237. WHAT STATE INTERESTS?

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution)

From the Archives (21 July 2006) Last month Georgia courts ruled that the peach state can continue to discriminate against a small portion of our citizenry by extending over one thousand special rights to the majority while denying these same rights to minority homosexuals who wish to declare their love publicly and enjoy the same responsibilities and benefits of wedded um bliss that hetero citizens purport to enjoy.

New York courts basically ruled the same, only their reasoning goes that het marriages are so fragile that the state must use special rights to protect the hets from the spooky homos who so threaten their conjugal bliss.

This is akin to the tactic bishops use to downplay the fact that the priests are raping children. You know, just shift the blame to the homosexuals (even though pedophilia is not the same thing).

Which leads me to ask, if breeders’ marriages are so freaking fragile, then why doesn’t the state require them to attend remedial marriage classes instead of legalizing discrimination? Aren’t their children worth this expenditure of public funds or are children only valuable to the state before they’re born?

And lookie! Tennessee and Nebraska courts have legalized discriminatory and punitive bans on gay marriage now too, and even the snow-loving Easterners are declining to block a vote to ban queer marriage in the only state where gay marriage is currently legal.

So let’s examine the facts.

A full 70 percent of Nebraskans saw fit to deny their homosexual neighbors the equal rights guaranteed them by the laws of this land. AND they voted to deny state employees domestic-partner benefits and visitation rights too.

Is this equal protection?

Federal District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon states the obvious when he says that Nebraska’s amendment goes

far beyond merely defining marriage as between a man and a woman…. It imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights [of gay men and lesbians] and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs’ right to petition or to participate in the political process.

He also states the obvious when he suggests that the amendment “was motivated, to some extent, by either irrational fear of or animus toward gays and lesbians.”

Seems this Court of Appeals is comprised not of public officials who uphold the law but instead by bigots willing to rule unanimously that “laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples are rationally related to legitimate state interests and therefore do not violate the Constitution of the United States.”

Uh would that be the state’s interest in upholding bigotry and propping up failed marriages to maintain the illusion of the happy suburban family that most American families don’t match in the first place?

Define these interests, you gentle um men in judicial dresses.

The New York Times says that Nebraska’s drastic ban is most likely headed to the Supreme Court. Does this inspire anyone to believe that nondiscrimination will be upheld in the land of the free and the home of the cappuccinoed?

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Meanwhile, I have a question: Do the good folks at Alternet really believe that they come off as anything other than a bunch of privileged self-congratulatory East Coast smartasses when they post two headlines in one week as profound as "Is Israel Dumb?" and "Is Bush an Imbecile?"

Howzabout "Does Name-Calling Create Democracy?" or "Name-Calling: The Lazy Journalist’s Friend,” guys?

You might consider the impression you’re creating in between snickering at your frat-boy cleverness.

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Meanwhile I packed Danishgrrrl and her 3 kids into a Seattle-bound plane bright and early this morning and won’t see them for 2 long weeks. The kids will visit with various relatives while Danishgrrl and her sister on Mercer Island move their father into an assistant living facility.

It sucks to get old and feeble.

204. BACKSLIDING AWAY

From the Archives

(March 2006) I’m sitting in a grease-scented dive listening to Johnny Cash as dyksters smoke clove cigarettes around me.

(Johnny would like to remind you that he never got over those blue eyes and I would like to remind you that the illuminated keyboards on Mac Powerbooks are truly wonderful things.)

Did y’all note that the New Hampshire House defeated a proposed amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman but, interestingly enough, the good folks of this same state do not recognize gay marriages or civil unions performed in other states?

Or that Kris Kristofferson has a new CD?

I am brain-dead and sick of work and in need of some serious escape, and so have been Googling random words from Alternet stories in a sort of Charles Bernstein approach to information gathering. This has resulted in my discovery of some interesting conspiracy theories that, among other things, detail the size of Dick Cheney’s large schlong.

Seems that in 1995, way back when I was a poor post-grad student dedicating most of my income to paying off student loans, Claudia Mullen gave the following testimony to a US presidential advisory committee investigating post-WWII government radiation experiments:

Between the years 1957 and 1984 I became a pawn in the government's game. Its ultimate goal was mind control and to create the perfect spy, all through the use of chemicals, radiation, drugs, hypnosis, electric shock, isolation in tubs of water, sleep deprivation, brainwashing, verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

I was exploited unwittingly for nearly three decades of my life and the only explanations given to me were that the end justifies the means and I was serving my country in their bold effort to fight communism. I can only summarize my circumstances by saying they took an already abused seven-year-old child and compounded my suffering beyond belief.

The saddest part is, I know for a fact I was not alone. There were countless other children in my same situation and there was no one to help us until now. I have already submitted as much information as possible including conversations overheard at the agencies responsible. I am able to report all of this to you in such detail because of my photographic memory and the arrogance of the people involved. They were certain they would always control my mind.

Although the process of recalling these atrocities is not an easy one, nor is it without some danger to myself and my family, I feel the risk is worth taking.

Dr. L. Wilson Greene, [who] received $50 million dollars from the Edgewood Chemical and Radiology Laboratory as part of the TSD, or Technical Science Division of the CIA, once described to Dr. Charles Brown that “children were used as subjects because they were more fun to work with and cheaper too.” They needed lower profile subjects than soldiers and government people so only young willing females would do. Besides, he said, “I like scaring them.”

In 1958 they told me I was to be tested by some important doctors from the ... Human Ecology Society, and I was instructed to cooperate. I was told not to look at anyone's faces, and to try hard to ignore any names because this was a very secret project. I was told all these things to help me forget. Naturally, as most children do, I did the opposite and remembered as much as I could. A Dr. John Gittinger tested me, Dr. Cameron gave me the shock, and Dr. Greene the X-rays. Then I was told by Sid Gottlieb that “I was ripe for the big A,” meaning ARTICHOKE.

By the time I left to go home, just like every time from then on, I would remember only whatever explanations Dr. Robert G. Heath, of Tulane Medical University, gave me for the odd bruises, needle marks, burns on my head, fingers, and even the genital soreness. I had no reason to think otherwise. They had already begun to control my mind.

The next year I was sent to a lodge in Maryland called Deep Creek Cabins to learn how to sexually please men. I was taught how to coerce them into talking about themselves. It was Richard Helms, who was Deputy Director of the CIA, Dr. Gottlieb, Capt. George White, and Morris Allan who all planned on filling as many high government agency officials and heads of academic institutions and foundations as possible so that later when the funding for mind control and radiation started to dwindle, projects would continue. I was used to entrap many unwitting men, including themselves, all with the use of a hidden camera. I was only nine years old when the sexual humiliation began.

I overheard conversations about part of the Agency called ORD, which I found out was Office of Research and Development. It was run by Dr. Greene, Dr. Steven Aldrich, Martin Orne, and Morris Allan. Once a crude remark was made by Dr. Gottlieb about a certain possible leak in New Orleans involving a large group of retarded children who had been given massive doses of radiation. He asked why was Wilson so worried about a few retarded kids, after all they would be the least likely to spill the beans.

We’ve got the Artichoke, the grassy knoll, the Franklin Cover-Up, Project Paper Clip, MK Ultra, Bohemian Groove, the conspiracy of silence (a sex scandal involving children at Boystown), the Finders, The Church of Set, Cathy O'Brien’s ritualized sexual abuse involving Dick Cheney’s abnormally large penis and Mark Philips, the neurolinguistic programmer who toured the conspiracy circuit with this woman.

Then there’s Dave McGowan’s Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder. McGowan sees rampant Satanic pedophilia/ritual murder connections in this so-called pedophocracy that we mistakenly call a nation.

Lots to read and I'm a skeptic.

Nevertheless, I’m looking around this dive now wondering which of these folks drops phrases such as “Project Paper Clip” and “Bohemian Groove” as they sip their beers, which dyksters believe the UFO stories are real?

149. LETHAL INEPTITUDE, OR, NOBODY’S COMING TO GET YOUR ASS

From the Archives (September 2005)

Nobody’s coming to get us. The secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up and send us somebody!—Aaron F. Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana (Monday)

[Evacuees] were underprivileged anyway—Barbara Bush, touring the Houston Astrodome relocation site. The blue-blooded ex-first lady/current first mum asserted that many of the poor are faring better than before the storm hit and that they actually prefer public digs in the Astrodome. The full quote: So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them.

Meanwhile, our country is doing a heckuva job providing Barb with big tax cuts on the backs of the impoverished.

Paul Krugman says that the government’s “lethal ineptitude” is the consequence of “ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good” and gives this example: the USS Bataan, which has 6 operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds, and can produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water per day, has been sitting in water off the Gulf Coast since last Monday with no patients! He also points out that, after 9/11, all the country really needed from the president was a speech, which he managed to deliver once someone pointed out that it wasn’t very presidential to continue reading a children’s book (and after a speechwriter told him what to say).This disaster required action however and Shrub has failed miserably ... with ideological hostility to the very idea of assisting others for the public good perhaps guiding the way.

(I keep waiting to hear something about faith-based hurricane relief. You know it’s coming.)

John Tierney also points out, correctly, that local officials also failed miserably and should have organized an evacuation themselves, since they already knew that 3/4 of the population lived in extreme poverty and had no way to get out of the city. He compares their approach to the advanced planning of (the much smaller) Newport News, VA emergency preparedness team, which has notes about which residents need additional help. Their plan includes going door-to-door to handle evacuations. If residents resist, they hand them magic markers and ask them to write their social security numbers on various body parts so that someone will be able to identify their bodies.

(A effective strategy, that.)

Meanwhile, FEMA ordered 25,000 body bags and a ghastly poem about Saint Gabriel LA (the small town where refrigerated trucks are carrying thousands of bodies to the temporary morgue they’ve set up there) is forming.

(Headline: The bodies of 32 dead residents found at St. Rita’s Nursing Home are now being trucked up to Saint Gabriel LA. All those streets named after all saints who couldn’t protect anyone. Sad.)

Came across this interesting commentary online:

Scraggy residents emerge from waterlogged wood to say strange things, and then return into the rot. Cars drive the wrong way on the Interstate and no one cares. Fires burn, dogs scavenge, and old signs from les bons temps have been replaced with hands-scrawled threats that looters will be shot dead.

David Brooks notes that Katrina was a natural disaster that interrupted a social disaster. It separated tens of thousands of poor people from the run-down, isolated neighborhoods in which they were trapped. It disrupted the patterns that have led one generation to follow another into poverty.

He points out that, when low-income families are moved into middle-income neighborhoods instead of living only among others in poverty, then the children are much more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, move out of poverty. After awkward adjustment, they are also more likely to learn how to move socially in a professional environment.

So what’s barely getting reported while the hurricane gives us all post-traumatic stress syndrome? Two queer biggies (plus a rumor that FEMA is separating gay couples). First, the California state assembly approved a bill that defines marriage as between “two persons,” effectively legalizing gay marriage, but the governator vetoed the damn thing.

These social conservatives want it both ways! When the courts doesn’t rule in favor of their bias, then they complain that radical judges write law in accordance with their own social agendas and insist that legislators should decide the law, not judges.

Then California legislators recognize discrimination when they see it and expand the definition of marriage to include civil contracts between any two people—a fair-minded definition that addresses the problem of offering benefits to some couples who fall in love while denying them to others and that honors the 14th Amendment —and the governor says he’ll veto the legislation because the courts and the voters should decide.

(Uh, polls indicate that the legislature roughly mirrors popular opinion, Governator.)

Part of why we have a three-tiered government is so that biased voters/the tyranny of the majority does not discriminate against the minority. This is called democracy in action and equal justice for ALL (as opposed to just the Christianist majority).

Today’s New York Times editorial “Where’s the Governator Now?” puts it better:

Mr. Schwarzenegger ... seems to have forgotten that this nation was foudned as a republic, in which the citizens elect legislators to govern on their behalf. Such representative democracy is especially important when it comes to protecting the fundamental rights of minorities, who may face bigoted hostility from some segments of the electorate.

Then there’s the troubling custody battle going on in Virginia and Vermont. Judges in those states disagree about custody rights for a 3-year-old born to a lesbian couple that had a civil union ceremony in Vermont, then broke up after having a child.

The Vermont judge has ruled that the women should “be treated no differently than a husband and wife” and established a visiting schedule, then he held the biological mother in contempt of court when she failed to comply with the schedule. The Virginia judge, meanwhile, ruled that the biological mother has sole right to decide who can see her child and that her former partner has no parentage or visitation rights.

This is a direct conflict between state courts and the case is on its way to the Vermont Supreme Court now, so chances are good this one’s destined for the US Supreme Court.

Finally, here’s a quote from the biological mother that goes a long way toward explaining why she is asking a court to not honor her legal commitment to her wife the way it would honor another married partner’s rights: When I left Janet I left the homosexual lifestyle and drew closer to God.

105. SOMETIMES I PLAY THE MAN IN BLACK

From the Archives

(June 2005) Sometimes I play the man in black. Or at least some people called me that, or Johnny, or Cash, after I played a gig the other night. They gave me this nickname because I wore black and tended to look down at my guitar or just groove with myself like that when I wasn’t singing. Funny. They believe this was some cool look that I adopted but, actually, it’s because I’m shy.

My youngest brother is lead singer in a band and sings his first few songs with his eyes closed for the same reason. I had no idea he was even shy though—he’s certainly not around me—till I commented on the fact that I like this approach because it feels as if he’s absorbing his audience then inviting us all in. This got a big laugh out of him before he told me the truth.

So I guess this is a confession that will be familiar to introverted bloggers, but I become an actor playing myself when I need to perform in uncomfortable situations such as, say, a professional cocktail party or an awards setting or the first few weeks of teaching a new course or on stage or when I describe my art in the academic terms that folks expect to hear—basically, in environments in which there’s an expectation that I present myself in a certain way, which just makes me feel uncomfortable and pressured.

This approach usually works, but it can make me feel like a fraud sometimes....

Anyway, this just in from Drummer X:

...Just wanted you to know that I truly enjoyed playing with y’all again and wanted to thank all of you for asking me to be a part of this. This was a hard concert on me and I didn’t really realize it until the night of the concert. As I heard the “people of god” minister, priest, rabbi , and other religious leaders read their equal-marriage speeches and then listened to the y’all sing as pictures of queer ceremonies were being shown, I realized about 300 people had just seen pictures from mine and Cary’s wedding, but who had never seen them, because it is against god’s laws, is my own parents and family.

Thank you for putting this gig on. You guys don’t just sing, you guys make a difference in our community.

As always, one of your biggest fans.

Drummer X

SANG IN SHOWER: Another embarrassing one: I got a brand new pair of rollerskates. You got a brand new key....

READING: one of my handwritten cookbooks because a pal asked for my smoked salmon/goat cheese strata recipe

BEST OF SPAM: possess the hypocrite • they are not indifferent to us

POSSESS THE HYPOCRITE. I like that.