Obama the Federalist?

Perhaps when it comes to marriage law. Read the latest over at the The Opine Editorials.

A Flimsy Comparison

Want to compare the struggle to neuter marriage as a "gay rights" issue like the civil rights struggle of African Americans?

There's no comparison. No African American was ever able to get by living "in the closet". We are talking about buying people like property, treating them under the law as property (it was legal to destroy your own property, mind you), shipping them to a foreign land, whipping, beating and raping them, denying them education, voting rights, housing, employment, and all kinds of accommodation, and public, photographed lynchings akin as if they were having a town parade, with no punishment for those leading the lynchings. All because of their skin color. To this day, African Americans score lower in various socioeconomic indicators. Contrast that with homosexual people. When was the last time a homosexual person was simply walking down the street, behaving the same way as anyone else, and was publicly lynched for being homosexual, with the murderers getting away with it despite clear evidence of their guilt? When was the last time a homosexual citizen was denied the right to vote based on who they are? What housing covenants state that the housing can't be sold to homosexual people? When a heterosexual person or closeted homosexual someone kills someone else presumably because the victim is homosexual, it makes huge news, is rightly widely condemned, the murderer ends up in prison, and Oscar-winning movies and Tony-winning plays are made about it.

Read more of my reaction to opinions printed at LATimes.com... over at The Opine Editorials.

Delusional Marriage Neuterists Stroke Cuomo's Ego

Ah yes, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who thought the most important thing facing the state was that it didn't have neutered marriage licenses so that brideless and groomless couples were unable to get marriage licenses. Boo hoo. So here's Beth Fouhy's Associated Press report about what the people who are fixated on the notion of having everyone else praise what they do with their genitals want to do (besides stuff I won't write about here) to reward Cuomo.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's successful push to [neuter] marriage in his state has made him a national hero to liberal voters and has sparked talk of a potential presidential bid for Cuomo in 2016.

Quiz time. Can you tell me when the last time a New York-based politician won a major party’s Presidential nomination, let alone the Presidential Election? It’s not for lack of trying, as the Cuomos can tell you. And the Clintons. And the Gulianis, and so many others. I know New Yorkers and many Leftists think New York is the center of the universe, and it is a very important city in a lot of ways. But there are 49 (not 56) other states.

"Andrew Cuomo is seen as a civil rights leader and has millions of volunteers and millions of donors across the country who would instantly support him if he decides to run," California-based gay rights leader Chad Griffin said.

Such a "leader" they're "behind" five other states, including Iowa. Six if you count California.

Clinton also signed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 that defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

Yes, DOMA in 1996 definied marriage as a union of one man and one woman. As if up until then, there were no dictionaries and everyone thought marriage was just any two people.

The article talks about all of the other things he's done that have ticked off the Left – mainly, bowing to fiscal reality. But since he pushed to neuter marriage, anything else can be forgiven. The only way he could have garnered more praise from the Left is if he had been a woman who underwent a late-term abortion while simultaneously wrapping a Bible in the American flag and setting it on fire.

The Los Angeles Times Supports Neutering Marriage

Shocking, I know. I look at their editorial over at The Opine Editorials.

Dear Same-Sex Couples: Welcome to Marriage

Now that New York has joined five other states, I'd like homosexuals to know...

I do not support my heterosexual friends when they fornicate, shack up, have kids out of wedlock, commit adultery, divorce for anything other than abuse/abandonment/adultery/addiction (which really are all the same thing), or neglect children to whom they took on obligations. If someone in my family married someone, they make that other person an in-law and bring that person into my life, which means even if there is a divorce, I may still keep that other person in my life. Conversely, a partner of someone in my family is not part of my family until they marry. I vow to treat you exactly the same.

More at The Opine Editorials.

SB 104: Card Check in California

Even the Los Angeles Times editorial board speaks the truth about the problem with "card check":

For years, workers have helped tilt the balance of power in fields and factory farms incrementally by organizing themselves into labor unions. The Times supports steps to make it easier for them to join forces and demand humane conditions and negotiate for reasonable pay.

The problem, though, with the "card check" bills that Democrats keep sending to the governor is that they empower unions, not union workers. There is a difference.

Since 1975, workers have been able to choose whether to organize, and with which union, by casting ballots in secret. SB 104, like earlier versions of the bill, would replace those secret-ballot elections with a method known as majority signup or "card check." That would allow union representatives to visit workers in their homes to ask for their signatures, a process that could easily lead to inappropriate pressure or threats.

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Times for getting this one right.

Big Labor is trying to force itself on more workers so that it will be able to collect more fees and dues money to legally "bribe" politicians and support or oppose ballot initiatives through deceptive ads, presentations, and literature. The union wields such power to – surprise – further empower and enrich union management. Unfortunately, too many unions have fallen into the organizational trap of being about serving their management and perpetuating itself rather than improving the service it claims to provide.

Marriage Law: New Yorkers Need More Than Religious Protections

According to reports, marriage neutering has been held up in New York because of concerns over protecting religious freedom. However, marriage neutering threatens much more than religious freedom. Read about it over at The Opine Editorials.

UPDATE: I look at Tim Rutten's Los Angeles Times column.

How's That Boycott Workin’ For Ya?

I haven't forgotten that millions of illegal aliens are still here, crowding our schools, jails, roads, and emergency rooms, and that many millions more will come here if we get shamnesty. But has the City of Los Angeles forgotten its boycott of Arizona, a lame attempt to punish a state for actually doing something about illegal aliens? Here's a Los Angeles Times story by Kate Linthicum from earlier this month.

In May 2010, Los Angeles was a part of wave of cities that voted to boycott Arizona after lawmakers in that state passed a controversial law targeting illegal [aliens].

City Hall staffers were ordered to review contracts with Arizona companies for possible termination, and official travel to Arizona was supposed to be suspended.

But a year later, little has changed in the way Los Angeles does business with the state next door.

Fail. And it isn't just the City of LA.

A similar pattern can be seen across California. Boycotts in Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles County made headlines last year but have since delivered little punch.

None of those jurisdictions has canceled a contract with an Arizona-based company because of the boycott — leading some [illegal alien] activists to dismiss the high-profile calls for economic sanctions as empty symbolism.

Suckers. Maybe they should wise up and stop being lackeys for the Democrats.

Councilman Ed Reyes, who wrote the boycott, voted to approve those exceptions. He said the deals were in the best interest of the city.

You know what else is in the best interest of the city? Discouraging uneducated, unskilled, and career-criminal illegal aliens from hanging around here.

Previously:

Illegal Aliens Are Not Immigrants


Securing the Border Will Hasten Immigration Reform


Illegal Aliens Violate Immigrant Rights


On Illegal Aliens

New York and Marriage Neutering

Most states have decisively reinforced the universally historical and natural notion that marriage unites the sexes; some more than once. The current battle has been in New York. Will the state be added to the handful that have neutered their marriage licensing? The stage is already set to get the question of forced marriage neutering to SCOTUS. So in the larger picture it may not matter what happens in New York.

By picking this fight, the marriage neutering advocates have unwittingly demonstrated their claim of overwhelming public support is be false.

Read more about it at The Opine Editorials.

More Fallout From Ware on Walker

A letter to the Los Angeles Times, and stuff at Bench Memos. Go to The Opine Editorials.

Today's Proposition 8 Update

The fun just keeps on going.

Foregone Conclusion Expected Today on Judge Walker - UPDATE

It's looking that way, anyway.

UPDATE: Yup. I wonder if this kind of ruling will be applied equally, or if "equality" only goes one way?

Bullies and Hypocrites

What would you say if I picked one fellow American, whose statements and actions I disagreed with, and I engaged in a deliberate campaign (and had the power) to assign a definition to their name describing something most people would find disgusting and inappropriate to talk about in public, so much so that when you searched that person's name, a description of that disgusting thing would be the first to list?

Would you consider that bullying... to turn someone's name into a euphemism for something most people would find disgusting?

What if the person I did that too was a homosexual person?

What if I then started an anti-bullying campaign while continuing to bully? Wouldn't that make me a hypocrite?

This situation is not hypothetical, except that the person this is happening to is not homosexual; rather, the bully and subsequent coattail riders (to use a polite term) are homosexuality advocates.

I was disappointed when I learned this, because I support the message that bullying is wrong, and had some respect for someone taking the initiative to spread that message. But now I see that person has deliberately smeared the name of another human being. If that isn't bullying, what is it? I think if you asked most people if they'd rather take a punch to the gut and be called names while a teenager, or have their lifelong name made synonymous with something disgusting, they'd chose the former with no hesitation. If you asked them which was a more hateful form of bullying, they'd choose latter.

Bullying is being done by those who claim to be fighting bullying. And that's the most disgusting thing about all of this. But what should we expect from a savage?

California Marriage Amendment Back in Courtroom

Keep updated on Proposition 8, voted in to become the California Marriage Amendment, over at The Opine Editorials.

Really, Tina Fey?

From what I've heard about Tracy Morgan's stand-up performance comments about homosexual people, or at least his (hypothetical?) son, I would condemn the statements. But I have to question responses like this:

Fey also hopes Morgan’s gay and lesbian colleagues at "30 Rock" will accept his apology, or else "Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."

Really, Tina Fey? All of the "30 Rock" writers, costuming designers and wardrobe personnel, set designers and builders, actors (aside from Morgan), and fiscal staff are homosexual people? If so, then it sounds like a clear case of illegal discrimination.

Many comedians make outrageous comments about behavior and identity traits. This goes on constantly. I'm not defending any of that, but this frenzy about Morgan is just another example showing that the general public is not "anti-gay", nor are homosexual people powerless (as marriage neutering advocates have argued). They are obviously extremely powerful.

By the way, if it weren't for heterosexual people, none of us would be here.

The Traditional Family

Those who fight against idealizing the traditional family play dumb or act like we can't define a "traditional family" or that only a minority of families were what we call traditional at any given time in history. Some of them go on to bash Christianity when the "traditional family" topic is raised, even though traditional families certainly don't need to be Christian to be traditional. See what I have to say about this over at The Opine Editorials.

Cracking Down on Section 8 Fraud is Racist?

Carol J. Williams and Ann M. Simmons report in the Los Angeles Times on the latest whining by tax-takers and their Lefitist activist group friends.

As many as 200 local minority families have lost their federal housing assistance each year, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court by the National Assn. for the Advancement of [Leftist and Dependent] Colored People and unnamed victims of the alleged harassment.

If they didn't meet the criteria, they shouldn't have been getting the funding.

Most of the families have been cut off following surprise "compliance checks" by housing authorities and police, aimed at rooting out fraud in the federal housing assistance program known as Section 8.

Civil rights advocates say the crackdowns amount to racial discrimination, as 85% of the Section 8 households are black or Latino.

So cops should never pull over cars that are more likely to be driven by women, because that would be gender discrimination?

Residents have also complained that the inspections often involved armed Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, which they said adds a level of intimidation to the checks.

Well, yeah, when you're going into someone's home in high-crime areas, and they may be hostile, it is a good idea to be armed, no?

The lawsuit says the crackdown has created a climate of fear among minorities in the Antelope Valley and may have influenced vigilante attacks and hate crimes.

A climate of fear? Why? Are most of them defrauding taxpayers? My guess is that minorities who aren't defrauding the system aren't in fear of enforcement.

Palmdale's First African Methodist Episcopal Church was firebombed in August, and garages and other property of Section 8 renters have been vandalized with graffiti including racial slurs, swastikas and "I hate Section 8." One mother of four reported in the complaint that a carload of white youths shouted racial epithets at her children and threw a bag of urine at them.

Who knew that enforcing nonracist laws could do so much?

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said there is evidence that crime in Lancaster tends to "cluster around Section 8 housing." Since Lancaster began its stepped-up enforcement, crime stemming from Section 8 housing units has "dropped dramatically," Parris said.

Too bad! Wanting less crime is racist, even when reducing crime is likely to help racial minorities the most.

Palmdale recently renewed the contract for its special investigator for Section 8 fraud, whose work over the last two years has resulted in a termination of benefits for one in 12 residents in the housing assistance program. In Lancaster, which also hires its own enforcer for the federal program, one in 21 beneficiaries was cut off in 2009. The two cities accounted for 51% of terminations in L.A. County.

You know what that means? Other cities need to step up enforcement.

Those who claim to have been unjustly terminated contend that the two cities are trying to drive out Section 8 tenants and that the county rubber-stamps the cutoff requests.

I'm sure they have detailed knowledge of the process, right?

The article got some good comments.

Tommy99 at 9:15 PM June 7, 2011:

Wow, a race-based group accuses other people of racism! Big news.

He asks a good question.

How can something be racial discrimination simply based on the fact that a large percentage of the participants of the program are a minority? In other words, no one can enforce section 8 rules without being racist?

And:

"what is going to stop them from coming to your house"

Well, I am not a tax-taker. I own my house. I don't beg for handouts and then cry when the authorities make me live up to agreements.

"they had no right to enter any one house"

But it is not their homes. The homes belong to the landlord and the landlord is obeying the rules of the program. If the section 8'ers don't want to comply with the rules of the program, move out and don't participate. Beggers cannot be choosers.

The Left wants other people to pay, but then it doesn't want verification or standards.

Los Angeles Times – Niche LGBTQQUAI Media?

I agree with the title of this Los Angeles Times editorial that "gay rights" are human rights. I believe that everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, has the right to life, liberty, property, freedom of association, freedom of speech, etc. The devil is in the details of the editorial.

The editorial notes that South Africa is one of the few nations that have neutered their marriage laws and it has a constitution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (things that I don't necessarily consider rights, depending on whether or not the application violates someone else's rights).

Gay groups flourish - soccer clubs and church organizations included - and middle-class gay men and women live relatively openly.

But the editorial goes on to cite that a cross-dressing homosexual woman was apparently raped and murdered, the implication that it had to be about her sexual orientation.

Two other openly gay women have been murdered in the township since 2008, and some gay men and women report having been raped by attackers who claimed to be teaching them a lesson.

Obviously, nobody should be raped, regardless of the reason.

A gay rights demonstration in Moscow was disrupted last month by counter-protesters, and Russian security forces detained people from both sides of the protest.

So two sides expressed their opinions. What is the problem with that? People should have the freedom of speech, even if they disagree with homosexuality advocates.

In Jamaica, homophobic lyrics in dancehall music have been blamed for violent attacks on gay people.

Were they playing Eminem? What does the Los Angeles Times think of social/cultural conservatives who say that music lyrics incite kids to fornication, dope smoking, and other destructive things?

On the other hand, some countries have progressed further faster. A decade ago, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Since then, nine more have followed — and the U.S. was not one of them.

Neutering state marriage licenses against the will of those who issue the licenses is not a right nor progress.

I gather that I believe in more rights for homosexual individuals than the Los Angeles Times and many homosexual advocacy organizations, because I believe all individuals have certain rights that should not be usurped by the collective or by interest groups.

The paper also has an article by Paloma Esquivel covering the tired "woe is them" immigration aspect of the homosexuality advocacy movement.

They had fallen in love quickly and planned on marrying but soon learned that, unlike similar situations with straight couples, their relationship wouldn't help Oliva stay in the country.

Immigration policy is supposed to benefit the receiving country. The policy seeks to reunite (or keep united) married (bride+groom) couples because the United States have an interest in bride+groom couples that they don't have when it comes to other couples. Why should the nation's immigration policy try to keep same-sex couples united any more than it tries to keep platonic friends united? It's essentially another article about the evils of DOMA.

Poll Dancing With a Walker

I've analyzed the most recent coverage of neutering marriage via court and polling, especially when it comes to the California Marriage Amendment voted in as Proposition 8. See The Opine Editorials.

Rights Aren't Determined by Majority Vote

Way back on May 20 (or thereabouts), a Gallup poll result was released showing increased support for neutering marriage. I'm finally getting around to looking at a couple of the resulting articles, over at The Opine Editorials.

Hand's Off My Son's Penis, San Francisco

San Francisco, and San Francisco Jr. (Santa Monica), are both seriously considering bans on male circumcisions, at least for minors. There are men coming from various worldviews who are strongly against infant male circumcision. There is a high amount of emotion over the issue, as those who defend or encourage it cite religious or health reasons. Witness Gino Hasler of Arleta, who wrote in to the Los Angeles Times, writing against the practice.

This barbaric and sadistic ritual belongs in the Middle Ages and should not be tolerated today.

Then there’s J.M. Samuel of Santa Monica:

It seems to me that there is no difference between outlawing male circumcision, which a group wants to do in Santa Monica, and outlawing abortion. It is another example of people who want to legislate their own morals and impose their will on others concerning an area that should be left to an individual's right to choose.

There's a huge difference. When you circumcise a boy, you cut off skin from his penis. He goes on living. When you abort a boy, you slaughter him, thus murdering him.

So, I wonder if it will still be okay in San Francisco to cut off all of your son's penis, as long as he “feels like a girl"?