He’s afraid. He’s very afraid. Not sure why.
The benefits of last week’s SCOTUS rulings on marriage are immeasurable. So many people’s lives will improve as a result and the groundwork is laid for the rest of the state marriage bans to fall. As wonderful as those things are, I would argue that for the short term, the most fun part of last week’s rulings is watching the Religious Right implode themselves into a freakish puddle of insanity in response. It’s as if they actually believe their own rhetoric, which is frightening.
Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union (see what they did there?), who never has been known to temper his words in order to appear on an even keel, suggests that Southern California should secede from Northern California, due to the fact that he apparently thinks that Judge Walker’s ruling only applies in Northern California. Why he thinks that, heaven only knows:
By accusing backers of traditional marriage of being motivated only by animus against homosexuals, the U.S. Supreme Court has become the most prominent hate group in the country.
Because Fundamentalist Christians have a victim complex, and faced with a ruling that will change nothing about their lives, rather than laying down their swords and lightening up a little bit, they have chosen to stay and derp.
It’s hateful to defame people by falsely accusing them of bigotry. If you want to see how it’s done, check out the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been defaming Christians for years. Or read Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion in U.S. v. Windsor.
They aren’t bigots because they say they’re not bigots. We’ve never heard that argument before in American history, have we?
Proponents apparently knew the fix was in. The American Civil Liberties Union ran a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal the next day, proclaiming jihad against the 36 states that aren’t in the “freedom to marry party.” As for the freedom of millions who disagree? Ah, well.
Seriously? The ACLU used the word jihad? I highly doubt that. It’s almost as if Robert Knight thinks that we only want full equality in order to stick it sad sacks like himself. Of course, the “millions who disagree” are just as free as they always were. There is no Constitutional amendment against hurting a wingnut’s fee wees.
The jihad won’t stop with the same-sex counterfeit. If sexual complementarity is no longer a valid requirement, why should marriage be limited to two people?
I don’t know, Robert. As soon as someone actually starts making that argument, let’s talk about it.
Justice Kennedy has emerged as the most powerful man in America when it comes to advancing the homosexual agenda and uprooting Judeo-Christian sexual morality. In 1996, he wrote the Romer v. Evans ruling that struck down Colorado’s voter-approved Amendment Two, which barred inclusion of the amorphous “sexual orientation” in state and local statutes. Clear-headed Coloradans had seen how such a term could be abused to distort civil rights and tried to head it off.
They ran into the buzz saw of a liberal judiciary, topped by Justice Kennedy’s unctuous ruling accusing them of bigotry.
In 2003, Justice Kennedy struck again. Citing junk science and foreign laws, he wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas that vacated anti-sodomy laws. It helped that the state’s advocates didn’t bother making a public health case against behavior that still accounts for the bulk of new HIV infections in America and a host of other deadly illnesses. If you keep throwing away aces, don’t expect to win the poker game.
I will concede that it is a bit strange that Justice Kennedy has had so much power on this issue over the last two decades, but I suppose I’m glad we elected him emperor. Of course, Kennedy’s rulings in Romer and Lawrence were sound, rooted in reality and real science. I know that folks like Robert feel that if they continually assert that the sane world relies on “junk science,” that it’ll somehow become true in the public eye, but that only works if people are listening.
Wednesday’s related Hollingsworth v. Perry, a 5-4 ruling written by Chief Justice John (“I learned to love Obamacare, and you can, too”) G. Roberts Jr., denied standing for defenders of California’s voter-approved Proposition 8 constitutional marriage amendment. Instead of hearing the merits, they punted it back to the court where U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker had struck it down.
By ducking the case, the Supremes managed to put another bullet into marriage, not to mention self-government. The takeaway: Any time an executive branch official disagrees with a constitutionally enacted law or amendment, the law is null and void. This means that governors, like the president, are now more like kings than public servants constrained by constitutional divisions of power.
Oh, how the wingnut simplifies and misrepresents. One of the major things the defenders of Proposition 8 were called on to prove was injury. They had to prove that there would be a truly deleterious effect, to them personally, if marriage equality returned California, and they couldn’t do it. Why? Because wingnuts just don’t do well in court. When your entire movement is based on thinly-veiled Bible-beating, you’re not going to succeed in venues where you actually have to show your work.
The concept of self-rule is fast becoming only a speed bump to the ruling elites, who are determined to refashion America into an updated version of Sodom. They will let nothing, certainly not state laws or the U.S. Constitution, get in the way. Judge Walker, who is homosexual and should have recused himself, could find no societal reason for defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman other than “animus” towards homosexuals.
They couldn’t find it because your side’s best and brightest couldn’t string together ten believable words which would suggest otherwise. We casually note his suggestion of recusal for Judge Walker, and merely suggest that because Knight claims that he’s trying to preserve “traditional marriage,” that any judge involved in a “traditional marriage” should also recuse himself. Oh, that’s not how the deficient wingnut brain works? My bad.
All of this is leading up to this gutter ball:
Judge Walker’s ruling applies only to the Northern District of California, leaving the rest of the state’s law intact. This gives Southern Californians more incentive to push secession. For years, sensible Southland folks have wanted not to reside in a state represented in Washington by Rep. Nancy Pelosi or in Sacramento by Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown.
Incorrect. At issue was the state of California’s law. As such, any ruling on it affects the entire state. Look, here is a story about Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa performing marriages. Cannot believe I’m having to correct this…
I hope they can pull it off, but I wonder where the rest of us are going to live when mere belief in the biblical definition of marriage is grounds for civil action and eventually criminal prosecution?
In the same rathole of delusion you’re living in now, I suppose, as in the real world, no one is trying to take anything away from you. Your cultural supremacy (which was never enshrined into law, no matter how much you’d like it to be so), well, that bird flew years ago. You’re just finally seeing the demographic shift that’s occurred. We are very sorry that you are upset that facts, reason, thinking, science, good will and compassion won the day over your frightening, stifling, anti-intellecual, unhealthy worldview, but we assume that you will figure out a way to survive.
Perhaps, Robert, you could live with this guy, Paul Craft, who, according to Alan Keyes’ website Renoo Murka, lives in Kentucky. He is suggesting that certain states (he has no idea which) should secede from the United States, over gay marriage:
My opinion is that this day, June 26, 2013, is the beginning of the end for the United States of America. Christians, conservatives, and liberals to a small degree, who believe in the Judeo-Christian values of our forefathers will find them boxed in by the government police and men and women in society who will elect to stay quiet instead of facing pressure from society. We will no longer have a place to hide.
See, Robert Knight? He’s looking for a place to hide too. Perhaps you could go shopping together for all the supplies you’ll need for the coming Gay Onslaught, in which gay couples will have the same rights you’ve always enjoyed and that’s pretty much it. Make sure to stock up on canned goods.
I may be ahead of my time on calling for secession, but unless things change it will become evident over time.
All righty then.
Brian Brown said something equally hilarious on television yesterday, but that deserves a post of its own. If you’re in the mood for more of their lamentations, go read Roy Edroso’s weekly right-blogger round-up and laugh.
