Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Bye Bye DOMA

This is not news to anyone who reads this blog, but I will put up a post to allow people to comment. A movement has grown from impossible beginnings to incredible success within one generation, as LGBT people have fought a well-organized and well-thought-out campaign to gain respect for themselves as they are. It has meant challenging and changing prejudicial beliefs that generations of Americans had held without questioning. Wednesday's court ruling killed the Defense of Marriage Act dead. The federal government will now treat all married couples equally.

We could quote this story from any source, but for fun I will take the FoxNews version:
In a big day for gay-rights advocates, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a federal provision denying benefits to legally married gay couples and issued a separate ruling that paves the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California.
...

The more sweeping decision [ ... ] came in relation to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which the court said was unconstitutional and effectively gutted by ruling against a provision that denied benefits to legally married gay couples.

The 5-4 ruling -- a major victory for gay-rights advocates -- means those same-sex couples would be eligible for federal benefits. President Obama, who applauded the decision, directed his administration to review "all relevant federal statutes" to comply with the ruling.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.

"DOMA divests married same-sex couples of the duties and responsibilities that are an essential part of married life and that they in most cases would be honored to accept were DOMA not in force," he wrote.

Kennedy wrote that the law "places same-sex couples in an unstable position of being in a second-tier marriage."

The ruling prompted tension among the divided court. Multiple dissenting opinions were filed. Justice Antonin Scalia, reading from his dissent, said the components of the majority's ruling are "wrong."

"The error in both springs from the same diseased root: an exalted notion of the role of this Court in American democratic society," he said.

Social conservatives were similarly disappointed. Supreme Court strikes down DOMA provision denying benefits to gay couples
Listen, it is hard to change a minor work process in an office, never mind turn an entire country's attitude a hundred eighty degrees, but it has happened. The social conservatives can be "similarly disappointed," a phrase with a lilting ring to it, but the fact is, they always lose because they are wrong. You still have to fight them, because they keep trying to impose their insane system of values on the rest of us, but when it comes down to it, this country is based on principles that empower individual citizens to live with rights that cannot be denied. Freedom always wins, love always wins, truth always wins in the long run.

113 Comments:

Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

It is instructive that the dissenters in Windsor focus on abstractions that talk past the actual realities of real people's lives, while Justice Kennedy's majority opinion focuses on the impact of DOMA on the lives of real people.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his seminal treatise, The Common Law (1881), "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... . The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

Justice Holmes' perceptive understanding underlies the difference between the views of the majority and the dissenters in Windsor.

June 26, 2013 9:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

not much of a decision

simply ruled that the Feds can't overrule states on defining marriage

the SC didn't say there is a right for gays to redefine marriage to include themselves

but if a state says someone is married, the Federal government can't overrule that

they also didn't rule on the constitutionality of Prop 8 but simply deferred to the State of California when they refused to fight for it

all-in-all, today was a victory for states' rights not gay "marriage", which remains a violation of state constitutions in about two-thirds of America

right, David?



June 26, 2013 11:53 PM  
Anonymous necromaniac polygamist bestialists are dreaming said...

"Freedom always wins, love always wins, truth always wins in the long run."

so, eventually, if you truthfully love two dead animals, you'll have the freedom to marry both of them

in the long-run....

June 27, 2013 12:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" if you truthfully love two dead animals, you'll have the freedom to marry both of them"

There you go Bubblehead, you are still supporting the Same Old Party and its messages of hate.

Reince Priebus said, "It's not just what you say, it's how you say it."

June 27, 2013 8:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

it's not hatred to point out that if you maintain that there should be no definition of marriage, there won't be one if you get your way

fortunately, all the SC ruled was that this isn't a Federal matter and should be decided by the states

I concur

much as prostitution is legal in Nevada but no where else, deviant marriage will be allowed in a handful of states

but not, thanks to yesterday's ruling, in most states

June 27, 2013 8:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"There you go Bubblehead, you are still supporting the Same Old Party"

your brain is like a sieve if you believe the current media hype

I'm not a Republican myself, but the party isn't going anywhere and is likely to win the White House in 2016

June 27, 2013 8:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

while you guys party, you should realize this:

the SC yesterday said that if a state deems two people to be "married", the Federal government can't overrule that

by extension, if two-thirds of states say two people aren't married, the federal can't do anything about it

yesterday was a huge victory for states' rights

by the way, the next time the Republicans control all three house (Senate, Rep, White), they can easily reinstate DOMA

just change the language, and instead of defining "marriage", the new law can simply refer to "heterosexual marriage" without defining "marriage" itself

wala!! problem solved

that should happen in, oh, 2016

June 27, 2013 9:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, with President Huckabee, no doubt!

LOL

June 27, 2013 11:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

kind of like you guys thought Obama would end abuses of rights in the name of the war on terrorism and get the economy all straightened out

ROFL

I remember here thought he was going on MT Rushmore

go ahead and laugh

Vladimir Putin is

June 27, 2013 11:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, remember how Obama was going to close Guantanomo?

hahahaha!!

remember when he said he had the power to "roll back" the oceans?

hee-hee

and never let unemployment go above 8%?

ho-ho-ho

and change the bipartisan atmosphere in Washington?

hardy-har-har!!

he really fooled you guys

hey, tell us who will win in 2016

Hillary Clinton?

hahahaha!!

Joe Biden?

heeheeheehee

Anthony Weiner?

stop it- stop it

I'll die from laughing

maybe Harry Reid?

Nancy Pelosi?

Jesse Jackson JR?

Martian O'Malley?

Al Franken?

it's going to be an uproariously jolly year

June 27, 2013 11:26 AM  
Anonymous Dems are cranky old men killing unborn children said...

yeah, "President" Obama was a con game by Dems

abortion is another issue where Dems are going down:

"Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis sent abortion-rights supporters--and even the White House-- into orgasmic orbit with a dramatic filibuster of a bill that would have outlawed all abortions after 20 weeks. But the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows that a plurality of Americans supports a ban on late abortions.

Americans favor such a bill by 48 percent to 44 percent.

Support was greatest among Republicans, 59 percent in support, but 53 percent of Americans not affiliated with either major party sided with the GOP. A majority of Democrats, 59 percent, were opposed while only 33 percent were in favor.

The results come a day after Davis, the state senator, captured the rabidity of liberals nationwide as she stood for 11 hours to block a Texas measure that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks and placed new restrictions on abortion clinics. In Washington, Democrats have lampooned House Republicans for passing a similar ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy as the latest shot fired in the “war on women.”

But the poll, notably, showed that women supported such a measure in greater numbers than men (50 percent of women in favor; 46 percent of men).

Overall, the survey suggests that the 20-week abortion measure fractures some of the modern Democratic coalition. Among all age groups, it was young Americans--who have regularly sided with Democratic priorities in the age of Obama--who most strongly supported the measure (52 percent)."

June 27, 2013 11:43 AM  
Anonymous Robert said...

Hurray for California, and those people who are allowed to be married by their states.

June 27, 2013 11:53 AM  
Anonymous I saw a wascally wacko!! said...

Robert, take your meds and lie down

Hurray for Virginia!!

Giving gays an excuse when they can't find someone!!

June 27, 2013 12:21 PM  
Anonymous gay "marriage", the flaming wreck said...

"Listen, it is hard to change a minor work process in an office,"

in a Federal government office, sure

"never mind turn an entire country's attitude a hundred eighty degrees, but it has happened."

not really

the direction of apathy has shifted among about a tenth of the population

"The social conservatives can be "similarly disappointed," a phrase with a lilting ring to it, but the fact is, they always lose because they are wrong."

always?

they won the vote in California, which is why Prop 8 wound up in the SC

they won the vote in two-thirds of the states

TTF went spasmodic not long ago in trying to stop petitions because they were afraid they'd lose a vote

and, yesterday, with four blazing liberals and one waffle cone, the SC declined the opportunity to declare gay "marriage" to be a civil right

not much of a victory

lunatic fringe gaysters rarely win at the ballot box and, occasionally win in court if they get the right judge

yesterday was a draw

"You still have to fight them, because they keep trying to impose their insane system of values on the rest of us,"

oh, you mean the system of values in place since the dawn of civilization throughout the world?

and now, here in the 21st century, we've finally achieved a sane system of values?

a cursory glance around the globe would make that claim somewhat dubious

"but when it comes down to it, this country is based on principles that empower individual citizens to live with rights that cannot be denied."

the only rights affirmed yesterday was for each states to make its own marriage laws

June 27, 2013 1:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

so funny

the gay agenda takes another hit

no guys, there is no "right" to marry anything you loooooove

LOL

June 27, 2013 1:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How's your heterosexual marriage doing?

Is it hurting now? On life support??

June 27, 2013 1:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Stephen Colbert’s advice for straight married couples

June 27, 2013 1:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Look who's walking back "joke insults" already.

Rand Paul mentions non-human marriage while discussing gay marriage, says it was joke

June 27, 2013 2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the SC ruling will likely result in gays moving into the 13 states that allow deviant marriage, cementing the status of the normal two-thirds of America

then, those 13 states will collapse

it's like MCPS

7 years ago, their were widely considered the educational cream of the crop in this country

how the perceived lofty have fallen!!

recently, it was disclosed that over half on MCPS honors math students fail their final exam

stats show it all started going south around the time the gay curriculum was adopted

MCPS has paid a heavy price for replacing academics with politics

political fantasy, or as Davy Fishback calls it: the best science

June 27, 2013 3:00 PM  
Anonymous like a bowl full of jelly said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

June 27, 2013 3:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the SC ruling will likely result in gays moving into the 13 states "

Does that mean you will be moving to Texas with Theresa?

"their [sic] were widely considered the educational cream of the crop in this country"

if you do move to Texas, your command of English grammar may put you at the head of your class -- see “Dead Last” – The Label That Plagues Public Education in Texas

June 27, 2013 3:34 PM  
Anonymous who's on wurst said...

"Does that mean you will be moving to Texas with Theresa?"

no, I like hanging out with gays

they crack me up

and I wish the best for them

which is for them to overcome their deviancy

besides, there are still neighborhoods in the area to gentrify

"if you do move to Texas, your command of English grammar may put you at the head of your class"

believe or not, I tested out of English 101 in college and the professor told I had the highest score on the test she'd ever seen

let this be a lesson to all the young'uns out there

stop drinking before it's too late

"-- see “Dead Last” – The Label That Plagues Public Education in Texas"

ah, the future for MCPS

June 27, 2013 3:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Many conservatives were upset after the Supreme Court ruled against part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on Wednesday. Televangelist Pat Robertson exemplified this reaction Thursday, suggesting Justice Anthony Kennedy had been unfairly influenced in his decision, perhaps by any "gays" working for him.

Robertson, a controversial elder statesman in America's evangelical community, made the comments during his daily television program "The 700 Club." Introducing Jay Sekulow, a guest from the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, Robertson asked about Kennedy, a California-born justice who has served on the Supreme Court since 1988.

"Jay let me ask you about Anthony Kennedy," Robertson said. "Does he have some clerks that happen to be gays?"

After a second of silence, Sekulow said he "had no idea" what sexual orientation Kennedy's clerks were, adding later in the segment that "I don't know about the background of his clerks -- I've had a lot of cases in front of Justice Kennedy and frankly most of the time he rules in our favor."

June 27, 2013 3:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

fascinating

that's the best you can come up with?

June 27, 2013 4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's the best Pat Robertson could come up with.

June 27, 2013 4:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Today, by a vote of 68 to 32, the Senate passed its comprehensive immigration reform bill.

June 27, 2013 5:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

so what?

nothing really shocking

Kennedy probably does have gays working for him

it may have contributed to his view

June 27, 2013 5:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"In his majority opinion invalidating the federal application of the Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy did more than strike a blow to a statute championed by religious conservatives. By detailing the cruel motives of lawmakers who couched their purpose in preserving the nation’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage, Kennedy’s opinion quite remarkably scolds members of Congress for using religiously based “morality” as a bludgeon to the rights of other citizens.

Obviously the Court in United States v. Windsor did not hold that Congress cannot legislate morality; it only held that this particular law violated the equal protection rights of certain citizens. But by finding that “the principal purpose” of DOMA was to “impose inequality,” the Court majority cast a dim view on efforts to legislate alleged “Judeo-Christian” morality, and to use that as an excuse for discrimination.

Indeed today’s opinion aims directly at the heart of the religious right’s operating principle that “biblical principles” must undergird all legislation. The corollary of that operating principle is that laws also must protect the “religious freedom” of those advancing “biblical” laws by depriving LGBT people of equal rights. Kennedy shot down, rhetorically at least, both those principles today.

In detailing DOMA’s legislative history, Kennedy wrote that the “interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence.” In other words, Kennedy rejected the notion that DOMA supporters were defending or supporting anything but discrimination.

As Kennedy noted, in advancing the bill in 1996, House lawmakers argued that DOMA expressed “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.” This and other statements from DOMA’s legislative history, and from the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group that fought to save DOMA in court, led the majority to conclude that the bill’s “demonstrated purpose” was to treat same-sex unions as “second-class marriages,” in violation of the Constitution.

The defensiveness of the dissenting Justices foreshadows how the religious right will use this ruling to claim discrimination against opponents of LGBT rights. Chief Justice John Roberts chided the majority for “tar[ring] the political branches with the brush of bigotry.” Justice Samuel Alito argued, “Acceptance of the [majority’s] argument would cast all those who cling to traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage in the role of bigots or superstitious fools.”

Justice Antonin Scalia was downright cantankerous, lambasting the “black-robed supremacy that today’s majority finds so attractive,” a dog-whistle to conservative claims that “black-robed” judges engage in power grabs at the expense of God-fearing citizens. “The Constitution does not forbid the government to enforce traditional moral and sexual norms,” he complained.

Scalia attacked the majority for failing to address what he considers to be reasonable justifications for DOMA, adding, “I imagine that this is because it is harder to maintain the illusion of the Act’s supporters as unhinged members of a wild-eyed lynch mob when one first describes their views as they see them.“ He accused the majority of “adjudging those who oppose it” of being “enemies of the human race.”...

June 27, 2013 5:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"...Scalia, foreshadowing religious conservative reaction, insisted that there are reasonable justifications for DOMA, and accused the majority of silencing those who make that argument. “To question [the majority’s] high-handed invalidation of a presumptively valid statute is to act (the majority is sure) with the purpose to ‘disparage,’ ‘injure,’ ‘degrade,’ ‘demean,’ and ‘humiliate’ our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, who are homosexual,” he wrote, as if DOMA’s supporters’ own words did not prove such a purpose.

The dissenting Justices seem to want to create a new victim here—themselves. But the majority opinion does something more than just strike down a statute. It signaled the Court’s intolerance for discrimination masquerading as religion."

June 27, 2013 5:45 PM  
Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

Sigh. I guess I will respond to the two questions addressed to me.

1. "not much of a decision." The Windsor decision, in terms of the specific holding, only went as far as was necessary to decide the issue before it. This is standard judicial practice. See Justice Brandeis' decision in Ashwander. But when you read the rationale for the decision, it is not simply a federalism decision -- as Justice Scalia recognized in his dissent. Scalia accurately concluded that the majority's rationale would inexorably lead to the conclusion that gay couples may not, under the U.S. Constitution, be discriminated against when it comes to marriage rights.

2. So the problems with the math scores in Montgomery County -- which are similar to problems across the metropolitan area -- are connected to teaching in health classes what our mainstream medical professionals say about sexual orientation? To state the allegation is to show how silly it is. It may be that math teaching methods need to be better, or that the tests need to be better aligned to what is taught, or both. Not being a teacher or a mathematician, I do not know. But to say that the problem is connected to health education curriculum is akin (albeit not identical) to David Hume's old saw: Because the cock crows in the morning just before sunrise does not mean that the crowing causes the sun to rise.

June 27, 2013 10:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Sigh. I guess I will respond to the two questions addressed to me."

actually, only the first was addressed to you

the other merely referred to you

"1. "not much of a decision." The Windsor decision, in terms of the specific holding, only went as far as was necessary to decide the issue before it. This is standard judicial practice. See Justice Brandeis' decision in Ashwander. But when you read the rationale for the decision, it is not simply a federalism decision -- as Justice Scalia recognized in his dissent. Scalia accurately concluded that the majority's rationale would inexorably lead to the conclusion that gay couples may not, under the U.S. Constitution, be discriminated against when it comes to marriage rights."

yes, well he needs to chillax

he was pointing to the phenomenon where gays have a step-by-step agenda which always leads to further abominations down the line

first, they wanted freedom to engage in deviant acts and mocked anyone who said it would lead to other things

now, they are being endorsed in public school curricula, getting special preferences in hiring, and have had the definition of marriage changed in 13 states

Scalia said this is flowing from the sodomy case

still, the right to change the definition of marriage was not found by any of these justices in the U.S. Constitution

"2. So the problems with the math scores in Montgomery County -- which are similar to problems across the metropolitan area -- are connected to teaching in health classes what our mainstream medical professionals say about sexual orientation? To state the allegation is to show how silly it is. It may be that math teaching methods need to be better, or that the tests need to be better aligned to what is taught, or both. Not being a teacher or a mathematician, I do not know. But to say that the problem is connected to health education curriculum is akin (albeit not identical) to David Hume's old saw: Because the cock crows in the morning just before sunrise does not mean that the crowing causes the sun to rise."

funny, because when you were advocating for the curriculum, you were saying it was the "best science" and you aren't a scientist

but the attitude toward academic integrity is over-arching and, contrary to the wisdom of the Osmond Brothers, this bad apple will spoil the whole bunch

once you start down the path toward making facts subordinate to political agenda, you have crossed a line

the gay agenda has dumbed down MCPS

it was predicted by opponents of the curriculum and it has happened

June 28, 2013 7:17 AM  
Anonymous Schlafly hates everybody! said...

Another of the CRC's heroes:

"Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly is still telling anyone who will listen that the Republican Party should only pay attention to white voters (something that it is already pretty good at doing, according to recent data).

This is a popular refrain for Schlafy, even though, as Jordan Fabian at ABC News notes, this is precisely the strategy that lost Republicans the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, to say nothing of how offensive it is to suggest the GOP disregard entire segments of the voting population based on race and ethnicity.

Schlafly was a guest on a conservative California radio show when she fired off her latest proclamation about the future of the GOP, announcing that courting Latino voters is a waste of the grand ol’ party’s time because they “don’t have any Republican inclinations at all,” and are “running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as the blacks are.”


Schlafly continued: “They come from a country where they have no experience with limited government. And the types of rights we have in the Bill of Rights, they don’t understand that at all, you can’t even talk to them about what the Republican principle is.”

Full clip
here

June 28, 2013 9:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Albert Einstein, 1932: Bible should be read frequently

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/einstein-signed-bible-_n_3515232.html

June 28, 2013 10:14 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

LOL, yes these are wondrous times as we watch the inevitable march of justice towards equality. Still, you've got to hand it to bad anonymous though, he does an impressive job of pretending to be utterly detached from reality while whistling in the dark trying to pretend this hasn't been the huge loss for his side that it has.

He tries to pass this decision off as insignificant, as something that has no real impact and ironically in a way he hasn't thought of and in which he would childishly disagree, he's right. This is insignificant for heterosexuals and has no impact on them. The only impact it has is on gays and lesbians and for them its a monumental impact.

Immediately after the decision was reached an intern named Gabe literally took a copy hot off the presses and ran it 1/2 mile down to the immigration building where it immediately put a stop to the deportation of a gay man's same sex partner. Bad anonymous is accidentally right, this decision means nothing to any heterosexual, has no effect on them whatsoever but for millions of gay couples the impact is huge, far reaching, and immediate.

This recent court decision went far further than the anti-gay bigots want people to believe. Bigots like bad anonymous are trying to put a brave face on their huge loss and the past several years of wins that have lead up to this.

The inevitable trend was clear 10 years ago and ironically it was the bigoted anti-gay Anton Scalia who pointed it out in Lawrence V Texas in a dissent that has become legendary for its sheer level of rage. As Scalia exclamation pointed his way through his lengthy dissent he did get one thing really right. He said "The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are immoral and unacceptable...Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The court today reaches the opposite conclusion, the Texas statute it says furthers no legitimate state interest...If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is no legitimate state interest what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to same sex couples?".

Exactly.

June 28, 2013 1:50 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Scalia got it right then and he got what's going to happen in the future right in his dissent in the recent court marriage equality victories. When a same sex couple that's married in one of the equality states gets transferrered, let's say to Utah, the State will say "You were married there and are married as far as the federal government is concerned but you're not married here. Then that couple will sue and Scalia says the recent supreme court rulings on marriage equality will give them everything they need to win that case and make Utah recognize same sex marriages.

"The view that this court will take of state prohibition of same sex marriage is indicated beyond mistaking by today's opinion.". He then quotes a lengthy list of ammunition the court has given the future plantiffs in such a case and says "How easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same sex couples marital status. It is only a pretence that today's prohibition of laws excluding same sex marriage is confined to the federal government. The other shoe will drop about state law later, maybe next term.".

These rulings sent a clear message to children all over the United States that said "You are just as valuable and important regardless of who you love or who your parents are. You are no longer second class citizens the government sees as inferior".

Public opinon in favour of marriage equality has swung 30 percentage points over the past couple of decades and polls show its a consistent majority in favour. 1/3 of all Americans now have access to full marriage equality. All the necessary groundwork has been laid and even the religious bigot Scalia can see the writing on the wall - there will be marriage equality across the United States in the not too distant future.

It is thrilling and joyful to watch the future unfolding as it inevitably must.

June 28, 2013 1:50 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said "Albert Einstein, 1932: Bible should be read frequently".

Its amusing to religious people keep trying to falsely claim Einstein as one of their own when his references such as "science without relgion being lame" refered to his belief in god as the wonderment of nature itself, not to the believing in an actual deity that created the universe and interferes in the day to day living of people.

Einstein was crystal clear that he was an atheist:

“Why do you write to me ‘God should punish the English’? I have no close connection to either one or the other. I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
Albert Einstein, letter to Edgar Meyer (2 January 1915)


"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954.


Of course the religious people know Einstein loudly proclaimed himself an atheist but they're too dishonest to admit his easily taken out of context references to religion were not statements that he believed in a god, christian or otherwise.

June 28, 2013 1:58 PM  
Anonymous is AIDS unconstitutional? said...

how dreary to be lazy priya

how public, like a frog

to croak your name the livelong day

to a disdainful crowd!

"LOL, yes these are wondrous times as we watch the inevitable march of justice towards equality."

newsflash to the Saskacthewan couch potato:

there was no injustice or inequality before or after Wednesday

little know fact

little known amongst those whose life takes place in front of screens

June 28, 2013 4:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It is thrilling and joyful to watch the future unfolding as it inevitably must."

wunnerful!

now can you get off your lazy arse and find a way to make some contribution to society instead of just "watching" and waiting for your unearned funds to arrive

whilst the Canadian goes broke maintaining your slothfulness, the money they send you could be used to make a better life for oppressed Eskimo children

they need more than mere blubber to get by

June 28, 2013 5:23 PM  
Anonymous YAY!!!! said...

Following Wednesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to return marriage equality to California, the final legal hurdles have been overcome.

Gay and lesbian couples can immediately begin getting marriage licenses in California.

June 28, 2013 8:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

that's so great

can all the gays now move to the left coast

June 28, 2013 9:06 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous said " I like hanging out with gays" and then later "can all the gays now move to the left coast[?]".

Either reality is irrelevant to bad anonymous and what he asserts is true is based on whatever he thinks is convenient to his B.S. at the time or his head is spinning so fast from the equality wins he doesn't know whether he's comming or going.

Actually its both.

June 28, 2013 10:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And contrary to bad anonymous's pathetic lies the Canadian government doesn't send me any money.

He's the one who surfs the internet all day long and collects a paycheck for work he shirks.

June 28, 2013 11:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lazy Priya, ever so literal-minded from lack of contact with the human race, can't distinguish between a joke and a smoke

no, lazy, I actually am not suggesting that all gays move to California

here's a fun article:

"WASHINGTON — Viewed in isolation, the Supreme Court term that just ended had elements of modesty. The court declined to do away with affirmative action, gave Congress another shot at salvaging the Voting Rights Act and refused to find a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

But glancing at an end-of term snapshot can be misleading. The more meaningful way to look at the court is as a movie, one starring Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as a canny strategist with a tough side, and his eyes on the horizon. He is just 58 and is likely to lead the court for another two decades or more.

Chief Justice Roberts has proved adept at persuading the court’s more liberal justices to join compromise opinions, allowing him to cite their concessions years later as the basis for closely divided and deeply polarizing conservative victories.

His patient and methodical approach has allowed him to establish a robustly conservative record while ranking second only to Justice Anthony Kennedy as the justice most frequently in the majority.

“This court takes the long view,” said Kannon K. Shanmugam, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly in Washington. “It proceeds in incremental steps.”

On Tuesday, when the court struck down a part of the Voting Rights Act, Chief Justice Roberts harvested seeds he had planted four years before. In his 2009 opinion, writing for eight justices, he allowed the Voting Rights Act to stand. But the price he exacted from the court’s liberal wing was language quoted in Tuesday’s decision that seems likely to ensure the demise of the law’s centerpiece, Section 5, which requires federal oversight of states with a history of discrimination.

Only the justices know their motives and arrangements, but there is a pattern here. The price of victory today for liberals in the Roberts court can be pain tomorrow.

The Obama administration’s victory in persuading the court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was a repeat triumph for Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who also prevailed a year ago in the health care case. But his office’s overall track record before the justices is weak.

“While some cases defy easy categorization,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, “it’s clear the administration had a tough time this year at the high court. The solicitor general usually wins nearly 70 percent of cases in which he is a party. This year, he won only 39 percent of those cases.”

“Obama’s poor overall record,” Professor Winkler added, “is largely due to philosophical differences with the court’s conservative majority.”

The most closely divided cases featured classic ideological splits almost 70 percent of the time, with Justice Kennedy joining either the court’s four liberals or its four conservatives. In ten of those cases, he leaned right. In six, he leaned left.

At the same time, 49 percent of the court’s cases were unanimous, compared with an average of 43 percent in recent years. That was so in major patent cases, where the court was authentically united, and in one limiting human rights lawsuits against corporations accused of complicity in human rights abuses abroad, where the justices were divided over the scope of the decision.

The odd mix of discord and harmony was in keeping with the difficulty of making collective sense of the run of major decisions this week.

June 29, 2013 12:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“The bitter divisions, and doctrinal incoherence of the term as a whole, were in full display the moment Justice Scalia began reading his DOMA dissent, where he attacked the majority for ignoring ‘our respected co-ordinate branches, the Congress and presidency of the United States’ and stripping ‘the power of the people to govern themselves,’” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration who is now with Hogan Lovells in Washington.

“As everyone in the courtroom knew,” Mr. Katyal continued, “that was, of course, exactly what Justice Scalia had just done the day before by voting to strike down the landmark Voting Rights Act, one of the crown jewels of the civil rights movement.”

Justice Scalia made another point in his dissent on Wednesday, saying the majority opinion meant that state bans on same-sex marriage are also doomed. That sort of prediction was completely at odds with the chief justice’s approach, and he filed his own dissent. State bans, he said, are a different issue and for another day.

Vikram D. Amar, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said the differing tactics of the two conservative justices were telling.

“If you want to influence future cases, you point out the limited nature of today’s holding,” he said. “If you want to gain rhetorical points today, you exaggerate the effects of the holding.”

Justice Scalia is an outlier on the current court. He is a man in a hurry who would rather score points than make plans.

In 2007, for instance, when Chief Justice Roberts took a calculated step toward limiting campaign finance regulation, Justice Scalia accused him in a concurrence of effectively overruling a major precedent “without saying so.”

“This faux judicial restraint is judicial obfuscation,” Justice Scalia said.

Three years later, building on the 2007 decision, the court issued its decision in Citizens United, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections. The chief justice had moved slower than Justice Scalia had wanted, but he got there.

In the last term, the court issued 73 signed decisions in argued cases, in line with recent terms and about half the number the court routinely issued two decades ago. Justice Kennedy was in the majority 83 percent of the time in divided cases, trailed by Chief Justice Roberts at 73 percent. Justice Scalia brought up the rear, at 58 percent.

Those statistics demonstrate that Justice Kennedy’s vote continues to be the most valuable one. But he is 76 and is building his legacy, notably with Wednesday’s major gay rights decision.

Chief Justice Roberts may have a different agenda, and his methodical assault on the Voting Rights Act is perhaps the most vivid illustration of his approach.

The decision issued on Tuesday nominally returned the fate of the law to Congress, but the chances that it will act are remote. As a practical matter, the key provision of the law is very likely dead.

In the decision, Chief Justice Roberts repeatedly quoted from his 2009 opinion. He took pains to note that eight members of the court, including its four liberals, had already agreed that “things have changed in the South” and that the voting law seemed at odds with principles of federalism and “equal sovereignty” among the states.

The liberal justices, he suggested, had joined him four years ago in building a time bomb with a very long fuse.

June 29, 2013 12:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lady Gaga Sings National Anthem At NYC Gay Pride Rally

June 29, 2013 5:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And contrary to bad anonymous's pathetic lies the Canadian government doesn't send me any money."

oh, that's right

that was only temporary

after a mere few decades of that, the government just paid for you to have gender reassignment surgery so you could get married to a guy who could support you

my bad

of course, I won't mention that you've never worked a day in your life

if you had, you would be paying taxes and contributing to the general welfare

but then, under your unique ethical system, that's moral because you're not directly harming anyone else

but what of the little Eskimo children?

June 30, 2013 9:06 AM  
Anonymous Cedric Crawley said...

Well, that's a very apropos analogy!

When homosexuals bugger one another and fidget for the government to award them a marriage certificate, the daffy people say "how does that hurt your marriage?"

It is quite like someone who makes no contribution to society saying "how does that hurt your job?"

The entire homosexual argument is a bloody farce.

June 30, 2013 9:13 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Lady Gaga Sings National Anthem At NYC Gay Pride Rally"

fascinating...

and how unexpected!!

btw, Neil Diamond will be singing at the Nats' Fourth of July game

June 30, 2013 9:26 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous, the government never paid for my gender reassignment surgery, I paid for the entire thing myself.

And I've worked for many many years and paid hundreds of thousands in taxes.

You on the other hand hypocritically chastize government workers for having access to the internet during work hours while you spend your whole work day surfing the internet instead of doing the work you're paid to do.

At least when I was on welfare I didn't con anyone into thinking I was working for them when instead I was f'n the dog the entire time.

You've got nothing so you trot out lie after lie. That's what happens when you spend your life living in the closet and pretending to be heterosexual, you become so used to deceiving people that lying comes just as easily to you as breathing.

Get some ethics and come out of the closet already. Then you won't be at war with yourself and accidentally expressing your conflicting feelings by one one hand proclaiming you like hanging out with gays (because you identify with them secretly) and on the other hand "jokingly" saying you want them to all move away (because your self loathing has you consumed with cognitive dissonance).



June 30, 2013 11:55 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And its also a lie that I was on welfare "for decades".

June 30, 2013 11:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

New same-sex marriage challenge fails

"Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy turned down at midday Sunday a request to stop same-sex marriages from occurring in California. Without comment, and without seeking views from the other side, Kennedy rejected a challenge to action by the Ninth Circuit Court on Friday implementing a federal judge’s ruling allowing such marriages. The plea had been made on Saturday by the sponsors of California’s “Proposition 8,” a voter-approved measure that permitted marriage only between a man and a woman.

Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court had ruled that the measure’s backers did not have a legal right to defend the measure in either the Supreme Court or, earlier, in the Ninth Circuit Court. While the Supreme Court considered that case, the 2010 decision by a federal judge in San Francisco striking down “Proposition 8″ had been on hold. It was that hold (or “stay”) that the three-judge Circuit Court panel lifted on Friday. Very soon after that, gay and lesbian couples started getting married in ceremonies across the state. Thousands of such couples have now obtained marriage licenses from officials in the state.


Since Justice Kennedy offered no explanation for denying an application claiming that the Ninth Circuit panel had no authority to lift its stay, there is no way to know what legal rationale he had used. It could have been that the sponsors of the measure lacked a legal right to pursue their challenge further, that even if they had such a right it was without legal merit, that the lower court did have the authority to decide for itself when to lift the stay, or perhaps that events had just moved too rapidly in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that it would be inappropriate to try to roll them back.

Although attorneys for the ballot measure’s sponsors have been creative in finding new ways to try to press the challenge, the brief action by Kennedy on Sunday may have removed the final barrier to the full achievement of marriage rights for gays and lesbians in the nation’s most populous state. California is the thirteenth state where same-sex marriages can occur now, or soon, when new laws in a few of the states take effect this summer. The District of Columbia also allows such marriages.

Actually, what is occurring now in California is a resumption of such rights; there was a brief interval, as the court battles over “Proposition 8″ unfolded, when gays and lesbians could marry. During that interval, some 18,000 couples took advantage. There were indications on Sunday that perhaps that number had already been exceeded since Friday, at least in the volume of marriage licenses issued anew.

If there was some irony in Justice Kennedy’s action, it was that he was among the four dissenting Justices who would have allowed the measure’s backers to press their defense of the same-sex marriage ban. However, they had been out-voted, five to four."

June 30, 2013 4:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

okay. Priya.
you haven't been on welfare for "decades". You claim you have paid "hundreds of thousands" taxes...

How many years did you work and how many years were you on welfare and how many years did you rely on your spouse to support you ?

My answer is I have worked for over 30 years and I have never been on unemployment and I have never relied on anyone else to support me. Stupid me.

How about you Priya ?

It is funny, when you talk to liberal teenagers they are all up in arms about the NSA spying and disillusioned with Obama over it.

FINALLY.
Of the myriad of scandals, something finally woke them up.

July 01, 2013 12:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"anonymous, the government never paid for my gender reassignment surgery, I paid for the entire thing myself"

really?

I thought the government covered all your health needs in Canada

you mean to say, the Mounties didn't agree that your gender was confused and needed correcting?

"And I've worked for many many years and paid hundreds of thousands in taxes."

really?

I thought in one of your bickerfests with Theresa, you said were incapable of handling the stress of working and the government had to reimburse you for your "disability"

"You on the other hand hypocritically chastize government workers for having access to the internet during work hours"

I don't ever remember doing that

I would think most government jobs would, like most jobs these days, involve regular use of the internet

"At least when I was on welfare I didn't con anyone into thinking I was working for them when instead I was f'n the dog the entire time."

while we appreciate you not conning anyone, I still think what you were doing to the dog was inhumane

we'd prefer not to hear about it though

is this the next frontier of your unique ethical philosophy?

will we have to adjust school curriculums, enact discrimination statutes and redefine marriage to incorporate your canine activities?

"You've got nothing so you trot out lie after lie. That's what happens when you spend your life living in the closet and pretending to be heterosexual, you become so used to deceiving people that lying comes just as easily to you as breathing."

well, this is an amusing rant..

"Get some ethics and come out of the closet already."

well, as part of my anonymity, I don't think I've ever discussed any sexual preferences on the internet

interesting though that you've now developed a moral principle outside your former assertion that it's immoral to not do what you want as long as it does no direct harm to anyone

is this your way of conceding that there is more to morality than not hurting anyone?

is staying in the closet now considered immoral to you?

because I don't see how such people harm you

again, you've got the time

sign up for a course in the philosophy of ethics

even dreary places like Saskatchewan have universities

"Then you won't be at war with yourself and accidentally expressing your conflicting feelings by one one hand proclaiming you like hanging out with gays (because you identify with them secretly)"

this is rich

on the one hand, if I were to disdain hanging out with gays, I'd be a hateful bigot

on the other hand, if I say I like hanging out with different types of people, I must be secretly gay

you don't get out of the house much, do you Priya?

"and on the other hand "jokingly" saying you want them to all move away (because your self loathing has you consumed with cognitive dissonance)."

this is all starting to sound like global warming

would you consider me at war with myself if I thought you extrapolate wildly?

"And its also a lie that I was on welfare "for decades"."

really?

I guess contradicting your past testimony doesn't harm anyone

right?

July 01, 2013 5:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Barack Obama, America elected a chief executive whose Department of Justice has repeatedly targeted the press, whose Internal Revenue Service has gone gunning for conservatives, and whose government has elevated secrecy into a cardinal virtue. The Obama administration’s data grab is not just about national security, or Edward Snowden. It is also an epilogue befitting a candidate who delivered his 2008 convention acceptance speech in front of a temple façade dedicated to himself, and whose faith in government and the state is at the center of his presidency.

Under the Obama Rules, the unauthorized dissemination of non-classified government information is now “tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States.” Think Nixonism without the sweaty five o’clock shadow; Cheneyism without the dyspepsia, armed with a jump shot instead of a shotgun.

Forget Obama’s paeans to civil liberties. The Age of Obama is a celebration of ever-growing and ever-more intrusive government, with mandated healthcare, crony capitalism, and First Family daytime and late-night television appearances as the modern iterations of bread and circuses.

On Tuesday, Obama environmental adviser Daniel Schrag announced to the world that “a war on coal is exactly what’s needed,” only hours before the president rolled out his environmental regulatory scheme that would have the EPA issue more regulations, while constraining development of the Keystone XL Pipeline — jobs be damned. Talk about timing! Just a day later, first quarter GDP growth was revised downward to 1.8 percent.

Having previously been rebuffed by Congress over a carbon tax, the President didn’t propose anything to Congress this time. He simply announced what his executive branch would do unilaterally.

Still, the administration’s candor about its use of executive fiat to attain that which could not be gained through legislation stands in marked contrast to the obfuscation surrounding the government’s surveillance efforts. That was also vintage Obama, insofar as it was one more attempt to expand government’s reach — in the name of a greater good.

And what does Obama get in return for his push for big government? A government that loves him back. Unlike the financial, insurance and real-estate industries that have been fickle about him — showering him with hosannas and cash in 2008, while offering a relative trickle of support in 2012—Obama remains the living end for government workers.

IRS employees donated to Obama over Romney by a 4-to-1 margin, IRS attorneys favored Obama by 20-to-1, and government lawyers at the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Education shut out the Romney campaign completely. The federal bureaucracy had effectively lined up against nearly half the country.

Meanwhile, the White House press secretary dissembles daily; the intelligence community appears incapable of delivering a complete and truthful answer to Congress, and IRS employees apparently enjoyed a giant tax payer funded party catered by Wolfgang Puck.

Given this totality, public distrust of Washington should come as no surprise.

For the record, spending $2.4 million on an Olympics-themed confab, complete with an open bar while America’s housing market was crashing, is not prudent. Using credit cards to buy bottles of wine and $140 dinners is not what we want from the IRS’s green-eyeshade brigade. Trust, what’s that?"

July 01, 2013 5:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"According to a recent Quinnipiac Poll, 47 percent of Americans trust the government only some of the time and 36 percent hardly ever trust it. CNN reports that 50 percent of those surveyed answered that the words “honest and trustworthy” do not describe the President, and Obama’s disapproval numbers have outpaced his positives for nearly all of June, according to Real Clear Politics.

The federal bureaucracy had effectively lined up against nearly half the country.

Without his credibility, Obama is lost. Preachy and divisive doesn’t get you a whole lot of friends — just ask Jimmy Carter. And no one is confusing Obama with Bill Clinton, who knew how to maneuver; or, if one prefers, how to pander. Bill was Hillary’s and the GOP’s problem, not the nation’s.

Obama has fallen, but the question is how far? Pop culture may shed a clue or two. Yes, Beyonce and Adele have agreed to sing at Michelle Obama’s birthday party, but it is Mick Jagger who told the truth. The other night at D.C.’s Verizon Center, the Stones front man quipped, “I don’t think President Obama is here tonight . . . But I’m sure he’s listening in.”

Sadly, Obama appears more than comfortable with a strong government and a weak America. Although four years have passed since the Great Recession technically ended, employment has yet to regain its pre-recession peak. The lag in jobs has been matched by a lack of new investments. According to the Wall Street Journal, “total venture capital invested in the U.S. fell nearly 10% last year and has yet to return to its pre-recession peak.” However, the White House appears content to live with this dismal version of the “new” normal, one where all but the wealthiest struggle and the American Dream is a campaign cliché or a fading memory.

To add to his woes, the President is repeatedly stiff-armed, both at home and abroad. Congress defies him at no cost. Try as he may, Obama cannot even get a gun bill out of the Democratic controlled Senate, let alone the House. The Supreme Court hands the government’s lawyers repeated defeats, and Russia and China openly mock him.

A fugitive Snowden was allowed to leave Hong Kong and fly freely to Russia. Adding insult to irony, Vladimir Putin has ruled out his extradition. If the Cold War is back, then as Michael Goodwin of the New York Post wrote, “My money is on Putin.”

So here Obama is, craving security and adulation, but being denied both. He speaks aloud, but is frequently ignored. With more than two years left in his term, the President is more a creature of history than a driver of reality. As he is learning the hard way, standing in front of ersatz Greek columns doesn’t make you a deity, and Capitol Hill isn’t Mt. Olympus."

July 01, 2013 6:01 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Yawn.

July 01, 2013 11:57 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Happy Canada Day everyone!

July 01, 2013 12:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

set Quebec free!!!

get back the Priya money and help Eskimo children!!

July 01, 2013 1:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"At least when I was on welfare I didn't con anyone into thinking I was working for them when instead I was f'n the dog the entire time."

first lazy Priya unintentionally lets out this new revelation about what lazy Priya does with her free time

gettin' randy with man's best friend and then:

"Yawn."

she must be drunk

again




July 01, 2013 2:01 PM  
Anonymous take off to the great dull north said...

reminds me of the time lazy Priya said that S&M was the "ultimate fun"

then, another time when lazy Priya revealed that not liking workplaces was a disability entitling one to governmental support

a lot of weirdos in Canada, eh?

July 01, 2013 3:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You all will appreciate this.

I was trimming hedges this weekend and employed a self described very liberal college kid. Remember when college kids wanted to work ? He spent one year at York and is transferring back to UMD.

We had a very interesting and quite civil discussion on lots of political subjects. We agreed on the NSA spying controversy AND the travesty of this immigration bill. He actually says that he knows kids in his neighborhood - which has lots of legal Hispanics - that are ALSO furious about this immigration bill. I thought that was pretty interesting.

July 01, 2013 4:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

personally, I like Hispanics

I say let 'em in

but, for goodness, let do something to keep the Canadians out

they're lazy, randy and strange!!

July 01, 2013 4:43 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

From http://www.metroweekly.com/news/?ak=8446#

More information on the second assault (murder) below indicates that the victim was a lesbian, not a trans woman. People sometimes get them confused.

D.C.'s summer of 2013 is off to a tragic start, with these first days since the season began June 21 seeing attacks against five transgender women, one fatal.
The first attack occurred June 21 around 1 a.m. in the 3000 block of Stanton Road SE, in the District's Fort Stanton neighborhood. A transgender woman was stabbed anywhere from 35 to 40 times, suffering injuries to her back, hands and chest, including a punctured lung.
According to a friend of the victim who gave her name as Tammy during a June 28 community meeting addressing recent anti-LGBT violence, the victim told her that the suspect had asked to meet her in an abandoned house. After a passerby asked what the man was doing with the victim, who the passerby allegedly referred to as a ''faggy,'' the man attacked the victim and then fled.
The victim attempted to return to her home, at which time responding officers arrived. The victim was transported to Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, Md., where she was listed as in serious but stable condition. On June 27, the victim wrote on her Facebook page that she had been released from the hospital, one day after MPD announced the arrest of its chief suspect in the case, 23-year-old Michael McBride, who has been charged with assault with intent to kill.
The second attack occurred a day after the stabbing, around 2 a.m., in the 1300 block of Stevens Road SE, in the city's Barry Farms neighborhood. MPD officers responded to a report of a shooting and found a transgender woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics transported the victim to a local hospital, where she died of her injuries. MPD has identified her as 35-year-old Malika Stover of Southeast D.C. The homicide remains under investigation.
On June 27, a transgender woman was in the 500 block of Eastern Avenue NE, in the city's East Corner, when she was approached by two males around 6 a.m. One of the men assaulted her, prompting her to flee, at which point she was shot. The victim was taken to a local hospital where she was treated for her injury. According to MPD, the two suspects in that shooting were seen fleeing the scene in a gray, four-door sedan, with the front driver's side hubcap missing. The first male is described as a black, 5'10'' with a dark complexion, and the second is described as heavyset, black, 6-feet tall, with a medium-brown complexion. Police also posted surveillance video of two ''persons of interest'' in the case and are seeking the public's help in identifying them.

July 02, 2013 10:49 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

On June 29, at 3:30 a.m. a transgender woman was walking in the East Corner neighborhood, in the 300 block of 61st Street NE, when she accepted a ride from an unknown male. Once inside the vehicle, she was sexually assaulted.
The suspect in that case is described as a 30- to 35-year-old male with a stocky build, light complexion, mustache, driving a dark gray Toyota Corolla with Maryland tags. The case remains under investigation.
Half an hour later, at 4 a.m., on the other side of the Anacostia River, a transgender woman was approached by two adult males while walking in the area around 5th and K Streets NE. The men attempted to rob her and one of them shot her. The victim was transported to a local hospital where she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The two suspects are described as a 19- to 20-year-old male with a light complexion, dreadlocks, wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and a red jacked tied around his waist; and a black male with a dark complexion.
Anyone with information in any of these cases is asked to call Police at 202-727-9099. Information can also be submitted to the Text Tip Line by text-messaging 50411.
MPD offers a reward of up to $1,000 to anyone who provides information leading to an arrest or conviction of the people responsible. MPD also offers up to $10,000 for those who provide information related to a robbery, and up to $25,000 to anyone who provides information related to a homicide.

July 02, 2013 10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

cinco, while I hate to hear about these type of attacks, these people showed little common sense

in the wee hours of the morning, anyone would be insane to go with a stranger to an abandoned house in this area of town

why don't you start a gay Guardian Angel troop and patrol these areas making them safe for anyone crazy enough to go there?

July 02, 2013 11:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

finally, someone is standing for people who are stigmatized because they escaped from bondage to homosexuality:

"Family Research Council plans to usher in the first annual "Ex-Gay Pride Month" dinner to promote ex-gay rights. The event is scheduled for the end of July, just weeks after the Supreme Court's landmark rulings in favor of states' right to define marriage. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has been extended an invitation as an honorable attendee.

The Family Research Council's legislative affiliate, FRC Action, will officially launch two new ex-gay rights organizations, Voice of the Voiceless and Equality and Justice For All, during the dinner in Washington, D.C., on July 31.

"Come celebrate the lives of former homosexuals and hear about their unique stories and achievements!" reads the invitation.

In addition to Bachman, Heritage Foundation's Jim DeMint, Liberty Counsel's Matthew Staver and Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) -- who on Friday introduced a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage -- have all been invited to speak.

Voice of the Voiceless' mission is to defend the rights of former homosexuals, individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction and their families. On June 18, the group asked President Obama to issue a Presidential Proclamation to make July 2013 the official month for "ex-gays." On July 31, Voice supporters will take to Capitol Hill.

"Voice of the Voiceless has only been around for a few months," Christopher Doyle, founder of the group, explained during a phone conversation Tuesday morning. "We formed an anti-defamation league for former homosexuals like myself. ... I was once one of those persons. I am now married to a woman. So basically, we've just been really marginalized by the LGBT activist groups because they're threatened we are seeking a different path."

Doyle does not approve of his group being lumped in with religious programs like Exodus International, which recently announced it will shut down after over 30 years. Doyle said he doesn't believe in the practice of, as he referred to it, "pray the gay away." Nor does he believe in taking a religious approach to changing one's sexual orientation.

"You have to realize that sexuality is a very complex subject," he said. "It's just not about sexual drives and feelings and desire and arousal. It's all about attachment and bonding and gender identity. These theories are based on hundreds of years of psychological research. There's always going to be a portion of people who aren't going to be comfortable being outside the norm. ... There are always going to be people who are going to say, 'This is something I don't want to take part in.'"

"I realized homosexuality just wasn't for me," he concluded. "That's why I chose a different path. We really need to accept people in their choices."

July 02, 2013 12:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The first attack occurred June 21 around 1 a.m. in the 3000 block of Stanton Road SE, in the District's Fort Stanton neighborhood. A transgender woman was stabbed anywhere from 35 to 40 times, suffering injuries to her back, hands and chest, including a punctured lung. According to a friend of the victim, the victim told her that the suspect had asked to meet her in an abandoned house."

So, one in the morning in Southeast, a strange man invites you to meet him in an abandoned house.

And you say, "why sure!"

Does is ever occur to anyone that GLBTs engage in insanely dangerous behavior and then expect everyone to cover for them?

That's how AIDS started. Gays introduced a deadly disease to our society by engaging in widespread random promiscuity and then expect us to fund massive research programs to find a cure.

Try acting with a little common sense.

July 02, 2013 12:40 PM  
Anonymous neutral observer said...

first Priya, now Cinco

two rhetorical smackdowns of two TTFers in two days!!

July 02, 2013 3:47 PM  
Anonymous shut down the Canadian border said...

on Canada Day there was more violence coming out of Canada, the rapidly unraveling society:

"VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Police have arrested a Canadian man and a woman and charged them as terrorist suspects for attempting to leave an explosive package at British Columbia's provincial legislature on Canada Day.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia says John Stewart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody were arrested Monday. The pair has been charged with conspiracy, facilitating a terrorist activity and making an explosive device.

Malizia spoke at a news conference Tuesday.

Police said the plot was a domestic threat without international connections. Police said the threat was detected early."

July 02, 2013 4:16 PM  
Anonymous close it down said...

"Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia says John Stewart Nuttall"

typical Canadian name

JOhn NUTtall

Joe Nut

July 02, 2013 4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Canada started coming apart when they legalized homosexual "marriage"

I'm just glad that the Supreme Court has ruled that, in America, the states will decide what marriage means

and two-thirds of those states ban homosexual "marriage"

July 02, 2013 5:05 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Compassionate Anon said:

“cinco, while I hate to hear about these type of attacks, these people showed little common sense

in the wee hours of the morning, anyone would be insane to go with a stranger to an abandoned house in this area of town”

Man, your empathy is practically oozing off my monitor. I can tell how just much you hate these attacks by how you first referred to me by epithet rather than name, and then proceeded to blame the victim for getting stabbed 40 times. Careful – if you keep being so sympathetic you’ll lose your street cred among the conservatives and pretty soon they’ll be calling you a bleeding-heart liberal. That Christian love is powerful stuff.

I also admire how you adroitly accumulated additional information to bolster your premise.

Just kidding. That never happened.

If you had, you might have found these interesting tidbits of background information:

“Bree Wallace, 29, received a text message from her attacker asking her to meet him”


And

“Her friends believe the alleged attacker had contacted Wallace after she appeared in a charity calendar to raise money for trans groups, and she had rejected his advances.”

Obviously, Bree and her friends knew who this guy was, and somewhere along the way they had even exchanged cell phone numbers. They simply weren’t strangers. And I’m betting the text he sent didn’t say anything like “Yo Bree, how ‘bout meetin’ me at creepy ol empty buildin so I can stab you 40 times LOL ;)“ Your original premise and the denigrating characterization you made of Bree are simply unsubstantiated. Par for your course.

Trans women are well aware of the dangers we face. All of us have been harassed multiple times, and some of us have been assaulted (physically or sexually) multiple times. She wouldn’t have left her house if she thought she was in imminent danger. There is no reason to believe she is any less intelligent or sane than you are. Not a high bar, admittedly; but if it’s good enough for you, it should be good enough for her.

“why don't you start a gay Guardian Angel troop and patrol these areas making them safe for anyone crazy enough to go there?”

Time and sleep Anon… I don’t have enough time and I’m too addicted to sleep.

I already head a trans support group, create jobs for some of them, speak at colleges and in front of legislators, and tutor some of them in math – and physics starting next semester. I also have a full time job where I’m expected to design, simulate, or fix a variety of fairly complicated circuits.

Then of course, there is the time conservatives love chatting with me here on this blog.

I’m a busy gal.

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

July 03, 2013 11:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, you do seem busy alright

she knew him, rejected his advances, and then agreed to meet him in an abandoned house in Southeast?

oh, OK, if you put it that way, who would have foreseen any problem?

btw, I never thought of Cinco as an epithet, just a cool nickname

I've got all the commenters here pigeonholed in two slots- civil and nasty

I've also had you in the civil slot and really didn't intend for the nickname to be taken as an insult

July 03, 2013 11:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

July 03, 2013 11:51 AM  
Anonymous Robert said...

These attacks are alarming, and unfortunately, all too common in our nation's capital.

July 03, 2013 5:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"These attacks are alarming, and unfortunately, all too common in our nation's capital."

Robert, these attacks are common in that part of town and aren't limited to GLBTs.

What's unfortunate is that GLBT's only care if one of them is attacked.

Unlike Canada, violence here is limited to certain areas. Unless you're a tourist, you have no excuse for not knowing this.

July 04, 2013 9:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

btw, what do you guys think of that loser, Barry Obama, cancelling Obamacare for a year?

four years after it passed, he's saying the government he runs won't be ready

could it be that the IRS, who was supposed to running it, is spending too much time attacking Obama's enemies and throwing themselves lavish parties?

no, the real problem is that it will kill jobs and Obama wants to be is pass the mid-year election

he doesn't want to be accountable for the results

July 04, 2013 9:49 AM  
Anonymous Time to teach some facts said...

"four years after it passed, he's saying the government he runs won't be ready"

There you go again, being your usual lying liar self. The delay is to give businesses more time to comply. not the government.

We’re Listening to Businesses about the Health Care Law

"From the start, this Administration has encouraged an ongoing dialogue with the leaders of our nation’s businesses, large and small. There’s more to do, but working together we’ve helped rebuild our economy. Businesses have added 6.9 million private-sector jobs in the past 39 months and we’ve helped strengthen the middle class. Today, most Americans get their health insurance through their jobs and that will be the case moving forward.

To help restore middle class security, we are making health care more affordable to businesses, government, and American families through the Affordable Care Act. While major portions of the law have yet to be implemented, it’s already a little more affordable for businesses to offer quality health coverage to their employees. A recent report suggests that medical cost growth will be lower in 2014 than an already low rate in 2013, both “defying historical patterns.”

Starting next year, the law also ensures all Americans will have access to affordable health coverage. We are on target to open the Health Insurance Marketplace on October 1 where small businesses and ordinary Americans will be able to go to one place to learn about their coverage options and make side-by-side comparisons of each plan’s price and benefits before they make their decision.

As we implement this law, we have and will continue to make changes as needed. In our ongoing discussions with businesses we have heard that you need the time to get this right. We are listening. So in response to your concerns, we are making two changes.  

First, we are cutting red tape and simplifying the reporting process. We have heard the concern that the reporting called for under the law about each worker’s access to and enrollment in health insurance requires new data collection systems and coordination. So we plan to re-vamp and simplify the reporting process. Some of this detailed reporting may be unnecessary for businesses that more than meet the minimum standards in the law. We will convene employers, insurers, and experts to propose a smarter system and, in the interim, suspend reporting for 2014.

Second, we are giving businesses more time to comply. As we make these changes, we believe we need to give employers more time to comply with the new rules. Since employer responsibility payments can only be assessed based on this new reporting, payments won’t be collected for 2014. This allows employers the time to test the new reporting systems and make any necessary adaptations to their health benefits while staying the course toward making health coverage more affordable and accessible for their workers..."

July 04, 2013 11:42 AM  
Anonymous Time to teach some facts said...

"...Just like our effort to turn the 21 page application for health insurance into a 3 page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible in employer and insurer reporting as we implement the law.

Meanwhile, here is a quick review of what small and big businesses need to know about the health law and how it will work:

• If you are a small business with less than 50 workers, the law’s employer shared responsibility policies does not apply to you. Instead, you will gain access to the Small Business Health Options Program that gives you the purchasing power of large businesses. In fact, you may be eligible for a tax credit that covers up to half the cost of insurance if you offer quality coverage to your employees

• If you own a business with more than 50 workers that already offers full-time workers affordable, quality coverage, you are fine – we’ll work with you to keep that coverage affordable.

• And if you are a company with more than 50 employees but choose not to offer quality affordable coverage, we have provided as much flexibility and transition time as possible for you to move to providing affordable, quality coverage to your workers.

We are full steam ahead for the Marketplaces opening on October 1. For more information on what is coming check out: HealthCare.gov"

July 04, 2013 11:43 AM  
Anonymous happy fourth! said...

the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare

it was passed by a technicality and without a single Republican vote and one day before it would no longer be possible because the people of Massachusetts had elected a new Senator who ran against it

while Obama feigns concern for American business, he's really worried that when the law takes place, the results will so horrific, Dems will lose control of the Senate as they have already done in the House

it won't help

Obamacare will be repealed

July 04, 2013 12:39 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

“btw, I never thought of Cinco as an epithet, just a cool nickname”

My cool nickname is “Evil Cyn.”

The obvious homonym for “sin” encapsulates all the right wing fears that I can somehow single-handedly (or perhaps with a few of my gay friends) destroy marriage, ‘murica, children, and the entire foundations of our modern civilized society. It’s cool because normal people realize the ridiculousness of this and its delicious irony when you actually get to know me as a person.

I’ve been called so many names now I’ve had to use scientific notation just to estimate it all. I was called “faggot” by my Catholic classmates approximately 3.87x10^6 times before I even managed to figure out what one was. It took me even longer to figure out *why* they might be calling me that.

But let me cut through the BS here.

You use every single opportunity you can find or stretch into an accusation or outright insult that trans people are “mentally ill,” “insane,” “psychotic,” “deranged” or otherwise not in full control of their faculties. It is one of the main legs in your anti-trans propaganda stool. You learned a while back though that an outright attack on my sanity would only result in me turning it right back around on you with much better supporting evidence. So you changed your approach.

But telling me I should “go French kiss a rabid Doberman” and “jump naked into a lava flow” didn’t turn out like you had planned, and I sent those retorts screaming back in flames. It did reveal some of your true nature though and what you really thought about me.

“Cinco” is your feeble little attempt to get a dig in at me by hoping some people will notice it sounds very similar to “psycho,” and you’ll still get your point across. By avoiding the obvious frontal assault you know you’ll be safe from the worst of my comebacks and you can hide under the blanket of “plausible deniability” in just this situation.

You should know by now I’m just not that stupid. People know when they are being insulted. I’m fine with that. As you’ve learned by now though, it hasn’t garnered you the results you were hoping for. Too bad.

July 04, 2013 3:12 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

“I've got all the commenters here pigeonholed in two slots- civil and nasty”

Anon, it only takes a week of reading your posts for people to realize you have the entirety of the world shoved into two little pigeon holes.

The first one is labeled “Reagan, God, guns, the Bible, oil, military supremacy at all costs, and Republican crap smells like roses,” or something very similar.

Hole number two is labeled “Obama, pinko communists socialist tree hugging fascist faggots, fat faggots, ordinary looking faggots, transsexuals, queers, Al Gore global warming believing hybrid car drivers, whale lovers, taxes, the IRS, pedophiles, devil worshipers, Muslims, Democrats, and other miscreants hell bent on destroying society.”

No on really believes you actually spent time to sub-divide hole number 2 in to “civil” and “nasty.”

This isn’t about civility Anon; it never has been for you.

Somewhere around 4th or 5th grade, most kids have started to realize if you don’t want people to call you names, you don’t go around calling them names, because the first thing they will do is respond in kind. Coincidentally, much of adult behavior isn’t that much different.

By the time kids are in 7th or 8th grade, most of them have begun to realize that if they want to have friends, they at least have to be civil with a large percentage of the people around them. They are beginning to understand that word of their bad behavior can travel among a number of social circles and can have unpleasant consequences later.

By this age, even bullies have learned to be more selective about who they pick on, because if they don’t have the right kind of compliant target(s), their abusive antics will backfire on them.

But I’m sure you knew this already. You are well aware that repeatedly identifying any group of people as “sexual deviants,” “socialists,” “fascists,” or “mentally ill,” and conflating them with pedophiles, animal “lovers,” and “terrorists” is never, ever a prelude to a civil conversation. But that’s not what you’re here for.

July 04, 2013 3:13 PM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

This is a game for you Anon.

You score points by getting jabs in every time you can make a disparaging or denigrating remark about liberals, democrats, fags, transsexuals in general, or even better, some hapless poster here in particular.

You enjoy it.

You long for it.

Every nasty remark is a flavor you can savor. Like a vulture on a putrid carcass, you devour every malicious morsel as if it were fillet mignon.

“I've also had you in the civil slot and really didn't intend for the nickname to be taken as an insult”

Of course you didn’t want me to take it as an insult Anon, because I take the fun out of your game. When you start bantering with me, you start losing points; and though you’ll never admit it out loud, you know it. This is an anathema to you, because you really like to think you’re smart, scoring points, and winning big. Too bad. The pity train derailed at Homophobe Avenue and left cars strewn all the way from I Don’t Give a Shot Street to Belligerent Boulevard.

As a small effeminate child growing up in Christian neighborhoods and attending Catholic schools, I had to learn a lot of survival skills. The simplest of these were running away quickly; because I didn’t stand a chance physically if I got caught. I also learned to be the class clown; because the more you can keep people laughing, the less likely they are to assault you.

But I also learned early on that if the other kids were using me as the unwitting object in one of their obnoxious little games, then the best tact for me was to change their game.

The opportunity for civil discourse has been open to you here for years Anon.

But if you prefer to play games, let’s play.

I don’t run away anymore; and for some reason right now, I don’t feel like being funny.


Happy 4th of July.

Cynthia

July 04, 2013 3:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Dems will lose control of the Senate as they have already done in the House

it won't help

Obamacare will be repealed"


Poor little Bubblehead! You are wrong again, as usual.

Supreme Court upholds individual mandate, ObamaCare survives

The only change that has been made is to the employer mandate.

The House GOP has already repealed Obamacare thirty-seven times since the law was enacted, and yet the ACA is still the constitutional law of the land!

Q: What is insanity?

A: Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.

July 04, 2013 3:16 PM  
Anonymous synching with psychos said...

Almost a month after the Supreme Court's landmark decisions in favor of marriage equality were handed down, one son of dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia will speak in front of Courage, an organization that believes gays and lesbians should never have sex.

Paul Scalia is a Roman Catholic priest affiliated with Courage, a group that "ministers to persons with same-sex attractions," according to its website. He is also a featured speaker at Courage's annual summit, taking place this year between July 25 and July 28 at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Ill.

Justice Scalia's opinions on homosexuality at this point are well known. In one of his most famous decisions regarding the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT), Scalia wrote that a Texas law banning sodomy was simply trying to protect Texas citizens from "immoral and unacceptable" sexual behavior.

Overshadowed by his father for years, the similarly anti-gay opinions of Scalia's son Paul, however, are beginning to attract attention as well. An important tenet of the younger Scalia's position on homosexuality is his belief that being gay is not an immutable characteristic or identity.

In 2005, Scalia espoused this view in an article for the magazine First Things, where he warned about high school clubs that encourage tolerance of homosexuality, and readily label themselves or others "gay" or "homosexual."

"Labels presume that a person is his inclinations or attractions; he is a 'gay' or is a 'homosexual,'" Paul Scalia wrote. "At some point adults have to admit that a fifteen-year-old who claims to be 'a questioning transgendered bisexual' is really just confused."

In an example of how one might avoid these types of labels, Paul Scalia referred to homosexuality as a "phenomenon" in a 2010 piece for the Catholic Herald. That piece also warned that same-sex marriage posed a threat to marriage and future societies.

Scalia's general thought process is perhaps best summed up, however, in a 2012 article written for Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture & Science.

"In short, we should not predicate 'homosexual' of any person. That does a disservice to the dignity of the human person by collapsing personhood into sexual inclinations," Scalia writes. "Indeed, the Church is still trying to find the right vocabulary to speak about this modern phenomenon ... Either our sexuality is oriented in a certain direction (i.e. toward the one-flesh union of marriage), or it is not. We cannot speak of more than one sexual 'orientation' any more than we can think of the sun rising in more than one place (i.e. the orient)."

July 05, 2013 11:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"MILWAUKEE — As more victims of clergy sex abuse came forward, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan oversaw a plan to pay some abusers to leave the priesthood after writing to Vatican officials with increasing frustration and concern, warning them about the potential for scandal if they did not defrock problem priests, according to documents released Monday.

Dolan's correspondence with Vatican officials and priests accused of sexual abuse was included in about 6,000 pages of documents the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released Monday as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court with clergy sex abuse victims suing it for fraud. Victims say the archdiocese transferred problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covered up priests' crimes for decades.

The documents have drawn attention in part because of the involvement of Dolan, who is now a cardinal and New York archbishop and the nation's most prominent Roman Catholic official by virtue of his position as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The records provide new details on payments made to some abusers to leave the priesthood and the transfer of nearly $57 million for cemetery care into a trust as the archdiocese prepared to file for bankruptcy.

Victims and their attorneys accused Dolan of bankruptcy fraud, pointing to a June 2007 letter in which he told a Vatican office that moving the money into a trust would provide "an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability."

Church law requires bishops to seek Vatican approval for any property sale or asset transfer in the millions of dollars. Dolan wrote in the letter that the transfer had been approved by archdiocese's Financial Council and College of Consultors.

A Vatican office approved the transfer within a month. Jeff Anderson, an attorney for many victims, compared that to the long lag in responses to defrock abusive priests.

"These documents show that if they want to move money to protect it from survivors they can act quick as a fox," Anderson said. "If they want to protect kids, if they have full knowledge of kids in peril, they keep it secret while the Vatican drags its feet and children are kept at peril.""

July 05, 2013 5:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the one institution that tolerated and gave sanctuary to homosexuals by turning the other way as the gays filled up their priesthoods has paid a heavy price

these homosexuals used their position to abuse young children

July 05, 2013 11:53 PM  
Anonymous Obama blows it said...

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) Religious leaders in Africa strongly rebuked President Obama’s call to decriminalize homosexuality, suggesting it’s the reason why he received a less-than-warm welcome during a recent trip to the continent.

In a news conference in Senegal during his three-nation tour, just as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on same-sex marriage, Obama said African nations must grant equal protection to all people regardless of their sexual orientation.

“My basic view is that regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation, when it comes to how the law treats you, how the state treats you … people should be treated equally,” Obama said. “And that’s a principle that I think applies universally.”

But Obama’s words rubbed religious and political leaders the wrong way. In Senegal, the West African nation where Islam is the predominant religion, homosexuality is a crime.

Christianity and Islam are growing fast on the continent, and religious leaders in both faith communities responded with vehement denunciations.

Indeed, some clerics said Obama’s statements on gays spoiled the welcome religious leaders and their followers could have accorded the first African-American president.

“For religious leaders, in my point of view, this issue of homosexuality which he mentioned had really blocked the hospitality which the religious leaders desired to reserve for him,” said the Rev. Pierre Adama Faye, a Senegalese Lutheran leader.

Homosexuality is illegal in 37 African countries, according to the Washington-based Council for Global Equality, and many religious leaders here view it as contrary to scriptures and custom.

Sheikh Saliou Mbacke, a Senegalese Muslim leader who coordinates the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa, said faith leaders have the duty to speak out, especially if outside forces want to impose their will.

“The subject of homosexuality must not be used as a tool to blackmail and coerce society to defy God’s command, which is more important than any world power,” he said. “We will oppose any manner of arm-twisting that threatens us to embrace it in our societies.”

In Nairobi, Roman Catholic Cardinal John Njue voiced similar concerns, and said Africans must be allowed to forge their own consensus on the subject.

“I think we need to act according to our own traditions and even our own faiths,” he said. “This is very important. We have to be proud of who we are.”

In Tanzania, Anglican Bishop Michael Hafidh of Dar es Salaam said religious leaders followed Obama’s tour closely and would have preferred for Obama to stick to trade and economic issues.

Homosexuality, said Hafidh, “is not an important issue for us now. We don’t recognize or even think of it, let alone its legalization. I think since we have a lot of resources, our discussions with the rest of the world should be more about investments and trade.”

July 06, 2013 12:06 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

"Labels presume that a person is his inclinations or attractions; he is a 'gay' or is a 'homosexual,'" Paul Scalia wrote. "At some point adults have to admit that a fifteen-year-old who claims to be 'a questioning transgendered bisexual' is really just confused."

Oh, this is rich, coming from a Catholic priest. As some point adults have to admit that grown men who have *taken a vow of celibacy*, dress up alter boys in ankle-length black dresses with frilly white trim, and then have sex with them are not just confused, but very, very sick. I know “questioning transgendered bisexual” is a pithy label to make your point, but let’s get real for a minute. I will bet you for that every real, actual, “questioning transgendered bisexual” you can find, we know of at least dozen (if not 2 dozen) convicted pedophile priests. Catholic priests are the last people who should be passing judgment on other people’s gender or sexuality. After all, Catholic priests and nuns have been convicted of physical or sexual abuse on every continent on the planet - except for Antarctica. But let’s be honest; that’s only because there aren’t any kids there. There are 4 foot tall penguins though; dressed in black and white. Brrr, that’s cold.

“In an example of how one might avoid these types of labels, Paul Scalia referred to homosexuality as a "phenomenon" in a 2010 piece for the Catholic Herald. That piece also warned that same-sex marriage posed a threat to marriage and future societies.”

Can you be a little more specific about this threat Paul? After all, the Catholic Church has been known to force Jews to live in ghettos and where yellow hats and forced to go to Catholic masses. The church has also kidnapped Jewish children and given them to Christian parents to raise. The church is also known for running “Magdalene Laundries” where women locked up against their will for decades and force to do labor for the church. And with the recent money laundering scandal at the Vatican, we are reminded that there is reason to believe that the Vatican Bank has a nice little stash of Nazi gold and other riches stolen from Jews during World War II. Do you think this presumptive “gay marriage” threat is as big as any of these threats against humanity? What about the Christian slaughter of Native Americans in the new world… as big as that threat? Anywhere close?

July 06, 2013 11:18 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

"In short, we should not predicate 'homosexual' of any person. That does a disservice to the dignity of the human person by collapsing personhood into sexual inclinations," Scalia writes. "Indeed, the Church is still trying to find the right vocabulary to speak about this modern phenomenon ...”

I can understand you not wanting to put labels on people because of their sexuality. “Pedophile Priest” is a catchy little phrase that’s graphic and easy to remember. You certainly wouldn’t want it to go viral and become ubiquitous in the modern lexicon.

And quite frankly, your church has simply not done enough to protect children from them. Religious people often claim that homosexuals should have therapy to “fix” them. But if there is a call to fix the Pedophile Priests, it is totally lost in the noise and shouting fix the homosexuals. The only thing you do to reorient the Pedophile Priests is move them to another parish.

“Either our sexuality is oriented in a certain direction (i.e. toward the one-flesh union of marriage), or it is not. We cannot speak of more than one sexual 'orientation' any more than we can think of the sun rising in more than one place (i.e. the orient)."

Oh you Catholics! You’ve had trouble with the whole sun rising thing since you put Galileo under house arrest for the heresy of explaining that the Earth actually went around the sun, instead of the other way around. Word is he would have been executed if he wasn’t already good friends with the pope.

Let me explain a little something to you about the sun. It actually comes up in a different place every day of the year. Ancient civilizations built monuments with exquisitely fine slots and geometries that only allowed the dawning sun to show through on the morning of the summer or the winter solstice. On other days of the year, these slots would remain in the dark. Sort of like a Catholic priest when it comes to science, or human sexuality.

“the one institution that tolerated and gave sanctuary to homosexuals by turning the other way as the gays filled up their priesthoods has paid a heavy price

these homosexuals used their position to abuse young children”

I’m gonna guess you’re a Catholic, and this is your lame and desperate attempt to deflect attention away from the real problem – pedophiles in the Catholic church, and a large, organized system to keep them out of the hands of secular authorities, and pay off the victims to keep them quiet.

There are plenty of large, gay centered organizations in the country, (GLAAD, HRC, the gay equality groups in every state) and some in other parts of the world. Interestingly it appears that NONE of these have been plagued with the child abuse scandals that the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, and an “out” pedophile church called “The Family International,” or “Children of God.”

When people can see that child abuse is endemic to these religious institutions, but NOT the gay institutions, it doesn’t take too long to figure out that the problem isn’t with the gay people. One has to wonder though what is going on in these religious institutions that makes them prey on children. I’m pretty sure they don’t actually “teach” pedophilia in their churches or schools – or maybe I missed that class in my Catholic schools. But one has to seriously question what goes on in the psyches of these religious folks that not only engage in pedophilia, but actually cover each other for it. Trying to blame it on the gays is only a diversionary propaganda tactic whose effect is only temporary. Eventually the ugly truth comes out.

Thanks for posting this Anon. It has inspired me to do a video. I will use some of Paul’s ridiculous commentary as the jumping off point. My working title for now is “Fr. Scalia, please help me get excommunicated from the Church of the Holy Pedophile.”

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

July 06, 2013 11:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"When people can see that child abuse is endemic to these religious institutions, but NOT the gay institutions, it doesn’t take too long to figure out that the problem isn’t with the gay people"

Okay, Cyn...
Justify NAMBLA why don't you ?

July 09, 2013 12:15 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

“Okay, Cyn...
Justify NAMBLA why don't you ?

Why in the world would I justify NAMBLA? I had never even heard of NAMBLA until I started trading barbs with homophobes. I’ve certainly never heard my gay, lesbian or trans friends talk about it, unless of course it’s in the context of arguing with you guys.

I’ve never done any research on NAMBLA and I have no desire to. I certainly don’t want the search history in my browser showing I ever looked up that kind of stuff. By now we all know the NSA knows everywhere we’ve been on the internet. Even with the legitimate pretense of “investigate research,” I don’t want any of that crap near my computer. I never would have even known of “RentBoy.com” if the infamous “reparative therapist” and Southern Baptist Minister George Rekers hadn’t found his “baggage handler” there.

It seems to me that any NAMBLA website or meeting place would be a prime target for sex crimes police in any jurisdiction they’re in. If this institution is what the right wing claims it to be, then I can only imagine it’s under surveillance 24/7. To not do so would be a dereliction of duty.

That being the case, I find it surprising that I have never, ever come across an article where a NAMBLA member has been arrested for child abuse; or that NAMBLA headquarters were raided and they found hard drives full of kiddy porn.

Yet it seems like every six months we hear of another case of either physical abuse or sexual abuse by someone in the Catholic Church.

I am forced to conclude that either A: NAMBLA does not engage in sex with children the way the right wing claims it does, or B: NAMBLA is a fictitious entity made up by the right wing as a straw man to smear gay people.

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

July 09, 2013 10:55 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"so, eventually, if you truthfully love two dead animals, you'll have the freedom to marry both of them"

Sure, once they are brought back to life, bestial polygamy is legalized, they are of age, evolve human consciousness and opposable thumbs to understand and sign a marriage license, amongst absolutely everything else concerning marriage.

Yep, right around the corner.

"it's not hatred to point out that if you maintain that there should be no definition of marriage, there won't be one if you get your way"

Are you saying that all heterosexual marriages in states where gay marriage is legal are now null and void? If that’s true, I suppose the Bibles in those states are now invalid too.

Well, look at it this way; no heterosexual marriage, no more gay kids.
---
JimK: "You still have to fight them, because they keep trying to impose their insane system of values on the rest of us,"

Sociopathanon: "oh, you mean the system of values in place since the dawn of civilization throughout the world?"

I didn’t realize that evolution was a “system of values.” But I am curious, at what point did you relinquish your “system of values?”
---
TTF ally: "How's your heterosexual marriage doing? Is it hurting now? On life support??"

And why were their marriages so rickety and frail to begin with?
---
"recently, it was disclosed that over half on MCPS honors math students fail their final exam … stats show it all started going south around the time the gay curriculum was adopted"

Don’t forget about the increase in gum chewing, house cleaning and mosquito bites that happened around the same time too.
---
"Kennedy probably does have gays working for him … it may have contributed to his view"

Which begs the question, do you even know any gay people?
---
"gays have a step-by-step agenda … leads to further abominations down the line … wanted freedom to engage in deviant acts … getting special preferences in hiring, and have had the definition of marriage changed in 13 states"

(Pssst, your hair’s on fire... Again.)
---
"Albert Einstein, 1932: Bible should be read frequently"

I think it’s safe to say that he “also” believed the Earth was round, that it was the same sun that came up everyday, that humans did not coexist with dinosaurs, and that the Earth was not created in 6 twenty-four hour periods.
---
"there was no injustice or inequality before or after Wednesday"

Then what’s your complaint?
---
"Lady Gaga Sings National Anthem At NYC Gay Pride Rally"

Thank you for sharing that :)
---
"I still think what you were doing to the dog was inhumane … we'd prefer not to hear about it though"

Are you sure? Because we hear it coming out of your mouth all the time:

Two sentences later: "will we have to … redefine marriage to incorporate your canine activities?"
---
"help Eskimo children!!"

By taking away their winter clothing, destroying their homes, kick them all out onto the ice sheets, take away their fishing rights, rape their land for oil, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera?

Good luck with that PR campaign.
---
"while I hate to hear about these type of attacks … in the wee hours of the morning, anyone [transgendered] would be insane to go with a stranger to an abandoned house in this area of town"

Wouldn’t you want to “hear about these type of attacks” so you could blame the victims even more?

Just sayin’

July 09, 2013 3:16 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"finally, someone is standing for people who are stigmatized because they escaped from bondage to homosexuality:"

"Family Research Council plans to usher in the first annual "Ex-Gay Pride Month" dinner to promote ex-gay rights."

Good! All those poor discriminated-against gays who are openly in the closet deserve the same rights as non-gays. The fight for their equal rights will be long and nonexistent.

“Ex-gay” activist Christopher Doyle: "You have to realize that sexuality is a very complex subject," he said. "It's just not about sexual drives and feelings and desire and arousal. It's all about attachment and bonding and gender identity."

Did you miss that last part or just forget to edit it out?
---
"Gays introduced [AIDS] to our society"

As anti-gay propaganda goes, that just doesn't seem hateful enough.

Try saying something like: Gays concocted it in a lab and then released it on purpose, on themselves (except for the 95% of them who were against it), for the sheer entertainment of having all the universally-non-promiscuous heterosexuals "fund massive research programs to find a cure."

Then add: And they're still laughing and laughing and laughing about it behind our backs.

It will back up your assertion and you will look much more credible.
---
"two-thirds of those states ban homosexual "marriage"

Enjoy the talking point while you can.
---
"What's unfortunate is that GLBT's only care if one of them is attacked."

You have a point. I was just talking with some of my “militant homosexual activist” friends about the San Francisco plane crash and we all agreed that only the 5% (or so) who were LGBT should have survived and that the effort put into saving the other 95% was a complete waste of our nation’s resources.
---
"Religious leaders in Africa strongly rebuked President Obama’s call to decriminalize homosexuality … many religious leaders here view it as contrary to scriptures"

Leviticus 2013: "If a man has sexual relations with a man … They are to be put to death"

What a shame it must be for you to have a president that isn’t pro-genocide.
---
"Okay, Cyn ... Justify NAMBLA why don't you ?"

(I realize you’re logically challenged, so I’ll try to make this analogy as simple as possible)

That’s like a criminal saying they’re a republican and then asking a republican to justify crime.

July 09, 2013 3:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

July is “Ex-gay Pride Month,” according to absolutely nobody except the Family Research Council. But it is still news worth celebrating, according to “ex-gay” rights advocates. Worth celebrating with a song!

Which is why Voice for the Voiceless (Mission: “Defending the rights of former homosexuals”) recently put out a request for an anthem, and there are some pretty incredible perks if you win!

Perks like debuting your music video “LIVE at the First Ex-Gay Pride Month celebration in Washington, DC.” And … that is it, basically.

Not sure how to capture the pulse of the “ex-gay” movement in four chords? Don’t sweat it, Dan Savage and some other aspiring musicians on Twitter have a few suggestions to spare.

My personal recommendation? “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” of course.

Dan Savage
"Somewhere Under the Rainbow"
#ExGayThemeSongs

Velvet Pig
"Livin' On a Prayer (Oh god, please don't let me be gay thanks Amen)"
#ExGayThemeSongs

Charles Kovalik
"Billie Jean is not my lover, she's just the girl I bring home to my mom"
#ExGayThemeSongs

Paul Miller
"Don't Stand So Close To Me (Because I'm Trying REALLY Hard To Fool Myself Into Believing I'm Now Straight"
#ExGayThemeSongs

Shira Wilson
"Papa Please Preach (about the danger of the homosexual lifestyle)"
#ExGayThemeSongs

Michael Smith
"I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"
#ExGayThemeSongs

July 09, 2013 4:56 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I don’t have twitter, but here’s the link to the Salon article with the links to those mock-up songs.

July 09, 2013 6:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's How To Get In Touch With The Senators Who Voted Against Lowering Student Loan Rates

The list of NAY voters:

Lisa Murkowski R AK Nay
Jeff Sessions R AL Nay
Richard C. Shelby R AL Nay
John Boozman R AR Nay
Jeff Flake R AZ Nay
John McCain R AZ Nay
Marco Rubio R FL Nay
Saxby Chambliss R GA Nay
Johnny Isakson R GA Nay
Chuck Grassley R IA Nay
James E. Risch R ID Nay
Mike Crapo R ID Nay
Mark Kirk R IL Nay
Daniel Coats R IN Nay
Jerry Moran R KS Nay
Pat Roberts R KS Nay
Mitch McConnell R KY Nay
Rand Paul R KY Nay
David Vitter R LA Nay
Angus S. King, Jr. I ME Nay
Susan M. Collins R ME Nay
Roy Blunt R MO Nay
Thad Cochran R MS Nay
Roger F. Wicker R MS Nay
Richard Burr R NC Nay
John Hoeven R ND Nay
Deb Fischer R NE Nay
Mike Johanns R NE Nay
Kelly Ayotte R NH Nay
Jeffrey Chiesa R NJ Nay
Dean Heller R NV Nay
Rob Portman R OH Nay
Tom Coburn R OK Nay
James M. Inhofe R OK Nay
Patrick J. Toomey R PA Nay
Tim Scott R SC Nay
Lindsey Graham R SC Nay
John Thune R SD Nay
Bob Corker R TN Nay
Lamar Alexander R TN Nay
John Cornyn R TX Nay
Ted Cruz R TX Nay
Mike Lee R UT Nay
Orrin G. Hatch R UT Nay
Ron Johnson R WI Nay
Joe Manchin, III D WV Nay
John Barrasso R WY Nay
Michael B. Enzi R WY Nay

July 11, 2013 7:14 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nobody on there from MD or VA

just a little tip about how democracy works:

if you can't vote for them, they couldn't give a flip what you have to say

July 11, 2013 8:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

last week, Obama cancelled requirements for businesses to provide employees with health insurance for next year

individuals, however, will still be required to buy themselves health insurance

or else

the IRS will be after them with fines to cover their fancy conventions

of course, paying those fines will be much cheaper than actually buying health insurance

Obama's plan to provide universal health insurance in 2014

make a law that you have to buy it

brilliant


that Obama

what a genius!!

by the same logic, let's make a law to prevent AIDS by outlawing homosexuality

btw, the public doesn't appreciate Barry

in the latest poll by the Economist, Obama's approval is 43% and disapproval is 53%

genius is never recognized in its time!!

July 11, 2013 9:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

July 11, 2013 11:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"brilliant


that Obama

what a genius!!"


That's right. The individual mandate is brilliant, genius and Supreme Court approved!

As Fox News reported: Supreme Court upholds individual mandate, ObamaCare survives

"...The ruling is a victory for the president, ensuring for now that his signature domestic policy achievement remains mostly intact. It also ensures that the law will play a prominent role in the general election campaign, as Republican candidate Mitt Romney vows to repeal the law if elected....

And we all know how that turned out!

Obama won again!

July 11, 2013 12:52 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"Obama's plan to provide universal health insurance in 2014 … make a law that you have to buy it

by the same logic, let's make a law to prevent AIDS by outlawing homosexuality"


Ironclad logic. You’re just as “genius” and “brilliant” as you think Obama is.

July 11, 2013 11:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

you got that right, improv

it's the genius of simplicity

you don't like something, there's no need to get all high-fallutin' and ivory tower on us

just outlaw it

this is actually a gay mentality

"I wave my wand, you go away!"

July 12, 2013 6:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Barack Obama

he's like the Wiz of Oz!!

he's easin' on down the road

July 12, 2013 6:38 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Texas today, they are searching women's handbags, etc., and confiscating TAMPONS and FEMININE SANITARY PADS but allowing guns to be carried inside.

Why are they confiscating women's menstruation sanitation products?

Apparently some Texas State Senators fear projectiles, padded paper projectiles, but not lead projectiles.

And they do not, I repeat, they do not hate women!

There is no war on women in any GOP led states!

< wink wink >

July 12, 2013 5:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Why are they confiscating women's menstruation sanitation products?

Apparently some Texas State Senators fear projectiles, padded paper projectiles, but not lead projectiles."

it's probably because a few weeks ago, rabid protestors were throwing tampons at the legislators and gun owners, who are manifold in Texas, weren't shooting at them

don't it always seem to go that, when people are carrying guns, everyone behaves?

they paved the hunting preserve and threw a bunch of tampons on the parking lot!!

July 12, 2013 9:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate passed sweeping new restrictions on murdering unborn inconvenient children late Friday, sending them to Republican Gov. Rick Perry to sign into law after weeks of disruptive protests that tried to prevent a vote by elected legislators a vote.

Republicans used their large majority in the Texas Legislature to pass the bill nearly three weeks after a filibuster by Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and an outburst by pro-murder activists in the Senate gallery disrupted a deadline vote June 25.

Called back for a new special session by Perry, lawmakers took up the bill again as thousands of supporters held rallies and jammed the Capitol to testify at public hearings.

Democrats have called the proposal unnecessary and unconstitutional, contending that parents have a right kill children that are inconvenient. Republicans said the measure was about protecting women and unborn children.

The Senate's debate took place between a packed gallery of demonstrators, with anti-abortion activists wearing blue and abortion-rights supporters wearing orange. Security was tight, and state troopers reported confiscating bottles of urine and feces as they worked to prevent another attempt to stop the Republican majority from passing the proposal to protect women and children.

Those arrested or removed from the chamber included four women who tried to chain themselves to a railing in the gallery. One of the women was successful in chaining herself, prompting a 10-minute recess.

When debate resumed, protesters began loudly singing, "Give choice a chance. All we are saying is give choice a chance." The Senate's leader, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, told officers to remove the noisy miscreants.

The circus-like atmosphere in the Texas Capitol marked the culmination of weeks of protests, the most dramatic of which came June 25 in the final minutes of the last special legislative session, Davis' filibuster and subsequent violent protests prevented the bill from becoming law.

House Bill 2 would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, allow abortions only in surgical centers, limit where and when women may take abortion-inducing pills and ban abortions after 20 weeks. Only five out of 42 existing abortion clinics meet the requirements to be a surgical center, and clinic owners say they can't afford to upgrade or relocate.

Sen. Glen Hegar of Katy, the bill's Republican author, argued that all abortions, including those induced with medications, should take place in an ambulatory surgical center in case of complications.

The bill mirrors restrictions passed in Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kansas, Wisconsin and Arizona, as the movement to save lives sweeps the country. In North Carolina, lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow state health officials to apply standards for ambulatory surgical centers to abortion clinics.

Passing the law in Texas would be a major victory for pro-life activists in the nation's second most-populous state. A lawsuit originating in Texas would likely win a sympathetic hearing at the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, giving justices the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade permanently in light of advances in fetal knowledge since the 1970s.

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, said during the debate that it was clear the bill was part of national conservative agenda attempting to ban the murder of children one state at a time.

Uh...duh!

Sen. Bob Deuell, a Greenville Republican and a doctor, said abortion clinics "had not maintained the proper standard of care."

July 13, 2013 8:32 AM  
Anonymous Most feared weapon in Texas said...

The Tampon Gun

July 13, 2013 10:44 AM  
Anonymous shaken and stirred said...

looks like with the abortion bans sweeping the country and the Supreme Court set up to reject Roe v Wade at the first opportunity, liberals will no longer be like James Bond

good people are taking away their license to kill!!

July 13, 2013 11:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

“The fight for the future of Texas is just beginning,” said Sen. Wendy Davis (D) .

Republicans systematically voted down all 20 proposed amendments to the bill, which will ban abortions after 20 weeks, require abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and require all abortions take place in surgical centers.

The measure now heads to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk for his signature.

Courts have blocked 20-week bans in Arizona, Georgia and Idaho. New clinic regulations have been stalled by judges in Alabama and Mississippi.


Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.

In the first three months of 2013, the Guttmacher Institute reported that at the state level, the GOP had proposed or passed 694 provisions to regulate women's uteruses.

Perhaps the Texas legislature will finally pass a few laws regulating fertilizer plants to protect the innocent lives of Texas townfolk, from senior citizens to students - all of whom have already been born - from horrific injury and death by in-town fertilizer plant explosion.

Nah, that would be too intrusive!

July 13, 2013 1:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"There was a time when women social activists asked men to stand up for their rights, but this time we will do it by ourselves."

"We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back."

"[Extremists] are afraid of women, change and equality."

The above quotes are words of wisdom from a future world leader who addressed the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday. Thank you, Malala.

July 13, 2013 2:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

she likely has radical parents

someone has deuded her

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome."

no, insanity is killing unborn children and calling it health

July 13, 2013 9:18 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

“Obama's plan to provide universal health insurance in 2014 … make a law that you have to buy it [=] let's make a law to prevent AIDS by outlawing homosexuality”

I’ve been over it dozens of times now and I’m still not getting it. There’s bits and pieces but I just don’t see the analogy.

What I am seeing, however, is that you used your disdain for “that nigger in the white house” as a springboard to portray those you can openly-despise, as diseased.

Now, are diseased-ridden-gays the way you want people to remember the way you remembered the Obama Administration?

Of course not. So my advice to you is to just do your best and try not think about gay sex.

The only other advice that I would humbly offer is for you to please, please keep writing.

July 16, 2013 2:35 AM  

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