Annals of Poor Taste

In Minnesota, a woman who had been grief-stricken over the death of her son from a heroin overdose tried to burn down her house, kill her husband, and kill herself, in especially gruesome fashion.

The diagnosis from Power Line, a conservative blog?  It's because she's a Democrat.  The money quote:

This sad anecdote from my neighborhood illustrates a commonplace of sociology: scratch a conservative and you will almost always find a happy person; scratch a liberal and you are likely to encounter a seething cauldron of disappointment and rage.

Ugh.  How grotesque.

HT: Sullivan.

Catholicism and Human Dignity

A Jesuit priest urges his fellow Catholics to celebrate the repeal of DADT, since it "says nothing about gay marriage (nor would it have been approved by lawmakers if it had), since it does not contradict church teaching on that matter, and since it takes a strong stance against 'unjust discrimination' against gays and lesbians, as the Catechism encourages[.]"

Very welcome words.  While the author is absolutely right about the spirit and the letter of the Catechism, he is distressingly at odds with the thinking of the Church grandées.  While the Catechism says that gays "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity," the Church itself shows little of any of this to gays.

Indeed, the Church's recent decision that gays - and even those who "support homosexual culture" without themselves being gay - should not be permitted to become priests is the ecclesiastical equivalent of DADT.  Actually, it's worse the DADT, and more akin to the outright ban that DADT replaced.  Aside from the unequivocal ban, the Church's proclamation states that, "if a candidate practices homosexuality, or presents deep-seated homosexual tendencies, his spiritual director as well as his confessor have the duty to dissuade him in conscience from proceeding towards ordination."

Critics "have long objected that gay seminarians might feel they have no choice but to lie about their sexual orientation," and there can be no doubt that the consequence of the Church's hostile approach is to force devout gay Catholics who wish to join the priesthood to face an Inquisition if they pursue that dream.  Shrugging off the blame for the witchhunt they themselves create, the Church's lawgivers state, with sublime callousness, that "[i]t would be gravely dishonest for a candidate to hide his own homosexuality[.]"

More roadblocks, more unseemly inquiry, more humiliation, more degradation.  Do ask, do tell - and then reject.

Anglican Church - woo me.

Ireland Needs Billions

Sigh.

HRC's True Colors: Green and More Green

HRC has an app for the iPhone showing gay-friendly businesses.  It's called - brace yourself - HRC's "Buying for Equality Guide."  The icon is a little shopping bag with the HRC logo on it.  Not an app for news, not an app for gay resources in your town - an app for shopping.  How HRC!  (In fairness, it's free, so I downloaded it.)

Meanwhile, in Minnesota

Walter Mondale sees a bit of Carter in Obama.  Ouch.

Two Videos

Here's one on the failure of political leadership:

...and here's a bit of splenetics (with bad language):

Both with music!

HT: Savage.

Obama Heckled (on Video)

Not for the last time, I hope.

It Gets Better Gets Better

Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" was the noble project of the day yesterday. It still is today. One of his readers also touts the therapeutic value of Stephen Fry's letter to his younger self of 35 years ago. It, too, is noble and good, and uplifting. It is important to remember, for example, that

Gay people sometimes believe (to this very day, would you credit it, young Stephen?) that the preponderance of obstacles and terrors they encounter in their lives and relationships is intimately connected with the fact of their being gay. As it happens at least 90% of their problems are to do with love and love alone: the lack of it, the denial of it, the inequality of it, the missed reciprocity in it, the horrors and heartaches of it. Love cold, love hot, love fresh, love stale, love scorned, love missed, love denied, love betrayed ... the great joke of sexuality is that these problems bedevil straight people just as much as gay. The 10% of extra suffering and complexity that uniquely confronts the gay person is certainly not incidental or trifling, but it must be understood that love comes first.

And if Fry's letter is like a comforting blanket, there's a letter from the Master himself that's more akin to a bucket of cold water thrown at the face. He knows, better than most, that love is irrational, and causes you to do the most ridiculous things - to risk your fortune, to risk your freedom, to risk your health, to risk your happiness, to debase yourself, to immolate yourself, to jeopardize if not give away outright the better part of yourself.

May it always be so.

Juice Boxes and Kettle Chips Are Making Us Gay

Um.

HT: TDW.

PS: LOVE the t-shirt.

John McCain Is an Evil, Lying Bigot and Should Resign

Department of "The Root of All Evil"

So, what are the gays being blamed for now? Why, global warming and human trafficking, natch! (HT: JMG.)

Sheesh. What won't the gays be blamed for? Well, at least they can't blame us for hurricanes - whoops, spoke too soon there. Well then, surely not for terrorist attacks - whoops again. Well, they would never say that people with HIV/AIDS got what they deserved - argh, wrong again (those who say this then run for the Senate from Delaware).

Okay, let's try one last time. To my knowledge, gays have never been blamed for the death of Jesus. In the long history of nutjob accusations against gays, this is one bomb that's never been thrown. Whew.

It's no surprise, though. We all know who is really responsible for the death of Jesus, anyway. You know - those scheming evilmongers who engage in ungodly work and who are up to their armpits in the blood of Christian babies. That's right. The abortionists. Get 'em, Glenn Beck!

And Just What Is This?

Did a staffer for Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) post "all faggots must die" in the comments section of a gay blog moments after the vote on DADT? WTFF?

Coward.

UGH.

The DADT vote just failed.

The roll 'o jackanapes:

• Susan Collins, R-Me., for voting against.
• Olympia Snowe, R-Me., for voting against.
• Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., for voting against.
• Mark Pryor, D-Ark., for voting against.
• John McCain, R.-Ariz., for outright douchebaggery and disgracing his uniform.
• General James Amos, Obama's recent pick to lead the Marines, for opposing repeal hours before the vote.
• Barack Obama, for doing fuck-all on this.

But not, it seems, Harry Reid, who also voted against it. Apparently, under Senate rules, voting with the majority allows him to reintroduce the measure at a later date. Erm, okay. Pass, for now.

Quote of the day from Alexander Nicholson of Servicemembers United:

Today's vote is a failure of leadership on the part of those who have been duly elected to serve this nation and to put the best interests of the country ahead of partisan politics," said Alexander Nicholson, director of Servicemembers United, an advocacy group that sought the law's repeal. "The Senate could learn a good lesson from those who serve in uniform and who stand to benefit from proceeding to debate on this bill -- serving this country means putting politics aside and getting the job done. It is simply inexcusable that this vote failed today.

Anger is justified. Anger is the only appropriate reaction.

Reax from pro-repeal groups here. A good, detailed accounting here - shame on Susan Collins for voting against just because Republicans wanted to offer more amendments.

Gah

Well, here's one movie I won't be seeing.

Absolutely Unbelievable

An assistant attorney general in Michigan has launched a weird, perverse campaign against the openly gay president of the Student Assembly at the University of Michigan. This is just unreal:

More info here. And here's the AAG's blog itself. Unreal!

Pastor Terry Jones Calls Off "Burn a Koran" Day

Well, he clearly lacks the courage of his convictions. I propose an alternative: "Burn a Moron" Day. First on the fire:

Those chops'll catch like kindling!

I joke - in seriousness, it is never a failure of courage when one chooses to do the right thing. Congrats, Pastor Jones, on doing the right thing. Now let's never hear from you again.

UPDATE: The Guardian has a short but insightful article on Pastor Jones' past in Germany.

Philly Sucks

Here's reason number a bijillion why Philly is Camden's lamer next-door-neighbor: they wanna make you pay $300 for the privilege of blogging. Hey Philly: how about I give you nothing, trash you at every turn, root for the other team, and get outta here? Sounds like a better plan to me.

UPDATE: Money quote in the video segment from Colin Flatt, blogger: "I think what we really need to worry about here is the use of common sense and discretion, and these are two traits that we don't always see when it involves Philadelphia and the infrastructure here." You said it, brother.

Motivation

A health club in Jersey City knows where it comes from: hatred.

Heh, heh. Stupid Mel.

HT: TDW. Yes, again!

Blago to Jurors: Be as Crooked as Me

Here's a story from Esquire. It's about the merciless beating that Rod Blagojevich (pictured at right) is taking in court, and hypothesizes that Blago's best strategy, at this point, is to pursue jury nullification. That's the name for the residual discretion that jurors have to decline conviction despite a finding of guilt. While it is not often sought, jury nullification does have an ancient pedigree in the Anglo-American legal tradition.

I take a dim view of jury nullification. The argument for it is, essentially, a plea to the subjective sympathies and views of the jurors. It involves asking the jurors to decline to convict because of some fundamental concern that - the argument goes - is not accounted for in the legal system. Jury nullification was put to ignominious use in the pre-1960s South, when white jurors would often refuse to convict white men guilty of lynching blacks. In theory, it can be a tool for securing justice despite the law; in practice, however, it has more often been a tool for securing injustice despite the law.

Furthermore, it's poor form. An attorney who argues for jury nullification - whether for fair goals or foul - is essentially asking the jurors to abdicate their role in the judicial process. Pressing for nullification is probably never unethical, but I do think that a lawyer actively undermining the judicial system is a tad, well, unseemly.

In Blagojevich's case, to pursue nullification, he would have to argue that, because corruption is widespread among politicians, no politician could withstand such scrutiny. Accordingly, the only just course is to acquit. This is the argument in Esquire.

I have some problems with this.

First, no. A logical chasm exists between the concepts "no politician could withstand such scrutiny" and "the only just course is to acquit." Why? What sense does that make? Since when do we acquit guilty politicians because there are other guilty politicians we haven't caught yet? What would make a juror want to do that? The argument makes no sense at all and is silly.

Second, also no. The factual premise "no politician could withstand such scrutiny" is not true. It just isn't. A juror hearing this argument would think: They're not all as bad as you are, Mr. Blagojevich. You have to face the fact that you are indeed bottom-of-the-class material.

Third, no again. As argued above, I think it's wrong to pursue jury nullification in almost every case - certainly in the case of a corrupt and arrogant pol like Blagojevich. Save it for very rare cases of gross injustice.

Fourth, nowhere in this article is any basis in fact given for the suggestion that Blago's legal team is actually considering such a move. This is a hypothetical scenario. I think it's important to point out things like that.