If Same-Sex Marriage is a Moral Issue that Should be Decided by the People, Then Shouldn’t the People Also Get to Vote on Whether Wall Street-oids Deserve More Than the Minimum Wage?

This christianist turd – who has never been harmed in any way by the existence and/or government recognition of any same-sex relationship – has helped to hijack the machinations of the taxpayer-funded, secular government of Minnesota in order to force the voters of that state to deal with a ballot measure in 2012 which would put a same-sex marriage ban into the state’s constitution:

The spewing:

“I do not believe it is up to judges or even this body, but it should be up to Minnesotans,” said Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, sponsor of the bill. But he said his beliefs are not paramount: “It is not about what I think. It is about what we think as Minnesotans.”

Fine – then it should be up to the voters of Minnesota – and every state, state by state - whether anyone within a state’s borders should be able to make obscene amounts of money by shuffling paper and manipulating the economy. 

If ‘the people’ get to set marital parameters at the polls, then they should get to set economic ones as well – starting with a maximum wage for those who do nothing useful for society and who, if the world was just, would have been set off on a ‘B’ Ark upon first indication of wanting to get a business degree.

Lets give all of the miners up on the Iron Range and all of the people in the poor neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St. Paul the opportunity to cast a fair, up-or-down vote on whether all of the bankers and arbitrages who fund Minnesota’s Republicans should be able to earn more than a Wal-Mart janitor.

What?

We can’t have that, you say?

It just wouldn’t be fair, you say?

Well – it sounds a lot fairer than allowing anyone in U.S. – or Minnesota specifically – to go without healthcare or food while countless worthless assholes make 7-figure salaries by conning the populace into believing that banks and insurance companies actually have “products.”

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop thinking that America needs a couple of good Robespierres.

So…You’re Now Going to Admit That Religion is Bullshit, Right?

From Raw Story:

Harold Camping is predicting the world will end on May 21, and insists that he has proof.

“God has given us an enormous amount of proof, like the gay pride movement and the extraordinary amount of wickedness in the world,” the 89-year-old founder of the Family Stations Christian radio network recently told SF Weekly‘s Alan Scherstuhl.

Hey Harold: Did you get your ‘proof’ from god? Or Rod?

In either case…

Are you now going to admit that you’re full of shit?

Uh huh…

I didn’t think so.

Minnesota Republicans Allowed This; It Should Be Wrapped Around Their Necks at Election Time

 In the words of one commenter at You Tube:

I like that FOX news went ape-shit when Common, the socially conscious rapper, got invited to the white house but then republicans INVITE this bigoted loser to our state house LOL

The St. Cloud Times printed a transcript of what terrorist-in-waiting Bradlee Dean, founder of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, was permitted by Minnesota Republicans to say as part of Minnesota House of Representatives’ official proceedings:

The House DFL Caucus provided this transcript of Dean’s prayer:

“So let us pray.

“Father God I just thank you Father for what you have bestowed upon us and through the sacrifice of our brothers and our sisters. Father God to ratify the Constitution of the United State. Father God, the fight, the bloodshed, and the sacrifice. From World War I to World War II to Korea, Father. To Korea and Iwo Jima and Vietnam. And Father God, Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think about their sacrifice when I go, Father God, to Arlington Cemetery and I think that’s the reason I that fight. That’s the reason that I stand, that I encourage my brothers to do the same thing. They died so we could have the freedoms that we have today. And they ratified that Constitution and sacrificed their all for it. And I end with this. I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it’s not about the Baptists and it’s not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus’ name.”

Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers is apologizing for the prayer in his chamber by Dean.

No take-backs.

You recognized the establishment of it; you – and your party – own it.

The specifics of what this Sue-Sylvester-in-male-drag Dean said are important, of course, but not as important as the bigger question: Why is any government entity - all of which in the United States are prohibited by the  US Constitution from respecting an establishment of religion – permitted to let its legislative branch open its sessions by respecting an establishment of religion?

Before You Party Hearty Tonight….

Ya best make sure:

Why Are These People Allowed to be Around Children at All?

This isn’t prejudice – which means pre-judging; it is making an empirically justifiable judgment, based on facts as presented.  People like this fuck up the lives of children and have no business being around children.

It is all about the children….isn’t it?

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to “sound the trumpet” on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

“My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven,” Grace Haddad, 16, said. “At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.”

…

[B]elievers subscribe to the prophecy of Harold Camping, a civil engineer turned self-taught biblical scholar whose doomsday scenario — broadcast on his Family Radio network — predicts a May 21, 2011, Judgment Day. On that day, arrived at through a series of Bible-based calculations that assume the world will end exactly 7,000 years after Noah’s flood, believers are to be transported up to heaven as a worldwide earthquake strikes. Nonbelievers will endure five months of plagues, quakes, wars, famine and general torment before the planet’s total destruction in October. In 1992 Mr. Camping said the rapture would probably be in 1994, but he now says newer evidence makes the prophecy for this year certain.

Kevin Brown, a Family Radio representative, said conflict with other family members was part of the test of whether a person truly believed. “They’re going through the fiery trial each day,” he said.

Fine – then it should be part of the test of whether any of these mentally diseased lunatics should be allowed to have any contact with any children under any circumstances…

especially from May 22nd onward.

While Ms. Haddad Carson has quit her job, her husband still works as an engineer for the federal Energy Department. But the children worry that there may not be enough money for college. They also have typical teenage angst — embarrassing parents — only amplified.

“People look at my family and think I’m like that,” said Joseph, their 14-year-old, as his parents walked through the street fair on Ninth Avenue, giving out Bibles. “I keep my friends as far away from them as possible.”

“I don’t really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore,” he said, “because my main support line, my parents, don’t care.”

When – as we all know will be the case – nothing happens on the 21st, the entirety of the assets of Harold Camping (because you know he didn’t give everything away) should be immediately seized to pay for the futures of the children whose lives his followers fucked up.

Funny, But….

…I thought we were against anti-trans violence?

Did “hearts and minds” get changed in favor of trans discrimination proposals or anti-trans discrimination proposals?

Enquiring minds of people who aren’t beholden to NCTE, NGLTF and HRC want to know.

Another Thought on the Maryland HRCoup

As Monica Roberts writes:

This sounds so 2003.

…

Gay Inc organization undergoes leadership shakeup and doesn’t want to work with already existing multicultural grassroots trans rights organization.    New instant trans rights organization forms with same predominately white privileged transpeople with ties to Gay, Inc org and rumored large financial contributions to facilitate startup.

If that scenario sounds familiar to you long time trans peeps, that’s because it is the old NTAC-NCTE one from the early 2K’s.

Yet again, I feel the need to quote from Culturcide:

There’s a choice we’re never given: to run our own lives.
Without it, your better day is just a better lie.

Love may or may not be a cattle prod, but the gay rights industry most certainly is.

Memo to the Kool-Aid-Transformed HB 235 Neo-Elite: Nevada is NOT Maryland

How so?

I won’t address geography; that would be piling on.

But, lets remember what Maryland’s gay elite tried to pull this year: A ‘lets screw ‘em even worse than we did in 2001′ combo platter – consisting of the exterminationistic, fully public accommodations-free HB235 and the enhancement of public accommodations protections for those who engineered some public accommodations protections for themselves back in 2001 known as HB 285 (which, not surprisingly to the thinking crowd, one didn’t hear the ‘you must accept HB235 if you know what’s good for you’ crowd talk much about.)

So on the heels of Nevada’s Legislature passing an employment-only trans bill, its only a matter of time before the obnoxious HB235 addicts attempt to rehabilitate themselves by claiming those who are okay with Nevada but who weren’t okay with Maryland are hypocrites.

Well, refer back to what Maryland’s gay elite forcefed trans people this year (and then add to it the real priority of Maryland’s gay elite: gay marriage.)

Now, here is what all was served up in Carson City in 2011:

GENDER IDENTITY OR EXPRESSION

      Crimes motivated by, additional penalty, civil liability, SB 180^D

      Employment discrimination prohibited, AB 211*

      Housing discrimination prohibited, SB 368

      Indication of gender on documents submitted to government agency, AB 370^D

      Public accommodations, unlawful discrimination, SB 331

Not ‘one half-assed gender identity bill and a bill that addresses the issue left out of the former but by giving more to those who already have’, but, rather, five separate bills (one – the ID bill –  admittedly being not as good as it could be), including one each for all three major discrimination categories plus a hate crimes bill.

So…

Even though, thus far, only the employment discrimination bill has made it to the governor’s desk, this is the key to remember: Unlike in Maryland, with its backroom deals to sublimate everything to the ultimately-failed attempt at gay marriage in 2011 (and one can only guess what sort of wackiness will be afoot with the new insta-organization trotting around claiming to speak for those not directly chosen for it), in Nevada there actually was a legitimate attempt to deal with everything by introducing bills to deal with everything – but, only the employment bill has made it through the legislative process.

That’s not attempted political extermination; its just a poor batting average.

Just remember that when the spin cycle starts….

any second now.

Much of it Thanks to You Barney

Someone from the sockpuppet’s neck of the woods encountered St. Barney on a campaign junket:

ENDA won’t pass for several years, according to Frank. He talked about the need for more lobbying from the transgender community specifically, “People may not like to hear this, but there is still a lot of transphobia.”

Gee, Barn – a decade-and-a-half of you hyping the ‘trans woman penis panic’ wouldn’t have anything to do with that, now would it?

And in Other News: Water is Wet

From Queer Channel Media:

The Human Rights Campaign is expected to emerge as the coordinator of a reorganized coalition of national and local LGBT groups pushing for passage of a same-sex marriage bill in the Maryland Legislature next year, according to sources familiar with the effort.

In a separate development, a new statewide transgender advocacy organization called Gender Rights Maryland announced its presence on the Maryland political scene this week, saying it will take the lead role in pushing for a “comprehensive” gender identity non-discrimination bill.

Attempts failed earlier this year to pass same-sex marriage and gender identity bills in the Maryland Legislature. Now, insiders familiar with LGBT politics in the state say these two new developments represent a shakeup of the established order, where the LGBT group Equality Maryland led lobbying efforts on behalf of the two bills for the past seven years.

Meanwhile, rumors that HRC has offered to make a significant cash contribution to the financially troubled Equality Maryland in exchange for the group allowing HRC to select its next executive director were heightened this week when HRC’s regional field director, Sultan Shakir, began working at Equality Maryland’s headquarters office in Baltimore on Monday.

“HRC is working with local and national groups to help build a strong campaign to pass Equality Maryland’s entire legislative agenda next year,” said HRC spokesperson Fred Sainz. “While HRC currently has a field staffer working in the Baltimore headquarters to support their new executive director, there are no set plans to keep him there,” he said.

“Reports of large cash contributions in return for certain actions are completely false as evidenced by the fact that Equality Maryland has a leader,” Sainz told the Blade on Wednesday.

Sainz was referring to the selection last month by the Equality Maryland board of LGBT rights advocate Lynne Bowman of Ohio as Equality Maryland’s interim executive director. The board, which said it was conducting a search for a permanent executive director, named Bowman to the interim post after firing the previous executive director, Morgan Meneses-Sheets.

Meneses-Sheets’ dismissal prompted the group’s development director and chief fundraiser, Matthew Thorn, to resign in protest, raising questions about whether the staff turmoil would further hinder the group’s finances.

Two sources familiar with Equality Maryland who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said some Equality Maryland staffers and board members reported that HRC had expressed an interest in installing HRC’s Shakir as the lead decision maker for Equality Maryland regardless of the title he would assume.

Why? 

Was Joseph Bonaparte busy?

Meanwhile…

In a statement released on Tuesday, the newly formed group Gender Rights Maryland announced that former eye surgeon and nationally recognized transgender rights advocate Dana Beyer will serve as the group’s executive director.

Sharon Brackett, president and CEO of a Maryland-based systems engineering company, will serve as chair of the group’s board, a statement released by the group said.

Three other founding board members include Donna Cartwright, co-president of Pride AT Work, an LGBT group within the AFL-CIO; Caroline Temmermand, division chief for Parks and National Resources for Arlington County, Va.; and Alex Hickcox, former board member of Equality Maryland.

…the surviving members of the 1962 New York Mets are petitioning the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball to have Gender Rights Maryland declared to be an honorary major league baseball team in order for its eventual record of accomplishment to be converted into baseball won-loss equivalency – with the presumption that this will be the only way that 40-120 will ever be surpassed in the negative.

The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 2008 Detroit Lions could not be reached for comment.