“I wonder if Mr. O’Reilly feels even the slightest bit responsible for this”

From CNN:

Dr. George Tiller, whose Wichita, Kansas, women’s clinic has been the target of anti-abortion protests for years, was shot and killed at his church Sunday morning….

The title of this posting was a comment about this incident over at HuffPo.

We Don’t Exist, Part 891,472,036

From the Las Vegas Sun:

The Senate has overridden the veto of Gov. Jim Gibbons on the controversial bill to provide certain legal rights to domestic partners.

But, of course, if the rights of either of the partners in such a relationship are in any way impacted by such mundane shit as, say, having a job and such partner happens to be transsexual or trans-anything, said partner is still SOL thanks to Marriage Derangement Syndrome.

There is no compromise on pushing toward same-sex marriage.   Gay rights-oids in Nevada easily could have stood up and said ‘we don’t want the legislature even to consider anything relationship-related until the atrocity of 1999’s gay-only rights law is rectified so as to allow trans people the right to be free from employment discrimination.’

They could have.

But that would have meant compromise on something they want.

You see, we are the only ones who are to be expected to compromise.  (But, I’m sure some will snidely ask, isn’t the notion of domestic partnerships a ‘compromise’ toward marriage?  Not when the state in question has a constitutional prohibition against same-sex marriage – one provoked by Marriage Derangement Syndrome througout the land and one which calls into question whether the state could, even if its Legislature wanted to, enact legislation recognizing the reality of transsexualism, legislation that its oh-so-liberal neighbor Utah has had on its books for almost three decades.)

That’s what official gay rights-oids mean by inclusion of trans people within the movement: we get to fork over our time, energy and money and our reward is being the compromise.

Rock on Nevada!  Woot!

Go to hell, Nevada – and take New Hampshire with you.

Quack!

I Might Watch

So its Leno’s last nite on the Tonight Show.

I might watch – if his guests are Joey Lawrence and Patrick Duffy.

Ergo, The Gay Rights Movement Is…

An image from an item over at Pam’s about marriage equality:

 

 

 

If so, then what does that say about a ‘gay rights movement’ that has routinely voted out the rights of a minority within said movement as a priority of said movement?

In your heart, surely you know what the answer is.

 

 

 

Though I certainly agree with the sign on the right also, its the one on the left that is of more relevance.

And continues to be so.

Marriage Derangement Syndrome at HuffPo

I have no idea whether Lincoln Mitchell is gay or straight – but he is clearly infected with Marriage Derangement Syndrome:

On Tuesday while the California Supreme Court handed down a decision that is the 21st century answer to Plessy v. Ferguson, President Obama announced the nomination of Second Circuit Supreme Court Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the US Supreme Court.

No, Strauss v. Horton would be analogous to Plessy v. Ferguson if, at some point after the ratification of the 14th Amendment and prior to 1896, there had been an amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically removing race as a suspect classification.  Strauss v. Horton was an examination of the validity of the process by which a specific amendment to the California Constitution got into said constitution after a ruling as to how same-sex marriage fit into said constitution’s general notion of equal protection.

While the decision by the California Supreme Court upheld a discriminatory ballot initiative,

Is that an acknowledgment that the Strauss-Plessy twain shant meet?  Possible – but me suspects not.

it should not have been a surprise. The vote by the California Supreme Court was not even close as Proposition 8 was upheld by a 6-1 majority. The lone dissenter was Justice Carlos Moreno. Much of the coverage of the decision overlooked the important point that the vote was on, excuse the pun, straight party lines. All six judges who voted in the affirmative had been initially appointed by Republican governors. Moreno is the only Supreme Court justice in California appointed by a Democrat.

True enough.

The reason for this decision had less to do with constitutionality and the merits of the arguments, but more with simple partisan politics. Since Jerry Brown left office in January 1983, California has had Republican governors for 22 out of 26 years. This more than anything else has influenced the makeup of the Supreme Court, and this decision, in California.

…

This week, California showed us the judicial past where courts dominated by conservatives, unrepresentative of the people for whom they are determining laws, restrict constitutional rights. Judge Sotomayor and President Obama showed us the future. The Republicans must be aware of this too, but their desperation to try to stop this progress is already showing.

I have no doubt that decades of Republican-appointed judges in California (particularly ones from the Deukmejian and Wilson years; my suspicion is that Ah-nuld’s judges might, as a whole, be a bit more even-handed) have tainted the state’s judicial system.

Nevertheless…

Lucy, please ’splain that lil’ decision from that same Supreme Court from about a year ago in which three of those six Republicans joined the Democrat and voted to recognize same-sex marriage.

Wuzzat, Lucy?

You can’t?  Or you just don’t feel like being bothered by acknowledging it?

Now, I’m sure that Dale Carpeneter is sitting up in his office at the U of Minnesota laughing uncontrollably at what looks like me defending Republicans. 

I’m not – even though I am (well, three of them anyway.)

More so, however, than what way any of the justices went in Strauss v. Horton or to which party any of them belong, I’m concerned with the contagion of Marriage Derangement Syndrome.  That item from Mitchell is rife with most of its more obvious symptoms: logic leaps, a complete inability to understand history and, most of all, seemingly a belief that marriage is all that matters.

Talk to Your Own Transphobic Brethren, Barney

St. Barney belches in Queer Channel Media:

On the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, Frank said he expects to introduce the measure next month and that Congress would act on the measure in the fall.

He noted that he would not wait until the Senate completes action on the hate crimes legislation before he introduces ENDA.

In the Senate, Dansky said lawmakers won’t act on ENDA until the House has passed the legislation and the Senate completes action on a hate crimes measure. Debate on health care reform and Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court also could delay action on ENDA, she said.

Frank said he expects congressional hearings on ENDA before the measure sees a vote because lawmakers must still be educated on the bill’s gender identity provisions.

“Efforts to include transgender people have failed in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland,” he said. “It doesn’t get easier when you throw in South Carolina and Utah.”

You don’t cause a disaster and then get to point to that disaster as an ‘act of god’ to get out from under obligations.  Your de facto compadres – greed-addled transphobic gay men and lesbians – dishonestly and immorally manufactured the ‘unable to pass T-anything’ realities in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland.  You have no right to point to any of that as an excuse for anything.  What those people did to us is wrapped around your neck and its staying there until the ink is dry on President Obama’s signature on a trans-inclusive federal ENDA.

And How Does Any of it Affect Trans People?

From Queer Channel Media:

State Department plans to extend a number of new benefits to the domestic partners of Foreign Service officers won praise from the Human Rights Campaign this week.

In a statement Tuesday, HRC said “among the benefits that will be extended to partners of Foreign Service officers are travel to and from overseas posts, shipments of household effects, visas and diplomatic passports, emergency travel to visit ill or injured partners, and evacuation in case of a security emergency or medical necessity.”

HRC President Joe Solmonese said the changes, which are tentatively planned and must still be finalized, were “long overdue.”

“For too many years, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Foreign Service officers have been forced to choose between serving their country and protecting their families,” Solmonese said.

This will be of any benefit to any trans person as a trans person…..how? 

Oh…that’s right.  It won’t. 

This is just yet another instance of the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool spouting ‘T’ about something that has nothing to do with ‘T’ in order to sound as if it gives a shit about ‘T.’

Something else “long overdue” is a requirement for Solmonese to be strapped to a lie-detector whenever he speaks about anything.

Vanessa, You’re Not Alone

Over at Trans Political, Vanessa Edwards Foster notes the gulf between Prop 8 and the APA:

[N]ote the variance of participation and attention from the gay and lesbian community between issues key to gay and lesbians (marriage) and issues key to trans people (employment non discrimination vis a vis HRC, de-pathologizing trans in the DSM). No, I’m not the only one to notice this stark disparity.

No, Ness. 

You’re not.

Stay strong.

.500

I’ll be nice.  First – a sentiment from The John with which I agree:

I don’t know a single effective political organizer or advocate who thinks that marching on Washington accomplishes anything other than wasting millions of dollars, creating a big donor list for ineffective groups to milk later on, and making the marchers feel like they’ve done something when they haven’t.

There’s talk about having yet another gay March on Washington. Stop it now, please.

Now – one from him that is entirely predictable, and equally laughable.  Regarding DADT:

[M]an it’s going to be ugly out there, very soon.

In short, he’s riding the ‘marriage is numner one, DADT is number two’ wave…

over the hypocrisy cliff.

Trans people not only have no clue as to the history of our own place in the LGB(T) movement but, additionally, cannot possibly have any clue as to whether trans-inclusion is politically possible and cannot legitimately question what certain elected officials say is politically possible at any particular point in time.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut……………..

When it comes to issues that they want dealt with now – RIGHT NOW! – non-trans gays have the absolute right to question what people who actually hold elective office say is politically possible at any particular point in time.