Don’t ask, get told on

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Michael

A gay soldier in Kansas has been given the boot because she got legally married in Iowa.

Jene Newsome played by the rules as an Air Force sergeant: She never told anyone in the military she was a lesbian. The 28-year-old’s honorable discharge under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy came only after police officers in Rapid City, S.D., saw an Iowa marriage certificate in her home and told the nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base.

The Bigot Brigade PD basically ratted Newsome out because she wouldn’t cooperate with helping them find her spouse on an outstanding warrant. The BBPD claims they were running a proper investigation, but that’s an incredibly thin lie. They had no business reporting anything to the military. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome’s home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.

“It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it,” Allender said Saturday. “It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information.”

Steve Allender (adminInt3@rcgov.org) is a liar. The marital status of a third party in their investigation is irrelevant. It doesn’t take some half-ass cop out in the boonies to see that.

“This information was intentionally turned over because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and to out Jene so that she would lose her military status,” said Robert Doody, executive director of ACLU South Dakota. The ACLU is focusing its complaint on the police department, not the military, and Newsome said she and her attorney have not yet decided on whether to file a lawsuit.

“The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ piece is important and critical to this, but also it’s a police misconduct case,” Doody said.

The BBPD has no idea what is appropriate action. It’s a department full of petty and vengeance to the citizen who crosses them, evidently. They should have had no expectation that a third party would help them with their investigation – but they did. They precisely expected Newsome to cow-tow to their demands to make their jobs easier. When she didn’t, they sought to ruin her career.

Of course, what would be an obvious case of bigotry without the overt bigotry?

Despite claiming that she had played by the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rules, she got married to her lesbian lover in Iowa after an activist state supreme court said she could.

Well, that was tell number one. A marriage license, Ms. Newsome, is a public record. If you want to keep your sexual preference hidden from your superiors, it’s best not to advertise it to the whole world.

This is from some dying dinosaur named Bryan Fischer. Apparently Fischer thinks gays want to keep who they are private. No, no, really. People just love faking it.

Second, when the police came to her home seeking to execute an arrest warrant on her lesbian “wife” (“husband?” — it’s hard to know these days), they found the wedding license lying right in the middle of the dining room table. If you want to keep your sexual preference a secret, there are better ways.

For instance, one could hide a marriage license behind a smarmy aura of asshole. To date, no one has been able to confirm Fischer’s marital status.

Rapid City, S.D. law enforcement officials saw the wedding license and did their legal duty by reporting what they had found to the military.

What law is that again?

Ms. Newsome received an “honorable discharge” in January. (This is not your father’s military: she committed what is a crime under the UCMJ, and has the word “honorable” on her discharge papers. Go figure.)

There must be a mistake on Fischer’s website. It says he’s from Idaho, not Uganda.

Newsome’s partner in sexual deviancy is apparently not a model citizen, currently being under indictment for one felony and three misdemeanor counts of theft. That’s another tip for Ms. Newsome — if you don’t want get outed, it might be best not to “marry” somebody who robs people.

Do donation baskets count as robbery since they purport to be used for good causes but instead continue to support religion?

Gates’ theory — you get to break the law as long as you don’t rat yourself out — is absurd. Imagine if we applied that to any other realm of law enforcement. You, sir, get to go right on holding up banks because all we have to go on is ironclad eyewitness testimony from tellers, managers and other bank patrons. Please, please, pretty please admit you did it so we can lock you up. Otherwise, we will be forced to let you go so you can rob and pillage some more.

Idaho simply must be a mistake.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social, Rights, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Kelly Glossip

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Michael

Every so often I will get a comment on a post from a person I’ve specifically discussed or who is specifically involved in the topic at hand. Sometimes those posts are inane. Other times they are worthwhile and concise. Then there are the times when they deserve to be highlighted for the sake of their sincerity, meaning, and even application to bigger social issues (even if that application has no bearing on what the commenter would say one way or the other).

So Dennis is shown gratitude for giving his life while he was working for the state of Missouri by leaving his entire debt onto his life partner. It just doesn’t seem like the state appreciated his life. This simply makes me sad; because he loved his job and loved helping others. Yet to show their gratitude for his life; the person that Dennis loved more than anyone (and yes I have the documentation to prove it, he kept a journal in his handwriting) he often states that I was his one and only and the person of his dreams. I’m thankful for Dennis giving his life for the safety of others, for that I will pay off his debt on my own. Because I unconditionally loved him and that is what love is.–May the Peace of the Lord be always with you and your family.

Written by Kelly Glossip, this was in response to my post about Highway Patrol Cpl. Dennis Engelhard. Engelhard was a Missouri patrolman who died in a traffic accident while on duty last Christmas. Under Missouri’s anti-equality laws, his partner, Glossip, is not entitled to any of the benefits upon death that would be awarded to married couples. Missouri has failed to make any steps forward in granting protections to such couples, instead forcing them to feel like they mean nothing, both socially and morally, not to mention economically and as productive members of society; of these four examples of forced demonization and degradation, the moral matter is the most important. However, given the nature of the concern over the loss of benefits upon death in the original article, the economic impact cannot be ignored. Glossip and Engelhard shared a home. Whether they jointly owned or not it is unclear (and Glossip need not clarify, both because my point can be made without further information and for his own privacy), but if the two are homeowners, it’s entirely plausible that the loss of one of them could result in the loss of a home. For those who make the disingenuous economic arguments against same-sex marriage (“What’s the benefit to the prosperity of the government?!?!”), this is one convincing reason to abandon such inane stances.

Of course, it has never been about the triviality of economic welfare.

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Not a big deal, big deal happens

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Michael

Two people got married. Socially, this ought not be a big deal. Whatever. Good for those two people. But since this is another big step forward for equality, it is a big deal.

One bride wore a knee-length lace dress and pearls. The other bride wore a yellow shirt and white suit. And when a pastor pronounced them “partners in life this day and for always” Tuesday, they hugged and smiled in front of wedding guests and nearly a dozen TV cameras and reporters.Sinjoyla Townsend

On the first day same-sex couples could marry in Washington, brides Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend were the first of three couples taking the plunge in morning ceremonies at the offices of the Human Rights Campaign, which does advocacy work on gay, lesbian and transgender issues. Other ceremonies were planned throughout the day.

“Today was like a dream for me,” Young said.

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Sorry, Mr. Jefferson

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Michael

Sorry, Mr. Jefferson, it is now a terrible idea to go to school in Virginia.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says Virginia’s colleges and universities cannot prohibit discrimination against gays because the General Assembly has not authorized them to do so.

In a letter Thursday to the presidents, rectors and boards of visitors of Virginia public colleges, Cuccinelli said: the law and public policy of Virginia “prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation’, ‘gender identity’, ‘gender expression’ or like classification, as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.“

Most places of higher education have the reasonable policy of not allowing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It just isn’t relevant to the quality of work one can produce. And fortunately for much of the country, places of higher education do not include many in the general population who tend to be bigoted towards gays (i.e., old people who never needed to go to school to get decent jobs, the religious who are hostile toward secular education [such as facts], dumb people, etc). And some states even have laws banning discrimination based upon sexual orientation. In fact, despite my home state recently voting in favor of bigotry – and for no reason other than “ewwww!!!!” – there is a law on the books (after many tries) which bans sexual orientation discrimination in Maine. But this is New England, the place where fewer people tend to think their sexual orientation is superior to that of others.

Jon Blair, chief executive officer of Equality Virginia, criticized Cuccinelli’s opinion.

“Attorney General Cuccinelli clearly doesn’t understand that his radical actions are putting Virginia at risk of losing both top students and faculty, and discouraging prospective ones from coming here,“ he said.

That’s unfortunate for education in Virginia, but I hope it happens. Cuccinelli is another conservative out to ruin the liberty and rights of individuals for no good reason. Anyone considering school in Virginia should only do so once this issue is resolved in favor of equality.

Oh, and this.

In his first weeks as the state’s top lawyer, Cuccinelli has not tried to hide his conservative political philosophy.

He filed petitions seeking to block a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency that global warming poses a threat to people.

There’s some underlying horror that seems to cause certain people to go off the deep end, embrace crazy ideas, and reject all that is real.

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I declare Poe’s Law

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Michael

Bigots have suffered a couple of blows recently; one is in D.C. and another in Mexico City where same-sex marriage has started. Don’t worry. All the buildings are still standing and the birds are still flying.

Unless you’re Robert Moon.

Washington, D.C. has now officially become the sixth place in the U.S. where homosexuals can go to force the public to endorse their lifestyles. Until now, insecure gays in need of validation had to travel to Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Vermont if they wanted to help dismantle our foundational institution of marriage.

…f-for real? For real real? Am I endorsing all the heterosexual marriages right now? What about the bans on same-sex marriages nearly everywhere else? Am I and all the other non-bigots endorsing those by living in places where they exist? Is everyone endorsing Obama by him being president? Do we all endorse each others checks when just one of us signs?

Never mind the fact that the will of the people is completely against this (as evidenced by the overwhelming rejection of gay marriage even in ultra-liberal states like California) or that marriage in this Judeo-Christian country is, by definition, incompatible with homosexuality, polygamy, and other deviations from “one man, one woman.” A liberal special interest group needs to feel more mainstream than it is, so there is nothing else to think about.

I don’t understand. Does Robert Moon just smash his face against the keyboard when he writes? This must be an accident.

As I have noted, whether it be trying to criminalize dissent against homosexuality, forcing taxpayers to fund special gay high schools or strong-arming homosexuals into a military that does not want them (especially in the middle of a war), gays are simply on a war path here…one that is all about special treatment, not actual equality.

I still don’t understand. All these letters form words. If he’s just smashing his face, then wow. What are the chances?

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Good news for gay atheists

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Michael

Your numbers and the numbers of those who accept you are on the rise.

According to a new report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the gap on some issues has widened into a chasm, notably on issues related to gay rights and tolerance.

“Young people are more accepting of homosexuality and evolution than are older people. They are also more comfortable with having a bigger government, and they are less concerned about Hollywood threatening their values,” said the report, which was released on Wednesday.

The report also found “Millennials” (aged 18-29) were far more likely than their elders from “Generation X” and the “Baby Boom” to be unaffiliated with a specific faith. Generation X was born between 1965 and 1980, Baby Boomers from 1946 to 1964.

While I fully plan on lamenting later generations as I grow older, I like to take advantage of earlier generations still being around to do the same thing to them*. Because really, Baby Boomers and Gen X really fucked a lot of stuff up, the least of which might be their slow come-around on social morality.

The number of those 18-29 who accept homosexuality (and presumably same-sex marriage, by and large) nearly double up the rickety old fogies who reject it (63 to 35 percent).

Those without any particular faith go from 13% for Baby Boomers to 25% for the 18-29 group. Unfortunately, this doesn’t fully translate into better acceptance of the fact of evolution. Only 55% of my generation accepts it while 47% of all other older groups accept it. (Incidentally, these numbers seem to be higher overall than what commonly gets touted.) One reason may be that while religion is obviously the primary root for ruining the thinking parts of people, the poor focus on science education is also to blame here. Of course, with the older generations making most of the policy decisions and passing most of the terrible laws, it’s not surprise the younger generations have been harmed.

And while this still seems like a generally positive trend, that may not be the case.

But in other ways American Millennials are not so radically different in their religious beliefs.

“Though young adults pray less often than their elders do today, the number of young adults who say they pray every day rivals the portion of young people who said the same in prior decades,” the report said.

“This suggests that some of the religious differences between younger and older Americans today are not entirely generational but result in part from people’s tendency to place greater emphasis on religion as they age,” it noted.

Credulity is as much a trait of the very old as it is the very young, it would seem.

*Of course, I don’t restrict myself from yet again doing the same when it comes to my own generation. Maybe it’s just humanity.

Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: , , , , | 12 Comments »

Second-class citizenry

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Michael

Missouri Highway Patrol Cpl. Dennis Engelhard was hit by a vehicle that lost control in the snow on Christmas day. His partner will not see anything from the state.

Under the rules of the state pension system that covers the Missouri Highway Patrol and Department of Transportation workers, if a trooper dies in the line of duty, his or her spouse is eligible for lifetime survivor benefits.

The yearly benefit is equal to half of the officer’s average salary during the officer’s highest-paid three years as a trooper. For Engelhard, the benefit would have been $28,138 a year.

Engelhard’s partner, Kelly Glossip, was at the hospital when Engelhard was pronounced dead. He mourned with the other troopers – just as they would have mourned for their own wives. The difference is that Missouri condones bigotry, so Glossip will not see any of that pension.

“I’d take 100 Dennis Engelhards. He was an outstanding trooper,” said Capt. Ronald Johnson, head of the Highway Patrol troop that covers St. Louis and surrounding counties. “His lifestyle had no bearing on his career.”

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Ted Olson

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Michael

Ted Olson is one of the lawyers arguing in federal court that same-sex marriage is a right for all consenting adults. He’s long been in the middle of conservative circles, including Reagan’s administration. He has recently written a piece of Newsweek in which he makes the conservative case for gay marriage.

This procreation argument cannot be taken seriously. We do not inquire whether heterosexual couples intend to bear children, or have the capacity to have children, before we allow them to marry. We permit marriage by the elderly, by prison inmates, and by persons who have no intention of having children. What’s more, it is pernicious to think marriage should be limited to heterosexuals because of the state’s desire to promote procreation. We would surely not accept as constitutional a ban on marriage if a state were to decide, as China has done, to discourage procreation.

His final line is especially compelling. Of course, the procreation argument has long been a failure given all the people who don’t procreate, not to mention the fact that the government says nothing encouraging to the point anyway, but the comparison with China is the final nail in this long buried coffin. Give it a thought. What if, say, Montana offered tax breaks for specifically for couples with only one child? Or if Washington added a special tax for every child a couple has but the first? Would, then, a ban on marriage be acceptable? Of course not. Clearly, procreation is not the overriding factor here. It’s a lie when claimed otherwise.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples? Tellingly, when the judge in our case asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.

It’s obvious why he couldn’t think of any. Aside from the fact that same-sex marriage doesn’t harm heterosexual marriage, this isn’t actually an argument at all. It’s pure political rhetoric. It’s useless.

And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

This, in truth, is the central argument against same-sex marriage. It isn’t always front and center per se; it’s often the other dishonest arguments that get put forth. But the reality is that the religious want to impose their beliefs on everyone without justification. That is part of the fundamental evil religion has always cultivated: We’re right and you’re wrong and we know it. We just know it.

These decisions have generated controversy, of course, but they are decisions of the nation’s highest court on which our clients are entitled to rely. If all citizens have a constitutional right to marry, if state laws that withdraw legal protections of gays and lesbians as a class are unconstitutional, and if private, intimate sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is protected by the Constitution, there is very little left on which opponents of same-sex marriage can rely. As Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented in the Lawrence case, pointed out, “[W]hat [remaining] justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution’?” He is right, of course. One might agree or not with these decisions, but even Justice Scalia has acknowledged that they lead in only one direction.

Of course, it’s unlikely Scalia will abide by his own conclusion, instead making a purely political decision, when this case makes it to the Supreme Court. But, for once, he is right. There is no longer any valid legal argument* standing in the way of equality for same-sex couples.

*Key word legal. As for valid arguments based upon reason, understanding, and rationality, they’ve never actually existed.

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Federal same-sex marriage case to begin soon

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Michael

A federal case is set to start in the coming days. At issue is the federal constitutionality of California’s Prop 8 bill that passed, damaging the lives of thousands of Californians and ignoring the rights of every last one of them. I’m sure it will be some time until this reaches the Supreme Court (where Scalia will not consider any legal issue), but it will certainly get there.

Interestingly, one of the opponents of equal rights has asked to be dropped from the lawsuit. Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown correctly refused to mount a defense for California, others had to step in. One was Hak-Shing William Tam, an official bigot and proponent of Prop 8.

On Friday, Tam told the court that he was harassed and his property vandalized during the campaign, and feared similar retribution if he continued to represent gay marriage foes’ interest in the lawsuit and trial, which is scheduled to start Monday in San Francisco.

“In the past I have received threats on my life, had my property vandalized and am recognized on the streets due to my association with Proposition 8,” Tam said in a court filing. “Now that the subject lawsuit is going to trial, I fear I will get more publicity, be more recognizable and that the risk of harm to me and my family will increase.”

While the guy is a scumbag, he doesn’t deserve that. Dare I say, the actions toward him represent, gasp!, bigotry! No one has to accept Tam’s beliefs, but tolerance is required.

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Non-acceptance and intolerance

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Michael

Time and again I find myself coming across people who think they’re making some grand point when they call me (or those who share my views) intolerant. It is utterly evident that these people have no working definition of “intolerance”. They are completely unable to make even the simplest of distinctions (which fits with why they tend to be conservative).

The most common instance of this has to do with same-sex marriage. It’s a definitional fact that those who oppose same-sex marriage are bigots. They deny that marriage is a right for all and base their conclusions on a lack of acceptance for homosexuality. This lack of acceptance, though wholly ignorant and pathetic, is legally and morally acceptable on some level because it does not infringe on the rights of others. However, the conclusions based on that lack of acceptance are morally reprehensible and (more relevantly to government) legally unsound. They are non-acceptance turned intolerance. And intolerance is the cornerstone of bigotry.

With that in mind, it should be obvious that those in favor of same-sex marriage are not intolerant, even if they think homosexuality is wrong. The time when it is appropriate to describe someone as intolerant is also the time when it is appropriate to use the word “bigot”, such as with anti-same-sex marriage people. They have infringed upon a person’s rights.

It can’t be helped that the word “bigot” is perfectly suited for the subject, but there seems to be some confusion with its use. The word itself does not equal intolerance. No one is infringing upon anyone’s rights or freedoms or liberties. No one is forcing Catholics (the bigoted driving force behind Maine’s recent bigotry) to accept anything. More over, no one is forcing anyone to do or believe anything whatsoever which infringes upon anything remotely important (i.e., rights, freedoms, liberties). Calling a bigot a bigot and not letting them get their bigoted way is not intolerance.

The confusion here is mind-boggling. It’s as if people have no ability to distinguish between intolerance and non-acceptance. What’s more, when non-acceptance shows up as a lack of respect, people further believe there is intolerance afoot. Puh-lease. If I say, for instance, that the belief that God created the Universe in the middle of the well-established civilization of the Sumerians is, in fact, a very stupid thing to think, I am not being intolerant. Where have I infringed upon anyone’s rights? Where have I stopped someone from having the freedom to hold such a stupid thought? The answer is that I have not done that. It’s simply that I, as well as most educated people, cannot give deference to such silly things. That’s a lack of acceptance, not intolerance.

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