Proceed at your own risk

UNDERESTIMATING THE ENEMY

From Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore (above), one of the opening ceremony speakers at this past weekend's Munich Beer Hall Putsch Tea Party Convention:

"[Obama] has ignored our history and our heritage, arrogantly declaring to the world that we are no longer a Christian nation. He has elevated immorality to a new level, setting aside the entire month of June to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride. He now threatens to change our law to allow homosexuality in our military ... He's apologized to the Arab world for our past, subjugated our national sovereignty by bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia. He has pursued a socialist agenda by taking control of private companies and pushing a national health care plan with a public option. Backed by a willing Congress, he's bought off our senators and representatives with our own money in an effort to mandate his agenda."

I have several times blogged about my view that the real Christian agenda is not to block same sex marriage or hate crime laws but to criminalize homosexuality in the United States. I have also stated in the past that American Evangelical support for the Uganda nightmare is about creating a framework and a model for similar laws out of Congress.

And now, of course, the influential American Family Association has finally planted its flag in the ground on this topic and has launched a campaign to convince its Christian followers that homosexuality should be criminalized for the same reasons that we criminalize illegal intravenous drug use: both are sources of disease, crime, corruption of youth and extreme immortality.

This past weekend's nightmarish Tea Party Convention, spearheaded by Sarah Palin, surfaced many frightening issues and criminalization of homosexuality was among them.

And at the heart of this Christian campaign is a very rarely discussed fact that somehow never enters the mainstream debate on gay rights.

And it should.   Christians would prefer that we don't discuss "it" because "it" is the legal grounding that will eventually provide the foundation for a direct assault in Congress and the Supreme Court. 

And while most eyes in the media and in "progressive" leadership focus on Roe Vs. Wade, the more vulnerable target even higher on the Christian Republican and Tea Party agenda is Lawrence vs. Texas.

And the fact is that despite the 2003 Supreme Court decision (Lawrence vs. Texas) that invalidated sodomy laws nationwide, 13 mostly "Tea Party" states have defied the Supreme Court and still have sodomy laws that may be rarely enforced but remain on the books.  And these 13 statutes will provide much of the ammunition and framework that Christian Tea Party Republicans will use when they eventually go after Lawrence vs. Texas.

With hopes high that the Christian right will retake the White House and Congress in 2012, the executive director of the American Family Association writes:

"The First Amendment has been around for 219 years, and I don't hear anybody saying we've got to get rid of it because it's so out of date. The issue is not how old a law is but how right it is. The fact remains, however, that in nearly 25% of the states in the Union, sodomy is still in the criminal code as illegal behavior.

"Think for a moment of the current social controversies that could potentially be avoided if homosexual conduct was still against the law. Gays in the military: problem solved. We shouldn't make a place for habitual felons in the armed forces. End of discussion, end of controversy. If someone objects, ask them which other felonies the military ought to overlook in screening recruits. Gay marriage: problem solved. We should never legalize unions between any two people when the union is forged specifically to engage in felony behavior. Would we sanction, for instance, the formation of a corporation whose stated purpose was to import illegal drugs? Gay indoctrination in the schools: problem solved. We don't want to raise a generation of schoolchildren to believe that felony behavior is perfectly appropriate. That's why we spend so much money warning students about the danger of drugs. Hate crimes laws: problem solved. We wouldn't throw a pastor in jail for saying that illegal behavior is not only illegal but also immoral. For instance, he's free to say that murder is not only contrary to man's law but also to God's law. End of the threat to freedom of religion and speech. Special rights for homosexuals in the workplace: problem solved. No employer should be forced to hire admitted felons to work for him. End of the threat to freedom of religion and freedom of association in the marketplace. This list could actually be extended, but you get the point. Laws not only curb dangerous and risky behavior, they keep such behavior from being normalized, sanctioned and endorsed by the rest of society, and as such render an enormous benefit to a healthy culture."

"The promos for the old movie "American Graffiti" asked the question, "Where were you in '62?" If the same question were asked about the United States, we'd have to answer: in a much better, saner and healthier place when it comes to criminal sexual conduct."

Most of our community continues to write off AFA and others like them as extremist fringe organizations that are not who "we" really are as a nation.

This is a conclusion that is among the reasons the gay rights advocacy industry has failed us.  We write the nuts off while the nuts are taking us down state by state.

Open your eyes, dudes!  Homosexuality criminalized in the United States as it is throughout Africa and most of the Muslim world?  Ridiculous?  Far-fetched? 

As of today, February 9, 2010, legal same sex relationships are banned in 40 of our 50 states,  and "sodomy" remains quietly criminalized in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas,  Louisiana,  Michigan (felony punishable by 15 years in jail for the first conviction, and life imprisonment for the second conviction), Mississippi (felony punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment),  Missouri,  North Carolina, South Carolina,  Texas,  Utah and Virginia.

Enforceable? No.  If Lawrence vs. Texas is overturned?  Not only enforceable but a very solid State's Rights framework for national legislation.

THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD, AGAIN

At about 5 a.m. on April 19, 1775, 700 British troops, on a mission to capture patriot leaders and seize a patriot arsenal, marched into Concord, Massachusetts to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green.

British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Concord ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

At midnight on May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first American state to allow same-sex marriage as a result of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional under the Massachusetts constitution to allow only heterosexual couples to marry.

Massachusetts became the sixth jurisdiction in the world (after the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec) to legalize same-sex marriage. It was the first U.S. state to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Because federal law confers marital benefits only upon opposite-sex marriages, more than 1,100 benefits remain unavailable to married same-sex couples in Massachusetts.  There was more work to be done and now it appears that it shall remain undone for generations to come.

Shortly after the polls close this evening at 8 p.m. January 19, 2010, several million Massachusetts voters may very well have buried the legacy of the American Revolution begun in that very same state some 235 years earlier.

Furthermore, the first state to legalize gay marriage will become the state that may have marked the beginning of the end of the modern gay rights movement.

Ridiculous?  What on earth am I talking about?  With all eyes focused on the fact that today's special election in Massachusetts to fill the Senatorial seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy may kill health reform, the other white meat has been ignored.  That other white meat would be Obama's agenda to deliver equality to gay Americans.

If Republican Scott Brown takes the Massachusetts Senate seat in today’s special election, the Democrats and Obama will lose their critical 60 seat super majority, health care reform will not pass and, more importantly to you and me, Obama’s window of opportunity to make good on his promises to deliver equality to gay Americans will have closed--and likely closed for at least another 10 or even 20 years--unless the Republicans change their mind about gay rights.

Republicans will once again be in control of Congress with enough votes to filibuster just about any “radical” Democratic social agenda legislation into oblivion. The government won’t shut down, but in order to pass legislation the Senate will need bi-partisan support and bi-partisan support will cost us just about every “progressive” Democratic party platform item.

His health care bill and his ability to govern at all at stake, President Obama took time out from saving Haiti this past weekend to campaign in Massachusetts for endangered Senate Democratic candidate Martha Coakley amid release of all polls showing a quickly growing edge for the Republican Party.

In fact, Obama and the Democrats have so bitterly disappointed Massachusetts voters that a Republican seems likely to take a Senate seat Democrats have held for over a half-century.

"If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill," Democrat Barney Frank, D-Mass., said, underscoring the stakes of Tuesday's special election.

A Suffolk University survey released late Thursday showed that Brown, a Republican state senator, with 50 percent of the vote in the race to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.  The so-called Democratic shoe-in Coakley had 46 percent. That amounted to a statistical tie since it was within the poll's 4.4 percentage point margin of error, but it was far different from a 15-point lead that Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general, enjoyed in a Boston Globe survey released a week earlier.

The Suffolk poll also confirmed a fundamental shift in voter attitudes telegraphed in recent automated polls that Democrats had dismissed as unscientific and the product of GOP-leaning organizations.   And it signaled a possible death knell for the 60-vote Senate supermajority the president has been relying upon to stop Republican filibusters and pass not only his health care overhaul, but the rest of his legislative agenda heading into crucial mid-term elections this fall.

One disturbing irony in this election is that progressive Massachusetts voters are furious with Obama's massive conservative compromises on health care reform and conservative Republican Brown has pledged to vote against the health care bill.

Brown's election would give Senate Republicans the 41st vote they need to sustain a filibuster--and even Democrats manage to push the legislation through before Brown takes his seat in Congress, it would likely be the last piece of Democratic social legislation to pass under Obama.

The last.  No ENDA. No repeal of DADT. No repeal of DOMA.  No equality.  And all because Obama and the Democrats delayed action on their many Party Platform promises to progressives and liberals and gays.

Of course, the Democrats could still win and Massachusetts will have fired yet another "shot heard round the 'gay' world".  But will we hear it?  Will we have learned?  Given a last minute reprieve, will we act? Will we hit the streets in outrage?   Will HRC demand action NOW before November 2010, when we will likely see the beginning of the end of the short golden age of Barack Obama?

STONEWALL: GAY RIGHTS OR GAY MYTH?

Some gay bloggers and activists are calling for an economic boycott of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).  Ah, the gay community, always ahead of the game when it comes to life's superficialities but as blind as bats when it comes to the things that matter.

A threatened boycott would have been a nice idea in 2008 when it would have mattered--but it seems somewhat ridiculous to boycott the most powerful  political organization in the nation when it is already boycotting us.

Maybe we are as silly as Adam Sandler and Sasha Baron Cohen portray us to be.

The Democrats have financially bled us dry, raped our souls, made complete fools out of us, and now we're going to deny them what exactly? 

The Democrats, with a majority in the New York State legislature, can't deliver marriage equality in this bluest and gayest of states even with the full and vocal support of New York City's Republican mayor and our Democratic governor. 

"Can't" is the wrong word.  "Won't" is the operative word. 

With a New Jersey Democratic Governor publicly committed to signing a same sex marriage bill, a state legislature with clear pro-gay marriage Democratic majorities in both houses and and several public opinion polls showing that a solid majority of New Jersey voters want same sex marriage for their state, the New Jersey State Senate shot it down.

Promises, party platforms, Presidential commitments, convictions, principles, ethics and Constitutional values all went out the political window once Democrats considered their electability in the November election.

Apparently we no longer have even a two party system.  Both parties put Republicans and Christian conservatives first in virtually every decision made.

One could easily argue that the appalling outcome of the marriage equality fight in New Jersey may very well signal the end of the gay civil rights movement for a generation.  If New Jersey and New York Democrats are representative of the true values  of the Democratic Party, we may be at the end of this game, especially when Obama loses control of Congress come November 2010.

Furthermore unless our community finds a way to shut down the sycophantic money sucking circus that includes HRC, The Task Force, GLAAD and the dozens of other gay advocacy establishment groups that worship at the Obama alter, the boycott will be dismissed by the DNC much in the way Obama dismissed the March on Washington--calling those who marched "The Internet left wing fringe" of the gay world.

As a minority and as a community we need to ask ourselves some very challenging and very painful questions--but these are questions we seem incapable of even articulating, much less asking.

The first and most telling question has to do with the so-called birth of the modern American gay rights movement: The Stonewall Riots.

What actually emerged from that "historic" event?  Visibility? No doubt about that.  But visibility did not end slavery, sexism or anti-semitism.

Almost half a century has passed since that iconic and legendary moment and yet the gay rights movement has been left in the dust by the civil rights triumphs of blacks, Jews, women, Catholics, Native Americans and Hispanics.

Much did come from Stonewall:  parades, parties and less jail time; but as a civil rights movement?  Stonewall as the birthplace of the gay civil rights movement may be more myth than reality.

Almost half a century later and discrimination, segregation and marginalization targeting gays is not only legal and commonplace, it still stands as official Obama White House and Democratic-controlled Congress policy. 

"Visibility" has resulted in a majority of U.S. States implementing constitutional bans against gay family rights and laws that empower religious institutions to openly and assertively discriminate against gay Americans in employment, social services, education and housing.

While life has dramatically improved for gay Americans--an assessment this gay American of 61 years can easily and confidently render--our civil rights have only slightly improved--and only depending on where you reside. And that fact brings the gay civil rights movement up to the status of pre-Martin Luthor King Jr. African Americans--a time when a black man could be legally imprisoned for daring to drink from a whites only drinking fountain from Texas to Virginia.

Don't misunderstand:  the heroes of Stonewall deserve nothing less than our reverence, respect and highest honors--but along the way, we most definitely lost their message, outrage and sense of purpose.  Each and every one of the Stonewall rioters would be appalled to see how their fury has morphed into parties, Mardi Gras-like parades, celebrity studded galas and endless fund-raising emails from HRC, the Task Force and Family Equality.

The Stonewall Veterans must be pleased that we can now legally consume alcohol in public and fuck in the privacy of our own homes without fear of arrest but they must also look at a Tsunami of horrific national and state discriminatory laws and government policies that did not exist in 1969 and now define much of our lives.

How can we call Stonewall the birth of a civil rights movement when in fact there are hundreds of new laws limiting civil rights for gay Americans that did not exist in 1969.

Stonewall Veterans must also be shocked at how the gay community of the here and now squanders it's political currency, economic clout and social influence.

In fact, the most astonishing part of this mess is that "visible" gay America is equal to the more successful minorities in hard numbers and economic clout.  But in terms of political power, we might as well still be criminalized.

Even the most conservative right wing estimates and Evangelical lies admit to 6.2 million  queers.  Objective statisticians and marketing pundits put the number somewhere between 24 and 35 million.  Science suggests that somewhere between 8 to 12 percent of every human community falls somewhere along the spectrum in the so-called LGBTQ community.  That translates to about 30 million gay Americans.

Politically and gay rights movement speaking, these are shocking numbers. 

Why shocking?

Shocking because we must ask ourselves why a minority with such large numbers has been so ineffective and incompetent when it comes to protecting and demanding its own civil and even basic human rights?

Hispanics and Latinos of all races cumulatively account for 46.9 million of the total population.  African Americans add up to 37.6 million Americans.  Jews total around 5.3 million of which about 3 million are registered voters--nationally.

The Jewish vote city by city and state by state is relatively insignificant compared to the gay vote, except for the fact that over 80 percent of Jewish voters vote and they vote with a mostly unified voice.  The Jewish vote counts.  Why doesn't the gay vote count?  Is it because of Israel?  Maybe.  Is that what the gay community needs?  A sovereign gay nation that stands as a scary member of the nuclear club?

Unlike queers, other "visible" minorities from Hispanics to Native Americans enjoy powerful and focused political and social unity, direction, passion for their own communities and clearly effective and potent social and political advocacy groups.

But all is not lost.  Boycotting may be an idiotic strategy, but refocusing our dollars and energies into a cohesive, well-funded and mission-driven political party would be another matter entirely.  A boycott is spitting in the wind; a new progressive American political party that stands for equality, tolerance, diversity and humanism would be spitting in their faces.  And I am all for that!

Most democracies--with the glaring exception of the United States--give voters four or five or more options at the polls.

Americans are forced to decide between a centrist party with conservative social views or a right-wing party with outlandishly offensive social views.

But, for gay voters, the two party system is particularly offensive. Republicans are outwardly horrible on gay issues and the bulk of the gay vote will, automatically, go to Democratic candidates. There are no alternative candidates ready to take a stand for equality and thus, there are no consequences for Democrats when they fail to promote the equal rights agenda.

The answer is a third party that concentrates the  financial wealth and voting clout of the gay community in major cities and blue states.

We might not have the numbers to actually beat major party candidates, but we most certainly have the numbers to defeat Democrats without voting for Republicans--and that should scare the Democrats enough to deliver the results and actions promised but always forgotten once they are in office.

Threatening the fiscal base of the Democratic Party is an important tactic--but threatening their voter base by floating a truly liberal candidate in districts with close races would be an even better strategy.

Have someone run on an equal rights, populist platform with support for social services and equality under the law and see how quickly the Democrats start racing around for ways to fold in the left vote they have ignored for so long.

Ralph Nader tried this and managed to strike fear into the heart of major political parties for quite some time. Let's play on this fear. Stop donations to the Democrats, yes, but redirect that money to a campaign for plurality, for choice and for political competition. 

It is long past the time when Stonewall should be honored and its promise fulfilled.  Instead we--gay America--have turned Stonewall into nothing more than a myth, a fantasy.

The strategies and tactics pursued by the professional gay advocacy movement of the last 20 years have are clearly a colossal and historic failure.  And as a result, Stonewall is more honestly described as the birthplace the gay party scene; hardly a gay rights movement.  Hardly.

A REAL LINE IN THE SAND

In the sometimes seemingly hopeless war against American bigotry and homophobia, the largest city in Bushland and the nation's fourth largest city drew a line in the sand this past weekend electing the first openly gay mayor of a major American metropolis.

In short, history was made--not for gay rights but for democracy.

Houston turned its community back on virulent Republican, Evangelical and Catholic homophobia.  And this city of more than 2.2 million Texans solidly defied the stereotypes of African American and Hispanic homophobia. 

According to official census figures, less than 3 percent of Houston's registered voters are gay.  Over 25 percent are African American and over 37 percent are Hispanic Catholics--and yet just over 53 percent of voters delivered victory to a gay woman over a Black man. 

According to one Houston pundit:  "Houston is the winner because Annise Parker's prior experience will serve her well as Mayor.  Parker, a native Houstonian, has already served the city for over a decade as a City Council Member and as the current City Controller.  Prior to entering public service Parker spent twenty years in the oil and gas industry. Parker will need to draw upon this experience to lead Houston through lean economic times and position the city to be a leader in new energy development.  Houston is the winner because it did not succumb to bigoted fear-mongering and homophobia.  Yes, Annise Parker will become the first openly-lesbian mayor of a major U.S. city. However, Houston voters demonstrated, for the 7th time in Parker's case, that they can elect candidates based on their experience, qualifications and abilities, without regard to their sexual orientation. Houston is the winner because it has elected an eminently qualified public servant as its next mayor. We are all winners because fear-mongering and homophobia lost."

I would echo that sentiment:  as Americans we are all winners because for the first time in a very long time American voters--and American voters in a very Red state, defeated "fear-mongering and homophobia."

Standing with her partner of 19 years, Kathy Hubbard, and their three adopted children, Mayor-elect Parker told the press on Saturday night:  “Tonight the voters of Houston have opened the door to history.  I acknowledge that.  I embrace that. I know what this win means to many of us who never thought we could achieve high office.”

Throughout the campaign, Ms. Parker tried to avoid making an issue of her sexual orientation and emphasized her experience in overseeing the city’s finances.  But she began her career as an advocate for gay rights in the 1980s, and it was lost on no one in Houston that her election marked a milestone for gay men and lesbians around the country.

Several smaller cities in other regions have chosen openly gay mayors, among them Providence, R.I., Portland, Ore., and Cambridge, Mass. But Ms. Parker’s success came in a conservative state where voters have outlawed gay marriage and a city where a referendum on granting benefits to same-sex partners of city employees was soundly defeated.

Furthermore, during the final weeks of the campaign, a group of African American pastors partly financed ($40,000) by Parker's Black opponent, viciously attacked Ms. Parker for what they called her gay agenda and two separate anti-gay advocates sent out fliers in the mail calling attention to her support from gay groups and to her relationship with her partner.

Political strategists said that to win, Mr. Locke needed to carry a large majority of the black vote, which is usually around a third of the turnout, and to attract significant support from conservative whites, many of them Republicans, who are also about a third of the voting mix here.

The crowd at Ms. Parker’s acceptance speech included dozens of young gay men and lesbians who had volunteered on her campaign. Many were elated with the sense of history being made. “It’s a huge step forward for Houston,” said one of the volunteers, Lindsey Dionne, who is lesbian. “It shows hate will not prevail in this city.” Robert Shipman, who is gay and worked long hours for Ms. Parker, said: “The diversity in this room, it’s not just gay people, it’s gay, straight, black, white, Jew, Christian, Muslim, every kind of person. It took all of us to get to this point.”

For his part, her opponent was gracious in defeat, calling for unity after what had sometimes been a heated campaign. “We have to all work together to bring our city closer and closer together,” he said. Ms. Parker appeared to have cobbled together a winning coalition of white liberals and gay people, who were expected to turn out in large numbers.

Regardless of who did turn out, it is noteworthy that the supposed throngs of homophobic blacks, Hispanics, Catholics, Evangelicals and Republicans that dominate Texas and Houston politics simply did not materialize. 

COMMONWEALTH, UNLESS YOU'RE GAY

I hear "genocide" and I hear "crisis" and "crimes against humanity".

But then I'm a whiny freak and will never play with the big boys, like The Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth held its annual meeting last week in the Caribbean with one major goal in mind: To reassert its influence on global politics and international law.  The Commonwealth, composed of nations of Britain's former colonial empire and representing more than a quarter of the world's countries, not only failed to achieve its goal but in fact confirmed its complete and utter irrelevance--at least within the quirky confines of my freaky world.

Having the opportunity to officially censor and even expel Uganda from this family of English-speaking "democracies" on the eve of Ugandan implementation of sexual orientation genocide policies, this once respected union stood silent--and that included the Commonwealth nations of Australia, Canada and Britain.  Sure, the Prime Ministers of Britain and Canada did make some noise, but it was just noise and then they went back to "work".

Reminiscent of Holocaust times, the gay friendly nations of the world (a group similar to the Jew-friendly nations of the early 20th Century) felt that a firm response to a nation set on homophobic laws and policies that would warm the cockles of every Nazi black heart was too much of distraction in the face of global warming issues and the economic woes of the day.

I suppose the good news is that tens of thousands of gay Ugandans will not live long enough to experience any of the benefits of Commonwealth influence on climate and economic policies.  Six million plus Jews were also thrown to the wolves because this very same group of nations was then preoccupied with the Great Depression.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Leaders of the 53-nation group, whose profile has waned in recent years, say they now have a chance to influence the global debate. "What we can do is to raise our voices politically," said Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago, who hosted the biennial meeting. "We feel can have some effect in influencing the discussions in Denmark."

Others apparently agreed. This year's meeting is drawing non-English-speaking  leaders from outside the Commonwealth such as Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and, most unusually, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Commonwealth, established in 1949 and made up almost entirely of former British colonies, promotes democracy, good government and education. But the mission seems to be fading: A new report by the Royal Commonwealth Society, a non-governmental organization, said its polling found "members of the public are largely unaware of what the Commonwealth is or does" and called for a more aggressive role in international affairs.

But when the group was called upon to address the most pressing human rights issue of the day--a true human rights horror that is sweeping many of the Commonwealth member nations such as Jamaica, Nigeria and, of course, Uganda, a decision was made that gay genocide has nothing to do with the promotion of "democracy, good government and education."

Around 80 countries in the world still outlaw homosexuality, and more than half of those are former British colonies. Most are members of the Commonwealth.

Both Manning and Kamalesh Sharma, the secretary general of the Commonwealth, declined to condemn a proposed law in Uganda that imposes life imprisonment for homosexual acts and the death penalty for having homosexual sex while HIV positive. The law also sets prison terms for people who do not report known acts of homosexuality. Manning declined comment, saying it was an internal matter, while Sharma said he hoped the bill would be changed before the Ugandan parliament takes a final vote on it. "We must show our faith that this is a process which is going to deliver in the end the appropriate result," he said.

Once again, the gay-friendly nations of the world have reaffirmed the view that sexual orientation is not a universal human right.  Gay men and women remain expendable when it comes to things that "really matter".  As a Jew I get this.  As I gay man I wish we had our own nuclear nation so that like Israel we would be in a position to remind the world that we're not going to take this shit anymore.

GAY RIGHTS AND SWISS MINARETS

What do gay rights and Swiss Minarets have in common?  No, nothing to do with phallic symbols.  Sorry.

It is an amusing question, but it is also a question that points to a profound difference between European and American democracy.

This past Sunday, shocking many other Europeans and many Swiss citizens, a majority of Swiss voters turned their backs on the Swiss Constitution and the basic principles of modern democracy and voted to ban Muslim Minarets.

Why a majority of Swiss voters did this is irrelevant--although bigotry, fear and Christian arrogance certainly factored strongly in this process.

But Europe’s top human rights watchdog says this Swiss ban on minarets violates fundamental liberties. The Swiss justice minister also said the European Court of Human Rights could strike down the Sunday vote, which incurred swift condemnation at home and abroad for banning the towers used to put out the Islamic call to prayer.

The 47-nation Council of Europe said that banning "new minarets in Switzerland raises concerns as to whether fundamental rights of individuals should be subject to popular votes."

Hmmm...an interesting conclusion to say the least.

Clearly President Obama, the DNC and most Americans would disagree with this European perspective.   A vast majority of Americans believe that the bigotry, fear and intolerance of a majority of voters should absolutely take precedence over democracy, freedom, individual rights, civil rights and constitutional law.

Stripping away the civil rights of a minority of citizens is pretty much par for the course in this nation. However, our European brethren see it differently. They believe that basic principles of human and civil rights should not be at the whim of an angry, ignorant or frightened mob. The Europeans have learned through hard experience that when the ballot box is used to override freedom and civil and human rights--fascism flourishes and ultimately rules the day.

Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the ban would come into force immediately, but indicated that it could be overturned. "The ban contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights," Zurich daily Blick cited Widmer-Schlumpf as saying.

The referendum backed by nationalist parties was approved by 57.5 percent of the population Sunday, forcing the government to declare illegal the building of any new minarets in Switzerland.  It doesn't affect the country's four existing minarets.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was "a bit scandalized" by the vote, which amounts to "oppressing a religion." "I hope that the Swiss will go back on this decision rather quickly," Kouchner said on France's RTL radio. "It is an expression of intolerance, and I detest intolerance."

The U.N.'s special investigator on religious freedom, Asma Jahangir, said the ban on new minarets constitutes "a clear discrimination against members of the Muslim community in Switzerland." Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, called the ban an "example of growing anti-Islamic incitement in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values."

Arriving at a meeting of European Union justice ministers, Widmer-Schlumpf argued the vote was not "a referendum against Islam ... but a vote directed against fundamentalist developments." She defended the referendum as being "about minarets and not, of course, about the Islamic community," she said.

Reminds me of American politicians who claim they are not homophobic, just trying to save the traditional American family and protect Christian values.

Supporters of the ban said the number of Muslims in Switzerland had grown sharply from 50,000 in 1980, but it is still only 4 percent of the 7.5 million population, many of whom don't practice.

Voting figures showed a rural-urban split in the Swiss vote, with only 38.6 percent of people in major cities backing the ban compared with about two-thirds of the population in smaller towns and villages, officials said.

Remarkably, this story clearly teaches us that the ongoing march of ballot box bans on gay rights would by European standards be considered a clear violation of international law and democratic principles.

But even more remarkably, we all know this—at least those of us who respect and treasure the United States Constitution—and that, apparently, does not include Obama and the Democrats--who are using the ballot box outcomes of California, Maine and other states to retreat from gay rights like rats fleeing a drowning ship.

THE DARK SOUL OF JUSTICE SCALIA

Some things need to be seen, as frightening as they may.  The dark soul of Tony Scalia is one of them.  I don't want to know this man, but as a United States Supreme Court Justice, he has considerable power over my life.  He needs to be known.  He remains an enduring gift to us from that Republican darling Ronald (There's no such thing as AIDS) Reagan.

If the Democrats lose control of Congress in 2010 and Obama loses the White House in 2012 as a one term President, it will be men like Scalia--along with Roberts and Alito--who, in collusion with a Republican White House, will make us yearn affectionately for the Bush Cheney years.  Scalia will be among those who lead the drive to re-criminalize homosexuality.

Many accuse me of hyperbole when I express my concerns over the possible re-criminalization of homosexuality--or sodomy as the Republicans like to call it even though the sin of Sodom was inhospitality and hypocrisy and not anal sex.  But the lesson of Prop 8 and 40 some standing state bans against gay equality more than demonstrates the Republican intent and just how easily the ballot box and the courts can be used to strip away equality and legality from the lives of gay Americans.

Just last week, speaking before the Arizona College of Law, Justice Antonin Scalia, or Tony S, as I like to call him, angrily criticized some of his colleagues in the court system for "inventing rights that nobody every thought existed"--among them "homosexual sodomy".

It should not go unnoticed that a Supreme Court Justice is still referring to us as "sodomites"--but it did go unnoticed by the White House and by the media.

According to Scalia, his "more liberal colleagues are trying to manufacture new constitutional rights that were never intended by the drafters.  The fight is about the Supreme Court inventing new rights nobody ever thought existed,'' Scalia said.

Focusing on abortion and "sodomy", Scalia argued, "Come on. Nobody thought it violated anything in the Constitution for 200 years. It was criminal.''

Scalia discussed his hope that the Supreme Court would one day have the opportunity and the will to reverse the decisions that struck down state laws banning abortion and sodomy.  Scalia argued that the bans on sodomy are absolutely constitutional.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who shared the stage with Scalia, said his colleague was taking an overly literalistic approach to the 18th-century document. He said the changing nature of society, by necessity, requires more than looking at what Scalia called "originalism.''

"You don't look to the details,'' Breyer said. "You look to the value.''

For example, he said, flogging may have been legal even as the framers of the Constitution were banning "cruel and unusual punishment'' in the Eighth Amendment.

"I don't know the exact details of what everybody in the 18th century thought was cruel and unusual,'' Breyer said. He said that by enacting that particular ban, they enacted "a set of values, not a particular set of 18th century circumstances.'' And Breyer warned that using Scalia's approach, "it won't be a Constitution anyone will be able to live under.''

Scalia insisted that the Constitution is meant to be an exception to democracy and the rule of the majority, whose views may change from time to time.  He specifically warned that those who approach the Constitution as Breyer suggests will not always find courts expanding the definition of individual liberties. He said a court that decides one day that something is cruel and unusual punishment could just as easily decide down the road to allow something that now is considered barbaric. "It goes both ways,'' he said. "The only thing you can be sure of is the Constitution will mean whatever the American people want it to mean today,'' Scalia continued. "And that's not what a constitution is for. The whole purpose of a constitution is to constrain the desires of the current society.''

And in Scalia's view that means current and "fashionable" views on homosexuality, a practice that would never have been seen as a "right" by our founding fathers and should not be treated as so.

Scalia said those who do not share his "originalist'' philosophy are now deciding what the 14th Amendment of the Constitution means, the one that guarantees "equal protection of the laws'' to all citizens.

"Does it include same-sex marriage? A requirement for equal pay for equal work?'' he mused.  Scalia said those who believe in an "evolutionary'' approach "close your eyes and decide what you think is a good idea.''

Using his "originalist'' philosophy, Scalia said he likely would have dissented from the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared school segregation illegal and struck down the system of "separate but equal'' public schools. He said that decision, which overturned earlier precedent, was designed to provide an approach the majority liked better. "I will stipulate that it will,'' Scalia said. But he said that doesn't make it right. "Kings can do some stuff, some good stuff, that a democratic society could never do,'' he continued. "Hitler developed a wonderful automobile,'' Scalia said. "What does that prove?'' Scalia said there needs to be some bedrock of principles that the document means. He mentioned a 2005 high court decision that concluded it is unconstitutional to execute those who were younger than 18 when they committed their crimes. A decade earlier, Scalia said, the Supreme Court set the bar at 16. "The next time it'll be 21,'' Scalia said. "Once you abandon the original understanding of the text, there is no other criteria.''

Scalia said even his 2001 decision outlawing the use of "thermal imaging'' equipment to let police peer through walls to see activity inside a house did not require him to use an evolutionary approach to the Constitution, even though such equipment did not exist in the 18th century. "I did it by regarding what the framers would have thought about a technique that essentially intrudes into the house without the consent of the homeowners to find out what is going on in the house,'' Scalia said. "They clearly would have thought that was unlawful.'' He said there is a remedy for those who want different or broader rights: go to the Legislature. He said those bodies are free to decide whether abortion or homosexual activities should be legal.

At the heart of Scalia's arguments, of course, is an unwavering conviction that the right to life, liberty and happiness is not relevant to homosexual Americans; and that homosexuality is outside the law.  It is a breathtaking and horrifying perspective but one that must not be ignored as is currently the case.  Scalia's "musing" on our lives as gay Americans is not the daydream of some random bigot or madman, but rather represent a serious threat to our safety and viability as American citizens.

BARACK OBAMA

Gay rights and equality suffered another crushing defeat yesterday, rejected in Maine and New Jersey. 

A majority of American voters opposed the abolition of slavery, a woman's right to vote and control her own body, interracial marriage and war against Hitler's Germany--to name but a few ballot box disasters. And, yesterday, once again, American voters demonstrated their uncanny inclination to put bigotry and fear above constitutionality, human rights and common decency.  But the truth of what really happened was a spectacular failure of national leadership.

Human slavery was abolished, women earned the right to vote and control their own bodies, Barack Obama's parents were allowed to legally marry and Nazi Germany was defeated because of brilliant, moral and courageous leadership--something very much lacking in the hypocritical, inexperienced and dishonest con artist who now occupies the White House, lacking in the leadership of the Democratic Party and agonizingly lacking in the executive offices of the gay advocacy movement.

There is only one course to equality and freedom and it has been demonstrated over and over and over again in human history; and that is rage.

Obama's lack of national and moral leadership defeated equality in Maine, not the voters.  And Joe Solmonese and his kind must go. And if gay America does not take to the streets and wash this nation clean with the blood and sweat of massive civil disobedience and outrage, it will be as if Stonewall never happened.  Gay rights in America is on the verge of becoming a passing fancy.  What will we do about it?

This is a nation of bullies and until good people take firm action, the bullies will continue to run our lives and determine our future.

AS GOES MAINE

One of Barack Obama's specious arguments against a federal initiative in support of marriage equality is states rights.  Despite the fact that his parents would not have been able to marry without federal intervention  if states rights had prevailed on the issue of interracial marriage, the President insists that each state should decide this matter according to the standards of the local communities.

It is interesting to consider that our president believes civil rights, equality and discrimination are not universal rights in this nation but rather at the discretion of local ballot boxes.

Of course, I think he's full of shit and just using this as one of his many excuses to delay fulfilling his glorious promises to gay Americans.

But if you do accept the states rights and local community argument than how can the President stand silently by in the face of the multi-million intervention of a national hate group and the Roman Catholic Church in Maine, New Jersey, New York, Iowa and many other states?

In fact without the intervention the Ku Klux Klan of the 21st Century, the National Organization for Marriage, Prop 8 would have gone down in defeat and the gay community would not now be forced to spend millions of dollars that could be going to gay homelessness, for example, on defending the local gay communities in the various states.

At the very least the President should be true to his words and take a stand against this and other national hate groups that are clearly perverting the states rights process.

If Maine's legally legislated marriage equality law is taken down today because of the massive intervention of this national hate group and the intervention of the Vatican which ordered it's Maine diocese to direct congregations to vote against democracy and equality, it will be the fault of a hypocritical president who stood silently by while the democratic process was made a shambles.

Late last week, the Maine attorney general made a last ditch attempt to expose and discredit the National Organization for Marriage in an attempt to reveal the illegal intervention by religion in the state's democratic process.  The Maine AG hoped to rally Maine voters to stand by its own legislature and reject that meddling of national hate groups, Salt Lake City and the Vatican in Maine politics.  He would have and should have been aided by our own gay-friendly President, but this was not the case.

And while our President hid behind his states rights argument, he allowed a national hate group to pervert the states rights process.  Over $5 million was spent in Maine alone by outside hate groups, not to mention the millions of dollars extorted by Priests from Roman Catholic parishioners in Maine over the past few months of Sundays.

This is the legacy to date of Barack Obama, one that is enabled daily by our own gay rights advocacy organizations.  His silence on the realities of the gay rights fight is as lethal as his quiet support of organized religion's lavishly financed  crusade to deny gay Americans their Constitutional rights.

In Maine, a state ethics commission announced in early October that it would investigate whether the National Organization for Marriage was flouting campaign finance laws to keep its donors anonymous. In response, the National Organization for Marriage sued the state last week in Federal District Court in Bangor, Me., on the ground that Maine’s financial reporting requirements violate the First Amendment and are therefore unconstitutional.

Maine law requires any individual or group that raises or spends more than $5,000 to influence a ballot question vote to disclose donors who gave more than $100 for that purpose. The group also sought a temporary restraining order because “the election is imminent,” Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote in his ruling, “and they wish to make solicitations and expenditures that exceed the $5,000 limit without registering or reporting.”

According to the latest filings, the National Organization for Marriage has contributed about $1.6 million to Stand for Marriage Maine, the group leading the repeal effort. The Maine ethics commission decided to investigate the National Organization for Marriage after a California group argued that it was essentially “money laundering” by soliciting donations for the repeal effort without disclosing donors. The complainant, Californians Against Hate, also prompted an ongoing investigation in California of the Mormon Church, which it accused of not reporting significant contributions it had made to the campaign against same-sex marriage there, partly through the National Organization for Marriage.

While Judge Hornby allowed the lawsuit to proceed, he denied the motion for a restraining order on the ground that the suit was unlikely to succeed. “Maine has a very strong interest in providing its voters with information about the source of money that funds the campaign on either side of a ballot issue,” he wrote.

The National Organization for Marriage maintains that it did not break the law because it solicited donations to fight same-sex marriage in general, not the Maine statute in particular. James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for the group, said at the end of last week that it was not subject to Maine’s reporting law because it had contributed the $1.6 million to Stand for Marriage Maine, which has reported its donors to the state. But the state attorney general, Janet T. Mills, said the National Organization for Marriage had an obligation to reveal its donors. “We think they should file immediately,” Ms. Mills said in an interview. “We expect and trust that they’ll do the right thing.”

Mr. Bopp said that the law punished people for exercising First Amendment rights and that its requirements were burdensome.“To the extent that it requires reporting of contributors or people associated with the organization,” he said, “that’s an invasion of their privacy and it certainly chills First Amendment activity.”

These people are actually arguing that secret funding of anti-civil rights campaigns by national and international (the Vatican) hate groups is protected by the First Amendment. 

Shoot me now.

At the end of day, millions of anonymous and illegal out-of-state dollars were spent to influence the Maine elections and despite all the legal back and forth nothing was done to stop it or expose it and today's election will proceed.  Shame on The White House, shame on the Justice Department.  Shame on Congress.  And shame on us all.    Let us hope that Maine voters will today reject national hate groups as well as international hate groups like the Roman Catholic Church and vote to protect equality and civil rights for all Americans.

"As goes Maine, so goes the nation."

NOT SO FAST

Legislating broader powers for the federal government to address hate crimes which are acts of terrorism directed at a specific community is not a civil right.  The Patriot Act was not about civil acts, it was a response to terrorism.  That is what hate crime legislation is about as well.

Indeed, this is the first piece of federal legislation that identifies gay Americans as a potentially suspect class worthy of protection and that is a very good precedent.  But we are far away from seeing how that plays out in the courts over the long years ahead.  And as it plays out, it does not change the fact that gay Americans remain second class citizens.

So why are gay advocates celebrating the Matthew Shepard Act as a civil rights victory?

Once again, the gay community and its so-called friends pop the  champagne cork prematurely and inappropriately.

I am delighted that President Obama has signed the defense spending bill that allowed the Democrats to slip through the Matthew Shepard Act.  It was a clever move, allowing the President to take the position that he wasn't really signing hate crimes legislation "protecting" gay Americans, rather he was signing vital defense legislation with a small "codicil".

So what civil rights are HRC, The Task Force, GLAAD and the others crowing about? 

The right to see violent bigots prosecuted for physical attacks on gay men and women?  The existing law has "protected" Americans from violent crimes based on race, religion and ethnicity and now is expanded to include sexual orientation.  First, one has to question the impact these anti-terrorism laws  have had on violent crimes directed at African Americans and Hispanics.  Second one has to question how this impacts on gay rights.

Clearly I'm missing something.

I suppose we're celebrating the Matthew Shepard Act because it means that although I can still be fired from my job, denied an education, banned from the military, denied health care, denied family rights, denied social services and denied financial services and insurance, the straight man who fires me can no longer beat the crap out of me without a reprimand from the FBI.  Well that's good news.

I know. I know.  I'm a party pooper.  Why can't I just enjoy the new hate crimes law like everybody else?  Maybe it's because I simply cannot accept that putting fictional gay characters on TV and sending FBI agents after psychopaths advances my civil rights as an American citizen.  And when others say it does, I worry that this will slow down true progress.  I worry that the Democrats will rest on their self-declared laurels and that the gay rights movement will once again be distracted from reality.

The hate crimes amendment is most definitely an advance--anything that upsets Christians is an advance in my book--but let us hope that it doesn't become a distraction.  Much more important legislation awaits: banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, ending the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, and allowing same-sex marriage.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) must make it a priority to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the Defense of Marriage Act.  President Obama has repeatedly said he'd sign those bills into law.  It's time for Congress to follow through.

Again, the hate crimes legislation matters and is very important, but in the fight for gay rights it has the potential to be just another bread crumb and I am sick of those among us who celebrate bread crumbs.

It's worth noting that the hate crimes legislation that protects blacks, hispanics and Jews, effective or not, came 5 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and it was the 1964 legislation that changed the world.  Once again, the Obama administration is approaching gay rights ass backwards and hoping that bread crumbs will keep us mollified so that he can avoid what really matters.

It's kind of like buying all kinds of fun automobile accessories but being denied a driver's license and a car.