do. And now, he’s all of a sudden, come to realize that of all the “sins” of this world, only gay folks – which he continues to call inherent continuous sinners merely for waking up in the morning – have parades and political programs. Does it them occur to him that therefore we are not “sinners” but entirely something else – like, oh, something akin to Autism? The parallels I’ve made and seen between gayness and autism I’ve commented on before – it’s astounding. Replete with the reality that the same small percentage is gay in every culture, race and society on earth, regardless of where and when that milieu ever existed. Does it occur to this man then that we are not “sinners” and in need of change, but just a quirk of mankind in need of some mollycoddling? No, apparently it does not.

Meanwhile, politicians the land over are working diligently in castigating and excoriating us for every ill known to the heterosexual family – from infidelity, abortion, wife-beating and child-abuse. And gay men are not responsible for this – either directly or indirectly or by any other logic connection. Those hetero problems are strictly hetero – and all the pounding and harassment of gay folks will do absolutely nothing to alter that reality. These heteros are responsible, not us.

And then there’s the poseurs for the presidency, making noises about loathsome laws and amendments to our Constitution to “protect” the 95%+ who are heterosexuals from us few gays. The idea is so beyond my ability to grasp that I can’t describe the feelings of anger I get when I hear that I am “Anti-family.” Whose family am I against? They can point to none. Certainly not to mine. Not a one of my family is of the opinion that I’m against them, or “Anti-” them. They find the “debate” bonkers. But there they are, Bachmann, Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, going on and on and on about the perils of gay folks. It’s unbecoming a free land. It’s out of character for any supposedly intelligent person to hold such ideas. And yet, there they are, day in and day out, lambasting gay folks for the ills of the nation. It’s so mystical, so Medieval, so – well, I run out of adjectives of the nonsensical nature of it.

And it’s time for this nation to stop treating gay folks as some political problem – and start treating those who wish to install a theocracy as the political problem. They are cruising for a constitutional crisis over us. We keep begging to be accepted just the way we are, and we have won over our own families and friends and most co-workers. We have simply disproved every contention against us – and all are so blatantly false and illogical that it points to a certain willful blindness on the part of these politicians to keep up their unholy and unAmerican rhetoric of assault upon us. Really, now, get a grip folks. It’s beyond the pale of humanhood to keep saying something so abysmally stupid that your foolishness is apparent to nearly everyone in the nation already.

Still, this presidential election will bring the gay “issue” to the forefront like no other election in our nation’s history. And time will tell whether gay men will continue to be hounded, and perhaps, if some get their way, to be rounded up and incarcerated forever on the heterosexual dime – or if the whole blistering stupidity will come to an end. And yes, gay folks will hold no grudges – we never have. We will simply welcome you anti-gay folks to the modern world, to the real world, to the decency which is called for and never utter a word about your past transgressions into the world of thoughtlessness.

Still, keep it up, my dear Republicans and not a few Democrats, and you will find yourselves such a beaten minority party that it will make your head swim. For of all the troubles of this nation – gay folks are just not one of them. Only in your own fetid minds is this the case. And really, you should come to your senses and get a grip and join the decent world and stop freaking out over the box of rocks known as gay folks. We are a great boon to this nation, and a helping hand – and we are not a hindrance or threat. And we are not “Anti-family” – and this I know, from, like I said, being my family’s historian and actually, strangely, probably the only one in the whole family who talks to everyone – for the heteros of course, they all have this baggage over who did or said what some time ago. Come to the right conclusion and solve the nation’s troubles – and stop picking on gay folks. It’s the right thing to do.

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An “apology” is not enough Cardinal George; acceptance is required. Saturday, Jan 7 2012

Dear Cardinal George

On Christmas Day – one of the most holy days of the year – your made such nasty and insolent comments that we gay folks rose up in righteous indignation – as we are required to do when we are viciously attacked. And now, two weeks later – and only after our defensive outcry of rage – you “apologize.” Well, sir, not good enough.

No, your apology is not enough. Sure, it’s a start. You have far further to go. You have taken but a tiny baby step – and now must take a leap the likes of which you still can’t and won’t contemplate. Let me make it clear – this is why an “Apology” is not enough: Your church still considers me “intrinsically evil” and a threat to my own family, my nation and the society in which I live.

Your apology is nothing but an old fashioned “CYA” – cover your ass. – No sir. The Church must alter it’s teachings and beliefs on gay people – all over this globe. It is not enough for you to say we are not like the KKK when you still believe that I am “evil” and “sick” and “demented” and a “threat” to all that is holy and good. No sir, you are a typical politician – you throw out despicable comments in the hope that no one will notice – and when noticed – apologize merely for the words, but keep the sentiment. Well, frankly, sir, I don’t care that you now “apologize” for comparing me and my gay fellows to the KKK – for you still insist that I am “evil.”

Your church has considered Jews “evil” for two thousand years. Your church has finally relented only this year on that issue. I don’t want an “apology” for the KKK reference – for you will merely seek another more pernicious comparison. No sir, I want acceptance. I want appreciation. I want your Church to admit that gay folks – especially gay men, with whom you have the most trouble – are decent fine folks the world over. Not only in this nation. But in every nation on earth. I want your Church to say “Gay people are part of God’s plan. We don’t know why, but we will embrace our gay brethren.” I want your Church to stop it’s unholy war against me and my mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles and cousins. Not just your own – but mine.

You know sir – my mother tried to be a good Catholic – one of the few in my family – for we are mostly Hussites – another bunch of people to whom you all have never “apologized.” You burnt Jan Hus at the stake in 1415 – and my family rose up in righteous indignation. While my mother joined the Catholic faith, mostly for the fine schools which you run – and she became a nurse at St. Catherine’s Hospital in Brooklyn – because of the fine hospitals you run – when she, many years later learned that I was gay – she could never quite grasp the Church’s disregard for my existence.

We fought over this, my mom and I. She’s passed away now, just over a year ago. And now I, as family historian, am going through her collected things. One thing I found this very day is a 1952 tourist book for the Cenacle of St. Regis. It’s a fine little picture book. Most people, especially gay people, in their rage against your Church’s immoral verbal attack upon us gay folks would have simply tossed it into the garbage. I did not, for my mom would not have liked that – and honoring one’s mother is a tenet of God. Instead I looked up the Cenacle on the Internet – for I decided that such a historic and probably not often saved item would be best in the hands of the successors of the Cenacle of St. Regis on 140^th Street in New York City.

I discovered that the Cenacle is now out in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, New York. And so I have put that little picture book aside to mail to the successors of the Manhattan group – for their history. That’s what sort of gay man I am – a man who appreciates history. And so I will send it to them, in the memory of my mom – and actually ask them to say some prayers for her soul. For she saved it for nearly 60 years – and well, the successors deserve a bit of their history. Well, the history of gay men has been one of travail and devastation at the hands of the Catholic Church. The KKK would have burned the book – not me – I’ll send it off, despite your unholy comments.

But an “apology” is merely your political nonsense to avoid further angst for yourself – it is most certainly not to accept gay folks – for you cannot accept what is “Intrinsically evil” – neither can I. And let me tell you, sir – until your Church joins my mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles and cousins and even my grandparents and my siblings in accepting me as the fine man I am – the very sort of fine man you have stated lives within your own family bosom – your own nephew I hear – how can he be a “fine man” and “intrinsically evil” at the same time – as you yourself doth proclaim? I can’t wrap my head around such opposing views of the same person. Until then your apology is nothing. It is a political maneuver.

No sir, ACCEPTANCE and LOVE and the word of Jesus is the only solution. Apologies are given when one breaks a cookie jar or spills some wine upon a carpet – and your apology still leaves us gay folks as “evil” – no Sir, not on your life will a mere “Apology” be enough. I want you and the Pope himself to recognize that God Himself put me here for His purpose – as a gay man – and not listen once more or again to any nonsense that I’m a threat, evil, dangerous or against anything whatsoever.

I want you to tell Maggie Gallagher and Rick Santorum and the rest of such political figures to whom you minister from your pulpit to stop their unholy and unAmerican verbal and psychological assault on gay Americans – and gay people all over this world. I want you and your Pope and your Church and your fellow cardinals and bishops and priests to rise up against the evil perpetrated against gay men and women in nearly every country on earth. I want you to instruct your pastors in every congregation, from every parish, from every basilica and cathedral and monastery on this earth to say “Gays are good and fine people and are part of God’s plan, love them as Jesus would.”

Here, sir, let me quote you from the Cenacle’s front piece to their little tourist book:

“As Divine Providence orders all things, this Cenacle must now give place to more modern structures for the general good, but its work will continue in another area of the Archdiocese.” – well, sir – it’s time for you and the Church to accept Divine Providence in the creation of gay folks, and to give place to modern structures of thought and place to us – so that your otherwise good works might include us gay folks – and nothing less than full acceptance is called for. Come to your senses and join us gay folks in the reality of our existence and the decency we deserve.

But don’t give me “apologies” for the KKK comments when you still consider me “evil” and a threat to my own family and nation and to every other family and nation under Heaven. No sir, it’s going to take far more than an “Apology.”

Thank you, in the love of Christ.

Jim Hlavac

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Iran’s foolish war threats (they’re gonna’ lose) Tuesday, Jan 3 2012

So I read this morning at http://news.yahoo.com/iran-threatens-action-u-carrier-returns-irna-082124042.html that I ran is threatening a war of sorts with the United States. Can anything be more absurd? I mean really, Iran imports a huge amount of its food – through a few ports – easily blocked if not destroyed by the US. Their air force is pitifully out of date – and can be shot out of the skies in a few hours – if they even get into the air. Their electric grids can be shut down, plunging that nation into the dark. They have minorities, like the Baluchis in the Southeast and the Kurds in the Northwest who would be only too happy to wreck havoc within the nation. Then too there’s Israel which would be more than willing to join the fray.

We could bomb Iran round the clock for weeks and never put a soldier on the ground. We could stop their oil exports. We could seize and freeze their assets outside of Iran, and probably sitting in Europe, which might have the gumption to do the work required to simply stop Iran from spending a dime.

In the long history of war those nations without the wherewithal to feed themselves during the conflict have lost. In this same history those nations with the wherewithal to bring the war to the home front while the belligerent nation has no such ability those nations have lost big time.

Meanwhile, there are millions of Iranians who are fed up with their own government, ready at a moment’s notice to go to the streets, as has been amply proved in the past two or three years, and the students are sure to want to riot rather than go to some front which doesn’t exist. For there would be no ground war, and their needn’t be. We could simply do what we did to Serbia – bomb them from 35,000 feet. We could wreck so much damage on the military pipsqueak of their nation that they wouldn’t know what hit them. We could remove their command and control centers, no matter how deeply buried, for things that are buried can be taken out with both bunker buster bombs and simply destroying the entrances to the underground warrens and the air vents required to keep them functioning.

Is Iran crazy enough to attack a US aircraft carrier? Probably. Would the president of this nation sit back and let it happen? Doubtful. Even a Nobel Prize winning wimp (though he is not such a wimp when it comes to sending in the drones, actually,) would be constrained by our own political reality to wreck that havoc as we are capable of doing. We could sink the Iranian navy in a fortnight – for how many ships could it have, a 100, 200? And they mostly being aging destroyers and coastal cruisers

Not to mention that the Iraqis might well want to join in the fray just to have some fun. And too the Saudis and even the Indians and Pakistanis might send in some forces. England, France, and other Europeans would almost certainly join in to. Is Iran ready to take on the entire world?

China is already stopping the buying of Iranian oil, cutting into the flow of money to the despised and lunatic regime. And I wonder for how long the saner elements of the Iranian polity would want to see their army, air force and navy destroyed. And what of the political forces there sitting in the dark? Does one think that they will all commit a suicide of sorts, and watch their nation be destroyed so that some mullahs, ayatollahs and a lunatic president can reap some ill-fated glory for the 12^th Imam? No, I think not. The forces within Iran will step up to the plate and take out the offending parties.

Meanwhile, the people, dark, cold or hot (depending on the season in which the war starts,) and driven to hunger and the already lackluster economy suffering under years of strange mismanagement will rise up in righteous indignation? Don’t think so? Ah, au contraire, for already the Iranian people are heading to the banks, running on them, to demand US dollars and Euros – and getting rid of their already inflated mush of a currency.

Oh, Iran, don’t be so stupid as to rattle a saber which you are not strong enough to pick up and wield against an “enemy” you can’t see or strike at. And if Iran, by some miracle, should use their one or two subs or ocean going vessels to attack say Baltimore, Miami or New York, the people of this nation will simply demand the utter destruction of Iran. Oh, ayatollahs, can you really be that crazy?

And as for Germany, Russia, Norway, China and the other wimpy nations of the world, who will of course accuse the United States of Lord knows what in the conflagration to come from such a stupid thing as attacking a US carrier, they too will be shunted to the sidelines in sputtering and spewing out their nonsense, and perhaps the “non-aligned” and the United Nations will pass a resolution to resounding majority votes condemning the United States, ergo sealing their own doom as a united organization, for the people of this nation are not going to listen to a bunch of nuts and be cowed by some third rate near third world dictatorship.

And what of Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Well, I dare say, besides the already well advanced efforts at disruption that the Israelis or someone did with the Stuxnet virus on their computers, will be ramped up to simply bomb any and every conceivable and imagined nuclear facility, with no mercy, not just some Clintonesque pinpricks, or Carterian waffling, but will simply give the hold heave ho to every potential weapon in the vast arsenal at the ready to bring down the arrant and errant regime in flames.

And the Iranian people, long suffering under the yoke of Religious Tyranny will not long join their own government in their own destruction, but would rise up in revolution and a slaughtering of those who brought the misery upon them.

No, I have some faith that Iran can be dealt with so swiftly that little will be left military-wise and little in the way of danger to the region, and Iran brought back into the community of nations.

Perhaps they are emboldened by their memories of the Embassy thing back in the 1970s – ah, but seizing an embassy is easy – taking on the USA in a war is quite another matter. Ask Serbia, ask Iraq, ask anyone. The days of Vietnam era hand wringing is gone. And the might of our military is so huge – larger than the rest of the world combined – that the 70 million Iranians won’t know what hit them. And if they survive for more than a month of constant pounding I’d be surprised.

Does the current administration have the chutzpah to do the deed? Actually, I think so. For Mr. Obama could use every bit of help to get elected that he can find. And a good thrashing of a long time enemy would be just the campaign would want. Not to mention that American presidents in wartime always get a little boost by those who put aside domestic concerns for the sake of national defense – which well they perhaps should. And Mr. Obama has shown no unwillingness to send in the drones, special ops and cruise missiles to take out our enemies in nations with which we are at ostensible peace, like Yemen and Oman and Pakistan. I dare say, he’d almost relish the opportunity to declare to the nation “We start the bombing in five minutes.” And the Republicans of the House, and those in the Senate, would be loathe to stop him or complain – especially if Iran shoots so much as a spit ball at the US Carl Stennis, which is the carrier which just left the Persian Gulf and the Iranians declared is not welcome back.

Perhaps the Iranians are too fixated upon the world name for the Persian Gulf, a name long settled, but which are in fact international waters. Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which are on the Gulf waters there, would be more than happy to invite the Stennis and the Reagan and any other US carrier in the Indian Ocean to come on in and enjoy the sites. Oh, Iran, don’t be stupid. Now’s not the time to be wagging fingers at us in a vain attempt to conquer us and throw us out of a region we’ve been in since Jefferson was president. So I’m just not worried – for even if the worse case scenario happens and the Iranians attack our ships – that would be an open Act of War, and the US Congress, Democrats included, would be well within our rights to declare war – and not just some police action, or some tit-for-tat “Well, we took out a little thing” in even handed equal retaliation – but no, I could well imagine the Congress voting a War Resolution and demanding the Commander in Chief to command the end of the current Iranian regime and bring about a little happiness for those people there and peace within the region like hasn’t been seen since the misbegotten Medievalists took over the place some 30 years ago.

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Santorum is a Constitutional Illiterate: Bills of Attainder are Unconstitutional Monday, Jan 2 2012

I read tonight, the very first day of the year 2012, that Rick Santorum has this nutty idea that he’s going to “annul” gay marriages with a constitutional amendment. I dare say, rarely have I seen such a brain dead moronic idea. One so devoid of a legal understanding of our constitution that one wonders how he could conceivably be fit to hold office. He’s got this idea, which I saw reported in two places this fine day after a wonderful family dinner with my sister’s in-laws – in Pennsylvania, the very state this dangerous man hails from – which purports to have an Amendment summarily annul and eliminate gay marriage contracts – regardless of the intent of the parties to the contract or the states that permitted them. The idea is nuts.

It’s not only a Bill of Attainder – it’s an ex-post facto law – another Constitutional No-No. Is this man so craven and devoid of real thought as to believe he’s got the power to simply eliminate legal contracts through a legal concept of his own fetid mind’s creation? I really can’t believe he’s serious – though, yet, I guess he is, for he is fixated on gay folks and our relationships in a most unhealthy manner. He’s ludicrous, of course. From proposing to arrest us and incarcerate us all, to banning us from existence – no man in the political firmament is more absurd and childlike. To simply “want” without reason, without thought, without a shred of decency or logic, is simply childish, laughably so. That he’s still on the hustings for president shows the depth of stupidity to which our political process has descended.

Here’s the two reports to far, of which I write late at night, before I go to bed with sweet dreams:

http://izzoiz.com/2012/01/first-douchebag-of-the-day-of-2012-rick-santorum-wants-to-make-all-gay-marriages-invalid/

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/12/31/396012/surging-santorum-would-annul-all-same-sex-marriages/

I would think that if such a “marriage amendment” of the sort of he would like is proposed – that one could ban any possibility of the use of the word “marriage” by government in referring to gay couples – that the numbers of lawsuits flung against it in every federal court in the land would lead every single last federal judge to simply strike down the very verbiage itself before it goes anywhere. His entire first term, if God-forbid he gets elected, would simply be consumed with this issue – to the great detriment of the populace that face real problems, and not the non-problem of sissy smooching with a little government approval – to which gay taxpayers are of right guaranteed in our nation whether he or anyone else likes it or not. We are not a theology, nor some dictatorship where presidents simply annul legal contracts. I’m almost certain that if his dream-administration gets into office and he proposes such an amendment that even Republican controlled House and Senate judiciary committees would see the absurdity and illegality of such a thing before the ink got dry on the paper.

I can’t imagine either that the great thinkers on Constitutional issues in the ¾s of the states required to approve the move wouldn’t see the utter lack of reality in such a measure, or the other ¼ which wouldn’t vote for the passage of such a stupid concept no matter what.

I can’t imagine that he could word any amendment to pass constitutional muster from the get go. The whole thing is so preposterous that I have to wonder at the stupidity of the press people to whom he said this didn’t just break out laughing and point out the obvious – the federal government simply cannot abrogate, annul, abridge, alter or amend legal contracts entered into at the state level.

Even more farcical – there’s no legal nor logical way for him to deny gay folks – or prevent us – from the use of the word “marriage.” Which is why I always wonder, too, at people who think that DOMA – the odious, Orwellian and malicious “Defense of Marriage Act” “bans” gay marriage – it does not do any such thing – it merely prevents the federal government from recognizing the duly constituted acts of sovereign states within the Union – itself unconstitutional on the face of it. Furthermore, it does not prevent any state from recognizing the marriage acts of other states. It only prevents the federal government from giving fair and equal access to the laws of the federal government to all the citizens of the nation as is required by the Constitution itself.

One does not have to be a lawyer to read the very plain language of the fabled document which guides our nation: No Bills of Attainder and No Ex-post facto laws. What does it take for one to conclude that Santorum is simply an idiot with a craven disregard for the niceties of our governmental system? Not much. Not much for me at all. I have never heard a presidential candidate utter such inane mush as this man – and why he’s “surging” in Iowa is beyond my comprehension.

But one thing for certain – Mr. Santorum, with this sort of bizarre unAmerican and Unconstitutional talk is brewing a constitutional crisis over gay Americans that even the Jim Crow laws didn’t achieve over freed slaves. He’s pushing for some stripping of basic rights of a group of Americans based on his theology – that right being the right to enter contracts of romantic relationships – and that theology comes from a foreign power in a sovereign nation called the Vatican. If Mr. Santorum is so sure of his stance, that I suggest he find lodging with his family in the ample residence of the Pope and leave us Americans the hell alone.

And I’d suggest that all gay folks – and our legal mavens (wimps though I often think they are) – just hound this man into the woodwork from which he crawled on the simple reality of his Bill of Attainder and Ex-Post Facto Law ideas that he seeks to push upon the good citizens of this nation. He’s this short of abrogating his right to call himself an American. Frankly, he’s a scary man who is out to destroy this nation – and nothing short of a constant legal reasoned assault on his unconstitutional position is warranted. Mr. Santorum, go away, and leave America to Americans, and return to wherever you think you came from. Shoo, sir, shoo – you are a lunatic – and you are obsessed with my life in a way that is unwholesome and indecent.

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