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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 19th, 2014
It seems like we ought to talk about NOM’s March4Marriage, but watching the live feed for just a few minutes was enough to show nothing of substance was going on. Really, the only appropriate response is mockery, which I engaged in via Twitter throughout the event. So if you want a sober and judicious analysis of the event, read no further. But if you’d rather read the reaction it deserves, then please continue.
First, a response to all the rhetoric of “freedom” and “limited government”:
Because “freedom” means having the government dictate the gender of your spouse. #March4Marriage
San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone took the stage to praise himself and others for being so gosh-darned nice:
Cordileone wants no hateful rhetoric? This man called SSM the “ultimate attack of the Evil One.” What a hypocrite! #March4Marriage
Then he invoked early Christians in Rome, who were scapegoated when disasters occurred, and who cared for plague victims when no one else would, even if the victims weren’t Christian.
Does Cordileone realize he just made early Christians sound a lot like modern-day gays? #March4Marriage
Cordileone was followed soon by another man of the cloth:
Bishop Jackson just talked about demons (“principalities”). That’s why we call it “hate.” #duh #March4Marriage
Later, a representative from Concerned Women for America said something ridiculous:
Allison Howard just declared marriage has been the same for 5000 years. Does that mean her sister-wives are speaking next? #March4Marriage
John Eastman, NOM’s Chairman of the Board, came onstage, so flushed and shrill he seemed about 3 decibels from a heart attack. He quickly demonstrated why he’s such a horrifically bad lawyer. This, really, is so awful it deserves some background. Eastman declared:
Two months ago Justice Kennedy authored an opinion when he says the courts should never take content — controversial issues away from the voters in this country. And that’s absolutely right. The last time the Court tried to do that a century and a half ago on the slavery question, Abraham Lincoln refused to comply. He said if we let the Court be the final word, we cease to be our own rulers, having given to that extent practically, er, resigned our government into the hands of the Supreme Court. That’s not what we stand for.
I imagine he thought he was being clever by invoking our nation’s most shameful Court decision. But when you look at what Eastman said right before that about voters, a more shocking conclusion emerges:
Wow, Eastman basically just argued slavery should have been left up to a vote by the people of each state. #March4Marriage #moralidiot
It’s like they should never have taken the training wheels off his mind. But the sad truth is that this is where their complaints about activists judges actually lead.
Speaking of those judges, Huckabee closed the rally by (unintentionally) painting the funniest image of the day.
Huckabee just complained about a judicial “coup-de-tot,” which I guess is a gov’t overthrow by tiny children. #March4Marriage
At least it was nice of them to end on something fun.
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Ben in oakland
June 19th, 2014
I sent this to the Chronicle yesterday. It was probably too much for their delicate sensibilities.
meanwhile, from the photographs, there were somewhere between 800 and 2000 people. apparently, people aren’t buying what the religionists are selling.
Editor:
Archbishop Cordileone claims that his attendance at the so-called March for Marriage, sponsored by the virulently and publicly anti-gay National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council, should not be seen as “anti-gay or anti-anything”. The Archbishop’s statements are either considerably less than ingenuous, or stunningly clueless.
NOM doesn’t do one single thing to protect or promote heterosexual marriage; they exist solely to oppose gay marriage. Speakers at NOM rallies have made extremely bigoted remarks about gay people. So there is his first lie. Like the Prop. 8 campaign, which Cordileone was so intimately involved with, it routinely calls my rather commonplace marriage a threat to heterosexuality, heterosexual marriage, family, children, faith, education, religious freedom, and Western civilization. If we are such threats– all imagination, no fact– then his support of NOM is his second lie.
THE FRC characteristically does the same, adding the slanders of conflating innocent gay people with child molesters, and comparing our marriages to those of incestuous heterosexuals and to people who have sex with animals. Most recently, FRC blamed gay marriage for the murderous violence of the Isla Vista shooter. Top FRC spokespeople like Peter Sprigg have called for criminal penalties for gay people. All of this contumely, detached completely from facts, logic, and experience, is their stock in trade. This is incontestable. They are viciously, virulently antigay. There is his third lie.
These are the people the Archbishop wishes to associate with.
The archbishop, in his loving condemnation of gay people, says that we should “Avoid the behaviors and lifestyles that so often end in self-destruction.” I would agree, but that statement neither describes homosexuality, my life, or the lives of most of the gay people I have known for the last 40 years. It does describe, however, people who drink too much and get arrested for drunk driving. It also describes the mindset and beliefs of people who are anti-gay, as demonstrated repeatedly by statements from NOM, FRC, and the rest of the anti-gay industry. So there is his fourth lie.
And it’s not a lifestyle. It’s a LIFE. There is his FIFTH lie.
In an article on SFGate.com from 7/27/12, Cordileone said, “The ultimate attack of the evil One is the attack on marriage.” So my marriage not only attacks heterosexual marriage, but is evil? Now I’m a minion of Satan? Does my marriage cause heterosexuals to divorce? Or does my marriage merely prevent heterosexuals from getting married, having children, raising them, and staying married? State governments, defending their gay marriage bans in court, have repeatedly claimed this. Is it worth noting that the courts have repeatedly rejected these claims as bigoted nonsense in the year since Windsor?
Archbishop Cordileone may wish to claim that he is merely supporting heterosexual marriage, and is not “anti-gay or anti-anything”. The public record of his own statements and actions, as well as those of the organizations sponsoring the March for Marriage, would argue otherwise.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? How many lies can a man of god tell?
As many as there is room for.
Kevin
June 19th, 2014
I guess the Archbishop went to the NOM rally because San Francisco in tourist season is too crowded.
Ironically, more people showed up for my big gay wedding than showed up for NOM’s rally.
Boo
June 19th, 2014
I think you reversed what you meant to say in the opening.
Boo
June 19th, 2014
Or more likely I misunderstood, carry on!
Boo
June 19th, 2014
Eastman also doesn’t seem to realize that Lincoln wasn’t President when the Dred Scott decision came down, and did not decide to abolish slavery until well after the Civil War broke out.
CPT_Doom
June 19th, 2014
Ben in Oakland – that was a far more reasoned response than I could have produced in response to Miss Sally’s letter.
Timothy Kincaid
June 19th, 2014
It’s another NOMtastic event.
Hundreds and hundreds – maybe even thousands – of people showed up (in a space big enough for millions).
Most were Hispanic Democrats who were bussed in to wave signs in Spanish and listen to English-speaking Republicans talk about one man one woman marriage. The funniest moment was when one blonde woman said, “God bless America, or as they say in your language…umm…” and sat down.
Richard Rush
June 20th, 2014
NOM is now a nominal force in the culture wars.
Timothy Kincaid
June 20th, 2014
well said, Richard
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