We are so fucked some more.
Tony Millionaire reports that three of the newspapers that carry his (brilliant) strip Maakies asked him to change the word “cunt” in this week’s edition to “vagina.” They did this, mind you, on the word of their states’ attorneys general, who, in turn, have apparently received a directive from Attorney General John “Tititcaca” Ashcroft. Millionaire explains:
One of the editors told me that it was from the Attorney General’s office in the state in which the paper runs. He said he called and a woman on the phone told him that this was coming down all over from the Federal Attorney General, from Ashcroft’s office. They’re issuing warning letters to state Attorney General’s offices who are cleaning up throughout their individual states. My guess is that these people consider the funny pages a safe haven for kids and that’s why they’ll come down harder on comics than on other print media.
Personally, I think it’s part and parcel of Ashcroft’s general war on icky female stuff: he’s a gynophobe. But, I mean, fuck. Isn’t there, oh, I dunno, a terrorist out there you could go catch or something, instead? Huh? (Still haven’t found that anthrax person, have you.)
A quick addendum:
Yes, we’re not operating on a comfortable level of confirmation here. Millionaire has growled at one person seeking independent confirmation by getting the names of the newspapers in question.
Get the timeline right: it’s not that the Attorney General decided to declare war on this particular Maakies strip. It’s that Millionaire heard from three newspapers that they didn’t want to run a strip with the word “cunt” in it. One of the three made the claims cited above. On the basis of these three complaints, Millionaire then resubmitted the strip. To everyone. If your local alternaweekly ran “vagina,” it doesn’t mean your local alternaweekly is one of the three Bad Papers; they ran what everybody else did.
It is entirely within the realm of possibility that the federal Attorney General has asked states’ attorneys general to aid his office in cracking down on smut in newspaper funny pages; that level of cooperation, symbolic or not, is not uncommon, for all that the states’ attorneys general are not themselves Department of Justice flunkies.
No, the FCC doesn’t have anything to do with newspaper strips. Or online strips (yet). That was a mistake Millionaire made in his first TCJ message board post, and he’s since copped to it.
—I tried to hedge the original post with enough weasel words to cover my own ass (while still leaving it funny enough to, y’know, sting) in the event that this is nothing more than a spectacularly stupid publicity stunt, or a misunderstanding that’s gotten out of hand (given the current climate, though, it’s understandable. If you follow). But since I’ve been linked by Atrios (and can I just say: damn, but the man throws some heavy traffic), I felt I should lay it out a bit more clearly. (Of course, since I was the one who slipped the link over his transom, you could say I ought to have laid it out more clearly from the start. I wouldn’t argue. But hey: it was good enough for Heidi MacDonald and the Pulse!
(No excuse, right, right. Anyway. DEVELOPING, as Drudge would say. —Take that howsomever you like.)
We are so fucked.
During the course of a broadcast of the Golden Globes awards ceremony, Bono said either “This is really, really fucking brilliant” or “This is fucking great.” (The complaints are unclear.)
The FCC ruled, sensibly enough, that this was, basically, okay.
As a threshold matter, the material aired during the “Golden Globe Awards” program does not describe or depict sexual and excretory activities and organs. The word “fucking” may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities. Rather, the performer used the word “fucking” as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation. Indeed, in similar circumstances, we have found that offensive language used as an insult rather than as a description of sexual or excretory activity or organs is not within the scope of the Commission’s prohibition of indecent program content.
Then Justin Timberlake ripped Janice Jackson’s bodice in America’s living room, and Howard Stern got uppity about Bush and was promptly fired by Clear Channel, so now the FCC has decided that what Bono said was actually indecent and profane. (Previously, profanity was reserved for challenges to God’s divinity, so I guess a round of sour golf claps for doing something about a grotesque violation of the first amendment, there.) Don’t worry, neither Bono nor any of the broadcasters involved will be fined for this violation, because, as FCC Chairman Michael Powell puts it:
Given that today’s decision clearly departs from past precedent in important ways…
Indeed.
(Atrios has another example of how silly and stupid and politicized this bullshit has gotten. —And what did the Democrats do to protect liberalism and freedom of speech? Fuck-all, that’s what.)
Is it safe?
Well, is it? Marilyn Riedel can’t get married to Connie Guardino, through no fault of her own, and yet the government’s refusing to give her the aid it would give any other veteran in her shoes.
Marilyn Riedel, 61, a disabled Army veteran, has trouble moving, drinking and eating. It’s difficult for her to talk because her worsening Parkinson’s disease makes her tongue quiver. But she’s so lucky. She’s lucky because a woman named Connie Guardino, 58, loves her with her whole heart. Whatever the future may offer, this couple will face it together, and they’d like to do it in a cute little two-bedroom home on Illinois Street. If they were married, they could have it. But because they are a same-sex couple, they’ve been rejected for a loan by the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.
So is it safe? Not quite yet, apparently. Delaware’s banning same-sex marriages and civil unions. They’re going to try to write this exclusion into the state constitution. This is apparently very important business—
I don’t know of anything that disgusts me more than seeing two women get married on television, where one is dressed like a man and has a haircut like a man. I guess they take turns being the man on different nights.
So says Senator Robert L. Venables, a proud Democrat. Will that make it safe, Bob? Maybe not. There’s a county in Tennessee wants charge homosexuals with crimes against nature.
The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.
Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county.
Will that make it safe? Will it?
Of course not. It will never be safe. It isn’t about keeping marriage safe, and it isn’t about morality, and it isn’t about Christ, and it isn’t about the Bible. The Real Live Preacher already ripped the lid off that pathetic lie—
Show me your scriptures. Show me how you justify condemning homosexual people.
Show me what you got, Christian. The Sodom story? That story is about people who wanted to commit a brutal rape. Let’s all say it together, “God doesn’t like rape.” You could have listened to your heart and learned that, Christian. Move on. What else you got?
A weak-ass little passage from Leviticus? Are you kidding me? Are you prepared to adhere to the whole Levitical code of behavior? No? Then why would you expect others to? What else?
Two little passages—two verses from Romans and one from I Corinthians. There you stand, your justification for a worldwide campaign of hatred is written on two limp pieces of paper. I know these passages, both their greater context and the original language. I could show you why you have nothing, but there is something more important you need to see.
Come with me to the church cellar. Come now and don’t delay. I am shaking with anger and fighting the urge to grab you by the collar and drag you down these steps.
You didn’t know the church had a cellar? Oh yes, every church does. Down, down we go into the darkness. Don’t slip on the flagstone and never mind the heat.
There, do you see the iron furnace door, gaping open? Do you see the roaring flames? Do you see the huge man with glistening muscles, covered with soot? Do you see him feeding the fire as fast as can with his massive, scooped shovel?
He feeds these flames with the bible, with every book, chapter, and verse that American Christians must burn to support our bloated lifestyles, our selfishness, our materialism, our love of power, our neglect of the poor, our support of injustice, our nationalism, and our pride.
See how frantically he works? Time is short, and he has much to burn. The prophets, the Shema, whole sections of Matthew, most of Luke, the entire book of James. Your blessed 10 commandments? Why would you want to post them on courtroom walls when you’ve burned them in your own cellar?
Do you see? DO YOU SEE? Do you see how we rip, tear, and burn scripture to justify our lives?
The heat from this cursed furnace rises up and warms the complacent worshippers in the pews above. The soot from the fire blackens our stained glass so that we may not see out and no one wants to see in.
Do you smell the reek of this injustice? It is a stink in the nostrils of the very living God. We are dressed in beautiful clothes and we wear pretty smiles, but we stink of this blasphemous holocaust.
Every church in America has a cellar like this. We must shovel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, because every chapter and book we ignore must be burned to warm our comfy pews.
And you come to me with two little scraps of scripture to justify your persecution of God’s children?
Sit down Christian. Sit down and be you silent.
What use is marriage, if I have to treat so many people like so much shit to keep it safe? People I know and love? Why would I want any part of it? Why would you?
(We’re still marrying same-sex couples in Multnomah County. Benton County joins us in a few days. Massachusetts will be here soon enough, out here in the wider world, out here in the twenty-first century. And look! The world keeps keeping on. —Marriage is as safe as ever it was.)
Noted without comment.
BEGALA: Greg, one of the ads concludes with President Bush praising freedom, faith, families and sacrifice. What sacrifice has our president asked of the rich?
MUELLER: I think everybody’s making money right now. We’ve got a Hispanic middle class, The New York Times reported about last year. George Bush created a Hispanic middle class.
—Republican strategist Greg Mueller on Crossfire, via South Knox Bubba
Our gay weddings, cont’d.
Betsy, whose whim is law, leads us off into more good discussion of the hows and whys of the county’s decision to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples, and all I have time for this morning is to fling you a couple of links and hope for the best: be sure to check out this post at Jack Bog’s Blog, which features a comments-thread debate between the proprietor and Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard. —The most interesting bit of news we learned this morning (via the One True b!X): Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on 25 February that the county was to consider the issue of same-sex marriage; the (rest of the) media and various opponents to the action look even more silly, now, claiming to have been blindsided by the Multnomah Four.
(Note to self: beef up the local links in the linchinography yonder.)
update— Thank you, Allen Brill! The good reverend has posted a link I’d seen and lost, to this post by Chuck Currie proving such Oregonian headlines as “Pastors unite in opposition” to be a load of shameless bullshit. (Don’t miss Brill’s other posts highlighting Christians, progressive and conservative, who are speaking out against the bigotry of the Federal Marriage Amendment and its various state-level clones and doppelgängers.)
Not quite cricket.
Jeff, the atrocity note-taker, raises a good point over on his other blog, and does so with more panache than the Oregonian’s editorial board: we probably ought to talk about how it is, exactly, that the commissioners of Multnomah County decided to start issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples.
Here’s the nutshell: Oregon’s open meeting law requires that if a quorum of commissioners meet to discuss a matter of public policy, they have to announce that fact to the public, so they might attend if they so choose. Diane Linn, Lisa Naito, Serena Cruz and Maria Rojo de Steffey all deliberately met two-by-two to discuss obtaining a legal opinion on , to avoid the quorum and the subsequent attention of the public. —They also avoided mentioning anything to the fifth council member, Lonnie Roberts, who is not so coincidentally opposed to gay marriage.
Oops.
So, yes: this is sneaky. It isn’t cricket. The letter of the law was followed, sure, but the spirit of the law got mugged, in broad daylight. Frowny faces and tsk-tsks all around. The Oregonian is not without its point, and the hinterlands have thrown up the sorts of bloody shirts that make me worried about backlash. (Sure, Lars Larson has [reportedly] been reduced to a hoarsely incoherent roar of drive-time apoplexy, but failing to secure the future of equal rights and our state’s [recent] reputation as a [relative] repudiator of bigotry is too high a price to pay for such admittedly juvenile pleasures.)
That said, there’s a broader context to keep in mind, here.
First, let’s be real: if the matter were solely up to the residents of the People’s Republic of Multnomah County, then there’d already be gay and lesbian couples celebrating their silver anniversaries. (Okay. Maybe tin.) The spirit of the law has been roughed up, but none of the Multnomah Four need to worry that they haven’t represented the will of the people who elected them.
But it isn’t (just) up to us, of course. The county can no more compel the state or federal government to recognize the weddings performed than it can, oh, turn back the tide, or convince people that the thing with the Klingon interpreter was a humorous example of something within the realm of possibility rather than someone’s serious idea of an actual need to be met right here and now. And while I’d certainly like to think Oregon is bigger than the bigotry exhorted by some clergyfolk who really ought to know better, it’s still pretty clear that a constitutional amendment welcoming homosexuals into fully legal wedded bliss—or anything more than a vague arms-length I-don’t-wanna-hear-about-it quasi-tolerance—has no chance of flying in the here and now, if it were put to a state-wide vote.
This is a point in favor of the council’s actions, though. Much like the same-sex weddings performed in San Francisco and New Paltz and Sandoval County (and Seattle? and Chicago? and?), the same-sex weddings performed in Multnomah County face a myriad of state and national hurdles: everyone from their employers to their insurance companies to the Social Security Administration is playing wait-and-see, and everyone from the cubicle-bound bureaucrats to the teary-eyed joy-struck newlyweds knows these weddings can be dissolved with the stroke of a judge’s pen. (The county commissioners certainly know it.)
And the pundits ought to know it, and so should the Oregonian; they just get frothing mileage out of pretending otherwise: the county commissioners are ushering in an era of gay weddings without any open, public debate! —Yet gays and lesbians have been marrying each other for decades, in a wide variety of churches, all over the country. And Multnomah County already has a domestic partnership registry; gay and lesbian couples can share health insurance and adopt children. Heck, the fee is the same sixty bucks for either the registry or a marriage certificate! The step of erasing the final separation from equality is hardly so big as it might first appear—once you look past the name of the activity in question. (And what’s in a name?)
So: far from suddenly overturning the rule of law, and the definition of marriage as we’ve known it for millennia (polygamy, dowries, insistence on virginity, and that bit with the brother-in-law notwithstanding), the county has actually made a (relatively) minor change to rights already granted (and, yes, a relatively major symbolic gesture) that is still entirely contingent upon the interpretation of the state’s attorney general and the courts and the state legislature and the voters. It’s an attempt to force a challenge precisely where that challenge should be made, and a challenge (again) supported by a comfortable majority of the county in question. The dialogue continues; the rule of law obtains; the system’s working just fine.
That it was planned in secret, though? Hidden from their not-so-supportive fifth? In violation of the spirit of the open meetings law? (This was the point in question, remember.) Well, as with any act of civil disobedience, your take in part depends on how you feel about the ends toward which these means have been applied. The immediate ends here are not the legal and secure marriages of same-sex couples: those aren’t on the table yet, and haven’t been, in San Francisco or New Paltz or Sandoval County. (New York City? LA? Vermont?) We’re engaged in political theatre, here: the secret meetings weren’t the means toward the end of legal same-sex marriages; the open celebration of same-sex marriages are the means toward the end of civil rights. And it’s brilliantly savvy theatre, at that—every marriage solemnized in this blazing spotlight (as opposed, again, to the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, that have been solemnizes in Unitarian and MCC congregations and liberal synagogues and in the sitting rooms of bed and breakfasts and barefoot on the beach; wherever straights have gotten married, gays and lesbians have as well, for all you did to manage not to see them)—every marriage on the sidewalk outside the county offices in the rain with a news camera present puts a human face on this (thus far) largely abstract battle.
Gays and lesbians are an invisible majority, after all; the only time most of the country has to see them is acting up in sitcoms, or on the news, where every year the coverage of the pride parade skips over the gay police officers and the gay librarians and the gay government clerks and the gay senior citizens and the straight allies and zooms straight for the freakshow eyebite: the drag queen in the feather boa, the bare-breasted diesel dyke. (To trade in unfortunately broad stereotypes, which they do, of course; ignoring the obvious benefits these individuals bring to the world, which we shall take as read: we’re all choir here, for the most part, and this is going on too long already.) —Instead, the media has to focus on long lines of people just like everybody else lining up around the block for the same rights and the same dignity enjoyed by everybody else. Professionals and parents, besotted college students head over heels and sober old folks seeking recognition for half a century together, all of them just like everybody else, except—gay. (Meanwhile, in the background, a scattered handful of protesters behind yellow police tape holds up hateful signs. Radio pundits scream incoherently about intangibles, pushing buttons that don’t work as well as they used to. Respected conservative pundits in the field tell us we must oppress these people because gay sex is so much better than straight sex. It’s like heroin. No, really!)
(Which is why I’m not yet that worried about backlash this fall: Oregon is bigger than that, honest it is, and if the sky hasn’t fallen in because of same-sex marriages, we’ll leave well enough alone. —Always reserving the right to be bitterly disappointed, of course.)
So: an act of civil disobedience (the violation of the spirit of the open meeting law I’m talking about here, not the resulting change in county policy) to make possible a challenge that joins the gathering momentum of challenges from more and more cities and counties across the country, forcing the problem to be confronted in all-too human terms. —All due apologies to Lonnie Roberts, the commissioner left out in the cold, but I can live with that.
(After all, where’s the harm here? What’s been taken away from anyone, anyone at all? Tell me, please! The county’s making money, wedding planners are scooping up new business by the truckload, and the city and county are cementing just the sort of reputation that looks good to the sorts of creative enterprises we need to keep moving up those Best Cities lists. Look into the faces of the people waiting on line for their marriage certificates and show me the damage done by this intemperate, carefully planned action. Where’s the harm?
(And if you still feel this is a dangerous precedent to set, nonetheless, in spite of it all, the greater good notwithstanding, slippery sloping road to hell and all that, well, there’s the usual consequences anyone engaged in civil disobedience must face: in this case, the loss of good will, opprobrium from the court of public opinion, and, of course, the ballot box. —Somehow, I don’t think the four commissioners are all that worried.)
You best believe I mean love l-u-v.
If same-sex marriage is allowed, it is going to be nearly impossible to prohibit the sanctioning of any other kind of human “relationship”—from close relatives of different sexes who wish to marry (that has been outlawed because of biological and incest considerations) and polygamists to adult-child “marriage.”
Oh, Cal. Cal Thomas. You have no idea. Once our godless footsoldiers succeed in destroying heterosexual marriage, why, the sky’s the limit. Here’s a little of what I, myself, will marry on that happy, blessed day:
- “Flim,” by Aphex Twin (or, “Flying North,” by Thomas Dolby);
- the sensation of presque vu;
- Kahimi Currie;
- Queen Elizabeth (as portrayed by Miranda Richardson);
- just about anyone else, so long as they’re drawn by Paul Pope;
- the scene at the end of Rushmore at the cast party for Max’s latest play, when he signals to the DJ and everybody starts dancing in slow motion to that song they later tried to fuck up in a car commercial but just barely managed not to;
- and, apparently, Orson Scott Card.
(Advantage Johnzo. Pass it on.)
Let no one put asunder.
At about ten of nine, West Coast time, this Hampton Roads news site lists Multnomah County as being in Washington.
Multnomah County is actually located in the state of Oregon.
But I’m linking to it anyway, since it gacked the photo of Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge from KGW.com (who want you to fill out a friggin’ form before they’ll let you read the news).
AP photo of Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge, posing with their marriage certificate after a news conference for Basic Rights Oregon.
Tai Jungcker and Kathy Belge got a marriage certificate today.
They’re going to get married tomorrow, right here in Multnomah County.
God, it feels good to be on the right side of this wall.
update— The invaluable Jeff “Emma” Alworth provides some sobering but vital context.
further update— The illimitable Zoe Trope provides some giddy and equally vital photographs.
The mind, reeling.
The president’s trying to enshrine the first discriminatory constitutional amendment as a bloody-shirt tactic to drum up more votes. His supporters are smearing war heroes while puffing up their own and blatantly lying about the record of his most likely opponent. We are finally hearing the truth about what the administration knew going into Iraq, and how little it had to do with what was said or what we did; the pay for soldiers on the front lines has been cut, the promised support for first responders never materialized, and callous privatization is hiding the true cost of this disastrous blunder. The president’s budget is a transparent joke, larded with boobytraps set to expire after his increasingly theoretical second term; every federal source of once-credible objective data and analysis has been poisoned by his political goals. Even science and the public health is subject to the political whims of the Mayberry Machiavellis. And if they are successful in openly stonewalling the investigation of the most devastating terrorist attack ever on American soil, we can at least rest assured that their obscene attempts to capitalize on the tragedy this coming September will not go as smoothly as expected.
Also, Kenny-boy still walks free.
(Aw, shit. I almost managed that with a straight face. I’m sorry. Lemme try it again—)
Further, not-so-meaningless internet-related activities.
Billmon has uncovered the most glorious hack. It seems georgewbush.com has a really keen tool: enter your ZIP code, and it’ll bring up a list of your local papers. Type in the letter you wish to send to the editor(s), check off the papers in question, press the “send” button, and presto! You’ve siphoned off a tiny chip of his 200-million–dollar war chest and used it for truth, justice, and the American way. (If you’re at a loss, Billmon suggests you take the HRC or Lambda Defense Fund letters as boilerplate.)
What are you waiting for? Go” alt=”” /> Go!
The devil’s ice skates.
Seriously: Andrew Sullivan’s dish today is well worth your browsing time. No one thing: just email after email, pouring over the transom—
I am (or, I never thought I’d say it, was?) a dyed-in-the-wool Republican who (much like you) has spent the last two years proselytizing my liberal friends for GW. I am also a woman who has been in a committed same-sex relationship for 25 years. I feel like I was body-slammed today. What a quandary: I don’t know for sure that the Dems will be worse in the war on terror, but I do now know for sure the Republicans will be worse in protecting my equal rights. This is just a depressing day.
And this—
We’ve witnessed a shift in Republican politics. The Republican establishment used to pay lip service to religious conservative interests while openly courting independent voters with moderate policies because it knew it could get the religious conservative vote regardless (who were they going to vote for, Clinton!?). But now, it seems Bush is paying lip service to independent interests while openly promoting religious conservative policy. Who are we going to vote for, Kerry?
Well, yes.
But also—
President Bush didn’t “declare war” on the civil rights of homosexuals; left-wing activist judges, mayors, city bureaucrats and the gay movement have declared war on the rule of law and the institution of marriage. President Bush has merely responded to what others have started. The battle is now joined and I believe that the overwhelming majority of the country will be in the President’s army, as you’ll soon find out.
(Confidential to that last: you’re probably thinking of Arnold’s promise of blood in the streets if the marriages aren’t terminated right this minute, but you might want to re-think that whole “army” motif—considering the current C-in-C’s track record in that particular regard.)
Meaningless internet-poll–related activities.
Oh, go kick some homophobic wingnut ass, would you?
Andew Sullivan also has some interesting numbers for the currently faint of heart. (This is what it’s come to: I now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Andew Sullivan. The mind reels.)
And der Gropenfuhrer’s veiled threats of riots and blood in the streets aside, look at it this way: whoever supports such an amendment—whether it would nuke all civil unions and partnership benefits currently negotiated piecemeal in states and municipalities across the country, like Musgrave’s grossly misrepresented proposal, or whether it scales back to merely mandate groin checks before the issuance of first-class marriage licenses—now has to walk up to very specific people and say, “You aren’t married anymore. I’m destroying your family.” This is much, much harder to do; then, the abstract’s always easier than the concrete.
Also, via Atrios: the Fidelity Pledge.
Mars tanked; this will tank. (Remember Mars? We were gonna go to Mars. In a rocketship. Zoom!) —There might be a brief plateau in the plunging polls, but there won’t be a bounce; that’s all this is for, after all: a toehold, a chance to catch a breath on the way down. A bit of red meat for the slavering hordes, but get real: who the hell else are the slavering hordes gonna vote for? (Run, Roy, run!) It might pass the House—the perennial flag-burning amendment always does—but it won’t pass the Senate, not in its current form: and if that famous second sentence is stripped out or rewritten to allow faggots and dykes the rights to marriage in all but name, well, you won’t end up making anyone at all happy with that, now, will you? And if it or something like it does pass, we merely have to hold the line in thirteen states for seven years to keep it out of the constitution. Or less—I’d lay money that if the Senate did pass this, it’d be with a hellishly tight ratification deadline. If the people want it, they want it now, right? (Otherwise, they’ll just keep getting married in Massachusetts and San Francisco while solons natter…)
The rat’s cornered. The scales are finally falling from too many purblind eyes; whole divisions of his reserves are packing up and melting away by dark of night. His hardliners have pushed him into a rash and ill-advised kulturkrieg, but we can contain him. We haven’t won yet, but we will.
Today’s half-assed declaration was an act of rank desperation, and everybody can smell it.
Cookies (and bourbon).
So we’ve got boxes of Samoas and Thin Mints and even a box of Tagalongs in the freezer, and there’s an open box of Lemon Coolers on the table, and much as a friend might haul a carton of milk out of the fridge, sniff it, and make that face and then hold it out to you saying, “God, this is foul, you gotta smell it,” Patrick Nielsen Hayden points out Girl Scout cookie time again.
So pick up a box or three and spread the word. The Girl Scouts will doubtless weather this storm the way they have weathered storms going back to the ’50s and beyond, but they weather them largely because people like you and me support them by, among other things, buying cookies. And hey: you get cookies! Those Lemon Coolers, for instance? They’re pretty good to nibble on as you’re savoring an I-just-flew-back-from-San-Francisco-and-boy-was-that-a-rough-landing drink.
I’m just sayin.’
Political action.
When Jenn and I got married, we had to go to the county to file for a marriage certificate, so I figured sending an email to Portland’s mayor, Vera Katz, might not be the most direct route toward seeing that Portland joined San Francisco and New Mexico and maybe soon Chicago on the right side of history. But Vera must be hearing from a lot of people on this subject these days; not an hour later, I got back a form email—
Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts about same-sex marriage and your recommendation that such benefits be extended to citizens of Portland. Naturally, the recent action by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has raised questions about whether or not I have the authority to grant marriage licenses.
In both Oregon and California, the county serves as the instrument of the state for recording marriage licenses. However, Portland and Multnomah County are two separate governmental entities. This contrasts with the City of San Francisco and San Francisco County, which are unified. There, the Mayor shares an administrative role with the County Board of Supervisors. Therefore, Mayor Newsom had the authority to ask staff in the Office of the County Clerk, which is located in City Hall, to issue marriage licenses to interested couples. While I share your conviction for full civil rights for all citizens, I have no such authority over county functions.
She goes on to outline her role in working with the county to set up our domestic partnership registry. “The only role the City has ever played has been to refer individuals seeking license information to the County,” she says, or rather her email says, or rather the email composed by her assistant says. “However, at the appropriate time I will make known my sentiments about the right to marry.” And she closes with a plug for Basic Rights Oregon.
Not too shabby, one supposes, for an elected official. It might have been nice, though, if she’d gone on to point out who, exactly, one should contact in the Multnomah County government to pass along one’s thoughts on the matter. So here’s the contact page for Diane Linn, current chair of Multnomah County.
(So we’re here in San Francisco for APE, and in a little room in Patrick Farley’s house in North Berkeley I can plug a yellow ethernet cable into the iBook I brought from home and then read about a quick action taken by an old friend up in Olympia who was inspired by what’s happening just across the Bay here, and without getting up from my seat I can engage in a little back-home political activism with a quick Google and some email. Yes, it’s old hat, and yes, we’ve heard it all before, but still: this brave new world has its terribly cool moments.
(Though it would’ve been cooler if my iBook were wired for wireless, I know. Sigh. Always room for improvement.)
And then, as I’m making my last-minute live final edits, this—
The Sandoval County clerk’s office granted licenses to 26 same-sex couples before New Mexico attorney general Patricia Madrid issued a late afternoon opinion saying the licenses were “invalid under state law.”
The clerk’s office stopped issuing licenses and told newly wed couples their licenses were invalid. A crowd outside the office reacted with boos and shouts as a deputy clerk read the attorney general’s legal advice.
—via Alas
Especially noteworthy is this passage from the AP article:
“The governor has always been a champion for human rights. He supports equal rights and opposes all forms of discrimination. However, he is opposed to same-sex marriage,” said Marsha Catron.
Breathtaking, ennit?
What the hell is this, a threat?
Still working on it. (For those who want a preview, here. Baboon’s ass has been fixed; individual archive is mostly working [ignore that top nav line for now]; monthly archives and linkroll to be massaged, but hell, it’s pretty much open for beta.) But! Saw this banner ad for the RNC on my soon-to-be-dumped Sitemeter—
—and had to share. (Points here, in case you were wondering.)
All I have to say is, once this is over, the Iraqi people better be the freest fucking people on the face of the earth. They better be freer than me. They better be so fucking free they can fly.
And so we went to war with the Islamofascists: a clash of civilizations, the final showdown between tolerant Enlightenment rationalism and grim, dark, authoritarian terror. And what did we do when we won?
Fuck you, Bush. Fuck Rice and Powell, fuck Cheney, fuck Donald “Vases?” Rumsfeld. Fuck the House, fuck the Senate; fuck the Democrats who trusted you weaselly little fucks and voted for this fucking farce. Fuck Thomas Friedman, fuck Christopher Hitchens—hell, fuck the entire fucking press corps sideways; not a one of you fucks did your fucking job, and you’re still ignoring this. Go write about another fucking sweater, you useless, lying fucks. Fuck you Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan; fuck the Freepers and the Little Green Footballs; fuck Lileks, fuck Tacitus, fuck Misha, fuck the captain of the fucking USS Clueless, fuck John fucking Cole. Hell, the mood I’m in, Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum and Big Media Matt can go fuck themselves for being suckered in however briefly by fucking Kenneth Pollack, who was in turn suckered, so by all means, fuck him too. Fuck Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer III. Fuck the CPA and the IGC. Fuck Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Abd Al-Aziz Al-Hakim. Look at what you’ve done. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve said and what you hoped would happen and look at what is actually happening right now. Tell me this was worth tens of thousands of dead and wounded. Tell me this does one whit to make the world a safer place. Tell me how many lives it will save and improve. Tell me!
Ah, to hell with the lot of you. Fucking bastards.
Gung-ho
In all the foofooraw over Paul O’Neill’s statements about the Bush administration drawing a bead on Iraq from day one, and the counter-claims and counter-counter-claims, that he’s full of shit, and we were never planning regime change until 9/11 changed everything, and anyway we were just following in the footsteps of Clinton’s policy, which wanted regime change, I mean, God, who didn’t, I’d just like to dredge up this quote again, from a September 10, 2001 profile of Secretary of State Colin Powell:
When the Secretary jumped out front on Iraq, pushing to “toughen” crumbling UN sanctions against old nemesis Saddam Hussein by making them “smarter,” conservatives scoffed that meant weaker. But Powell persuaded the President—because, say aides and rivals alike, he’s very effective when he “marshalls his facts.” The Administration—and Powell—was embarrassed later, when Russia rebuffed the plan.
And as soon as Wolfowitz, a zealous advocate of “regime change” in Baghdad—backing dissidents to overthrow Saddam—settled into his office, he told European parliamentarians that Powell was not the last word on sanctions or Iraq policy. Enthusiasm is building inside the Administration to take down Saddam once and for all. Powell too would love to see Saddam unhorsed, says an official at State. “But you need a serious plan that’s doable. The question is how many lives and resources you have to risk.” Powell’s unwillingness to fight any less-than-total war is legendary, and the particulars of launching a covert insurgency among the feuding Iraqi opposition factions would give any general pause. The proposition is still “hypothetical,” he told Time. But plenty of others on the Bush team are gung-ho.
To review:
- Senior administration officials were planning to take Saddam down once and for all before 9/11.
- This was seen as a deliberate break with previous policy.
So what’s wrong with what it was O’Neill said?
From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out…. And, if we did that, it would solve everything. It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The President saying, “Fine. Go find me a way to do this.”
