The Smoking Argus

In their never ending attempt to obtain a government love license, the homosexual movement has apparently found a loophole. The government must immediately seek to close this glaring omission of the law and stop the notion that love can be obtained without government’s consent. In a post 9/11 world, love must be reserved for those who are capable of providing the government with subsequent generations of offspring in order to ensure the proper repayment of debt. If we allow just anyone to love, then how will the bankers government continue to keep us safe, strong  and free from the evil spooky gays terrorists.

(much [unlicensed] love to Young Americans for Liberty for posting this video.)

Source(s): The Onion News Network

Joseph Marohl

Perhaps it would be easy to overestimate the importance of Barack Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren to speak at the 2009 Inauguration. Warren is the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven® Life, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and outspoken critic of gay rights and same-sex marriage,.

It’s not as if Warren’s been asked to join the President’s Cabinet, after all. And, besides, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association is invited to march in the Presidential Inaugural Parade, having played only on the sidelines for the two Clinton Inaugurations.

Warren compares homosexuality to incest, polygamy, and adultery. He makes false claims, such as that marriage between one man and one woman has been the model of all religions for five thousand years (polygamy, for instance, has routinely reoccurred as an element of religious observance, and revered patriarchs such as Jacob, Moses, and Solomon practiced it, and even today a number of religious groups and Christian denominations accept same-sex marriage).

Still, Rick Warren is not Fred Phelps—Warren, like former governor and current Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, presents a friendlier, even-tempered, and apple-cheeked face to bigotry.

It’s fairly clear to me what Obama is trying to do—reach out to social conservatives and evangelical Christians who have, as Warren supposedly has, expressed an interest in dialogue with those who do not share their views.

But Warren has not been open to such dialogue, particularly with gays. What Warren wants, like many evangelicals and conservatives, is a platform for criticizing other people’s lifestyles, while claiming to be persecuted if his own life choices and opinions are criticized or even questioned.

What Obama fails to recognize is that sitting down to dialogue is one thing, but it’s something else entirely to give a platform to a man who calls for the continued political disenfranchisement of a small but significant part of Obama’s base. Obama did the same thing back in October 2007, when he led a “gospel tour” on the South Carolina leg of his Presidential campaign, fronted by Donnie McClurkin, who wrapped up every show with a 15-minute “prayer” thanking God for delivering him from the debasement of homosexuality. When GLBT activists objected, Obama’s people used the “dialogue” defense and then told the GLBTs to pipe down and stop being “divisive.” Some dialogue.

Undoubtedly one reason gay people don’t get much respect from political candidates or representatives in government is that we’re a minority—representing perhaps less than the proverbial 10 percent of the total population. On top of that, we are one of the merely two or three minorities (off the top of my head, I can’t think of another one, though) one can safely ridicule and denounce in sweeping blanket generalizations—not to mention find defenders for physically assaulting, even killing. In fact, when gay people simply complain that they are mistreated, they are accused of being politically divisive and small minded, endangering children, and persecuting Christians.

Part of the problem, too, has been sloppy strategizing by gay rights activists. The whole issue of whether gays are born gay or choose to be gay is irrelevant to whether gays deserve the same rights as any other citizen or human being. Did biological determinism do anything really to speed up women’s and blacks’ struggles for justice and equality? If one could choose to be black, would such a choice justify discriminatory practices against that person? Even if God can and does “cure” the habit of gossip or the desire to eat shellfish (both condemned in the Bible), would such miracles justify passing laws and amendments that forbid basic legal privileges to shrimp-loving blabbermouths?

It’s also a bit insensitive for Obama to ask a vocal supporter of California’s Proposition 8 to speak, since, for many lesbians and gays, it rehashes and confirms the conflicted feelings of elation and insult that the November victories of Obama and 8 evoked. If Obama sympathizes with gay people’s struggle for equal treatment under the law, as he claims, why is he insensitive and/or indifferent to their concerns and interests?

Sometimes I have to wonder whether Democrats choose to be hypocrites or whether they’re just born that way.

Joseph Marohl

Yep, hearing that Obama had definitely won the day on Election Tuesday, I teared up. Couldn’t help myself. Really. I saw the magic number, 270 electoral votes, had been reached, and the waterworks just sprang.

The vote appeared momentous, not just because on some level it can be taken to symbolize a triumph over centuries of bigotry and injustice in this nation, but also because it promises to reconcile America with the world.

Everybody’s tearing up.

YouTube will soon have to offer tissues for every deeply moved celebrity or wannabe celebrity posting footage of going verklempt when or shortly after he or she first heard the happy news.

The extra-sensitive may even take their show on the road—finding moments in any conversation during the next few days to recall the moment they heard the announcement and go misty-eyed all over again—or, failing in that, simply and reverently affirm that they, too, like Colin Powell, wept—or very nearly almost wept—when they heard that Obama will be our next President.

These are moving times—and the prevailing gauge to validate our choices, our votes, our sincerity, is our feelings. America has elected somebody named Barack Obama as President, somebody a shade or two darker than the previous 43 US Presidents, somebody who can pronounce the word “nuclear” correctly.

A friend who stayed up late that night to watch Obama’s acceptance speech complained, but ever so reticently, that she was disappointed at how “cold” the President Elect appeared. He must have been very tired after months (years!) of campaigning, she offered by way of explanation. Still, she said, he had looked a lot more “kindly” before he won. Perhaps it was dawning on him what a load of shit he was inheriting from the previous administrations.

I’m reading today of gay activists who are tearing up, too. Tears tinged with a hint of hurt and betrayal, even anger, mixed with their pride in a new America capable of rising above the issues of race. Gay activists who worked hard to elect Obama but found their own causes, same-sex marriage and adoption rights, slapped down in four states—and by the same good people, black and white churchgoers, who voted against bigotry to elect Barack Obama.

Dan Savage wrote in his blog on Wednesday:

“African American voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, writing anti-gay discrimination into California’s constitution and banning same-sex marriage in that state. Seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, 49% of Asian voters.

“I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

“I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.” (1)

The issue, of course, is not so much race as it is fear, ignorance, and hatefulness, which know no racial boundaries, but often find sanctuary among the righteously monotheistic. And, of course, black homophobia poses the biggest problem for black gay men and lesbians.

My previously mentioned friend tried to reason with me over my own disappointment over the failure of Obama supporters to care about the civil rights of homosexual men and women, saying that justice needed to arrive first for the blacks, the women, the Hispanics, etc., before it could trickle down to the queers (not her word choice, of course)—out of respect to the chronology of historical injustices.

But I disagree. In 1624, just five years after the first slave ship arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the first American sodomite, Richard Cornish, was executed, also in Jamestown (2). And nearly a 100 years earlier, in 1530, further south in Panama, Balboa fed 41 native-American sodomites to his dogs, “a fine action of an honorable and Catholic Spaniard,” so wrote a contemporary, Antonio de la Colancha (3). Even if we take a number according to history, as we stand in line waiting for social and political justice, gay rights should be at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights for all.

So while I too feel swept away by my emotions this week—not least of all because we are still stuck with 76 more days of George W. Bush—it’s imperative that we regain our clear and unclouded eyes to face the issues the country yet faces—wars, a tanked economy, crumbling infrastructure, greed, cynicism, and, yes, bigotry against homosexuals.

Obama’s election is not, after all, a happy Hollywood ending—it is the beginning of something, something that I hope will contain moments of glory and triumph, while inevitably burdened by a great deal of cultural warfare, moral equivocation, and, dare I say it, politics as usual.

***

(1) Savage, Dan. “Black Homophobia.” Slog 5 Nov. 2008. http://slog.thestranger.com

(2) Goodheart, Adam. “The Ghosts of Jamestown.” New York Times 3 July 2003.

(3) Qtd. in Williams, Walter L. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1992. Pg. 137.

Joseph Marohl

Me, I’m elated by Barack Obama’s win. I wasn’t one to be dazzled by every aspect of the man’s style and certainly not all his stances, but in the last months I came to feel he has the makings to be the best President this country has ever seen—and the nadir George Bush reached in the last eight years makes Obama’s promise shine all the brighter.

The Bush Administration have brought the country low—bankrupt, globally despised, torn between two wars, baselessly arrogant, fearful (no, terrorized … and by its own government!), stripped of essential civil liberties, and contemptuous of the poor, the aged, and the ill.

Whether I’m right or wrong about Obama right now, he needs to be great just to offset the mess we’re all in. More to the point, it is the American people, as a whole, who need to exhibit greatness, for no elected official, however novel or charismatic, can do the work of rebuilding the nation’s character.

My hopes, such as they are, are wrapped on the new President’s being everything I think he can be.

Still, for me, though, the great disappointment—in the midst of my current high—is that California appears to have passed Proposition 8, negating the court’s decision earlier this year permitting lesbians and gay men to marry whom they please. Arizona and Florida have passed similar measures, either banning or reinforcing an existing law banning same-sex marriage. Arkansas voters decided to ban gays from being able to adopt children.

As speaker after speaker recalls Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream at what one hopes can be the dawn of a better America this morning, we must face the truth that electing a mixed-race President is a gigantic step forward, indeed, but pushing others back down at the same moment reveals that America has yet preserved its ugly side—in its homophobia and religious fear and bigotry.

Joseph Marohl

Next month I’m going to Barbara and Shane’s wedding. I’m excited. For the first time in my life, I’m attending a wedding where both bride and groom are good friends of mine. The wedding will take place in a historic church not far from the Old Town Square in Prague, a city I’ve been itching to visit for years.

The ceremony will be religious, and the happy couple will have to renounce sins they don’t believe are really all that bad to receive absolution they don’t really believe in.

Still, they will be joined together in the eyes of God, the IRS, Social Security, Medicare, local law enforcement, and, most importantly, the Mormons and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, who take seriously the superstitious mumbo-jumbo that the happy couple will repeat good-naturedly for the sake of a pretty and personally significant occasion in their lives.

For most of human history, marriage has been a private matter, between two families or between two individuals.

Until the seventeenth century, the Church accepted the validity of a marriage so long as a couple claimed that they had exchanged vows, even in private without witnesses—though “licit” only if they were confirmed in and by the Church (1).

In the Renaissance, some European nations began to require “legal” or civic recognition of marriage, mainly to maintain the authority of parents over their children’s destinies and thus keep inheritable titles and estates under a patriarchal thumb.

For most of US history, states required marriages to be “registered,” like births or deaths, but exerted little or no management over who was officially or legally married. Later, in the early twentieth century, some US states began to “license” marriage as a means to prevent or de-legitimize interracial unions (1).

In the 1950s, when most adults of a certain age were married, licensed marriage became an expedient way of qualifying individuals for legal privileges and institutional benefits (1). The downside of this practicality was that these privileges and benefits were denied to those who were unmarried … or whose relationships fell outside a state’s legal definition of a marriage.

Forty-one years ago, Loving v Virginia (388 US 1) ended all race-based discrimination in state marriage laws—thus ending a 40-year history of anti-miscegenation laws, principally in the South.

It is now time for marriage to be loosed altogether from its ties to the state. Individual places of worship should be able to consecrate whatever relationships they deem sacred, without government interference, provided the arrangements are consensual. Such matters are the business of the congregation and religious hierarchy … and should not be subject to public scrutiny or approval.

Neither should the government deny civil rights and legal privileges to individuals who have no such relationships—or whose relationships are entirely secular, unblessed by any God.

Current state ballots contain proposals for new and stricter legal hoops that states can require ostensibly free individuals to hop through before they are allowed the same privileges and rights a favored few can acquire at the comparably cheap price of $50 (in North Carolina, less than I pay annually to own a dog).

This is unjust and un-American.

Proposition 8 in California and the Florida Marriage Amendment seek to perpetuate legalized inequality, denying lesbians and gays the right to marry whom they please.

Even if these propositions fail, state marriage laws in general remain discriminatory against the single and “illicitly” coupled.

I urge everyone in every state to vote against statutes that would make current injustices more firmly entrenched—and work towards a system of distributing benefits without regard to one’s marital status, religious affiliation, or conformity to community standards of behavior.

Vote no on Proposition 8. Vote no on the Florida Marriage Amendment. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

(1) Coontz, Stephanie. “Taking Marriage Private.” New York Times 26 Nov. 2007.

Allison Bricker

With Election Day only one week away, voters in 3 states, Florida¹, California², and Arizona³ will again be voting on whether same sex couples should be allowed to “marry”. The debate regarding whom can marry is yet another example of politicians creating and fostering a wedge between Americans.

Marriage as an institution, is a purely religious ceremony conducted by a church to bless the union of two individuals under the eyes of that religion’s deity and theocratic dogma. Whereas, a “Marriage License” is merely a conglomeration of 1600+ legal benefits, liabilities, and tax designations, i.e. “CIVIL-RIGHTS” granted by a state.

Since CIVIL-RIGHTS are granted de jure (in law) they are subject to the “Equal Protection Clause” of the 14th Amendment to the United States Federal Constitution. Ergo, CIVIL-RIGHTS fall directly under the principle affirmed by Brown v. Board of Education⁴. Currently, states are maintaining two separate unequal civil institutions by allowing heterosexual couples to obtain a singular license containing the 1600+ legal designations via the courts, whilst requiring same-sex couples to piecemeal together the numerous legalities ad hoc. Thus what costs a heterosexual couple approximately $40.00 can cost thousands of dollars for same-sex couples in court costs and attorney’s fees.

The two very distinct paths in securing these civil rights quite laughably, does not even rise to the legal standard extolled under Plessy v. Ferguson⁵ which found that governments could only sustain separate civil institutions if they were of no difference in quality. The current structure is indeed separate, but is nowhere close to equal when contrasting the time, research, and monies spent by heterosexual couples against the time, research, and monies spent by same-sex couples.

Moreover, the state’s “marriage” license really has nothing to do whatsoever with sanctifying or blessing either union. As such, labeling the aforementioned a “marriage” license is nothing but an attempt by politicians to use the fear of “redefining [theocratic] marriage” as a wedge in order to secure their own slime ridden seats in public office.

It is far more accurate and unduly less divisive to call the license what it indeed is for both heterosexual and same-sex couples; a civil contract of partnership. Any arguement to the contrary regarding the accuracy of a marriage license would result in the government affirming a unique religious philosophy, thus breaching separation of church and state.

If an individual church wishes to refuse “sanctifying” a ceremony between same-sex couples then they, as a private institution are free to do so visa vi their inherent right to free association. Their action has no legal consequences whatsoever. The debate over the recognition of same-sex couples needs to be debated amongst the church itself and its congregation. Individual members of the congregation are free to form their own congregation in “protest”, interpreting the scriptures as more inclusive and less exclusive much in the same spirit of Martin Luther. Regardless, the debate over the sanctity of unions is best left to the four walls of a chapel, whilst the legality of said partnerships is best left confined within the four walls of a statehouse.

Additionally, governments previously acknowledged the necessity of legally securing partnerships whether by common law or same-sex. In the 19th century, “Boston Marriages”⁶ as they were called, secured the rights of women living with one another under the same roof, much in the same way today’s “marriage” contracts secure the ability of probate and fiduciary responsibility. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century when modern “marriage” licenses came into existence⁷ that Politicians first used the wedge of “traditional marriage” as a way to prevent interracial marriage. One would hope, that 100 years later we would not be fooled by the same ruse yet again.

However, until we call bullsh!t on these politicians carelessly throwing around the word “marriage”, they will continue to use the word solely as a tool to divide the people against one another.

Source(s): ¹Florida Marriage Protection Amendment, Proposition 2 • ²CALIFORNIA INITIATIVE to ELIMINATE RIGHT of SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY, Proposition 8 • ³PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA; AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA BY ADDING ARTICLE XXX; RELATING TO MARRIAGE, Proposition 102 •⁴347 U.S. 483 BROWN ET AL. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA ET AL.APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS. Argued December 9, 1952. Reargued December 8, 1953. Decided May 17, 1954. • ⁵ PLESSY v. FERGUSON, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) 163 U.S. 537 • ⁶ Psychology of Women Quarterly, Volume 18 Issue 4, Pages 627 – 641, Published Online: 28 Jul 2006 • ⁷ “Taking Marriage Private”, New York Times, Published: November 26, 2007