Arizona: It's a Dry Hate

This became inevitable the moment Janet Napolitano took off for Washington, leaving the entire state government apparatus in the hands of the GOP. But still.

Attorneys for the state will ask a federal appeals court today to let Arizona stop providing insurance benefits for the partners of gay workers.

State lawmakers voted to end the benefits to save money.

The domestic partner benefits directive went into effect in 2008 under Napolitano, who expanded the definition of "dependent" for state workers to include all unmarried partners, both gay and straight. One of Jan Brewer's first official acts upon flumping down behind the governor's desk in 2009 was to rescind those benefits. Then a US District judge issued an injunction forbidding the state from backing out of the benefits package, and that brings us to today in suddenly federal lawsuit-happy Arizona.

The comments on the online article are, as usual, a treat.

Just When You Thought Arizona Could Not Be More Shameless, Boom.

Should it be just a little embarrassing when people across the country know your anti-brown-immigrant laws by their bill numbers? Well, since Russell Pearce just can't get through the day without shitting on the Mexicans, SB1070 just got a new putrid baby brother: SB1405. This latest contribution to the steaming sludgebucket that is Arizona politics goes a little like this:

A. Before a hospital admits a person for nonemergency care, a hospital admissions officer must confirm that the person is a citizen of the United States, a legal resident of the United States or lawfully present in the United States. The admissions officer may use any method prescribed in section 1-501 to verify citizenship or legal status.

B. If the admissions officer determines that the person does not meet the requirements of subsection A of this section, the admissions officer must contact the local federal immigration office.

C. If the hospital provides emergency medical care pursuant to federal requirements to a person who does not meet the requirements of subsection A of this section, on successful treatment of the patient the admissions officer must contact the local federal immigration office.

D. A hospital that complies with the requirements of this section is not subject to civil liability.

What could possibly go wrong? Stock up on your tripe, cilantro, and limes now, because I have the feeling that self-medicating with menudo is suddenly going to sound like a safer bet to a lot of people than actually going to the hospital to be harassed. This will be filed in the Great Moments in Public Health textbook right after George W. Bush marveling on the campaign trail at the wonderful US medical system that has led to thousands of people using the emergency room as their primary healthcare provider. Well, it should be a lot less crowded now in Arizona emergency rooms, what with uninsured low-income people, many of whom are Latino, (1) being scared shitless to use their only and last resort for getting treatment and then conveniently (2) dying off at an accelerated clip.

Maybe (1) and (2) above are Russell Pearce's eight-dimensional chess game gambit for solving the funding problem that has left southern Arizona with exactly one Level One trauma center and sorely overworked emergency departments in the hospitals that are still open. Hey, he got his, and you know what that means for everybody else. This just formalizes things.

Whatever will next week bring? I shudder to think.

Tom Horne Rides Again

You can't help but... well, since "admire" doesn't quite ring true here, let's go with "notice," so *ahem* You can't help but notice former Superintendent of Education and brand-new Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne for his ability to stick to his guns.

Exhibit 1: The Combover.

While he was still the head of the worst educational system in the US, Horne went Don Quixote (English-language translation only, por favor) on the windmill of the Tucson Unified School District's ethnic studies program, in particular its Mexican American Studies program. Now that he's the state's top lawyer, Horne has vowed to make it his top priority to enforce Arizona's new anti-ethnic studies law (really) by jabbing the windmill with his lance, blowing it up, stomping on the rubble, and bonking dissenters in the head with any bricks that are left over.

The law, which went into effect Friday, prohibits courses that:

• Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

• Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

• Are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group.

• Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of students as individuals.

Horne was the author of the first draft of the statute, which was amended in the Legislature.

Never mind that TUSD is largely Hispanic, or that Tucson sits smack-dab in the middle of a hunk of the landscape that actually was Mexico until the US bought it in 1854, or that quite a few of the families whose kids might like to take a Mexican American studies class have been living in Tucson for a couple hundred years longer than Tom Horne has been living in America. You know, since he was born in Canada to Polish parents who--in a strangely familiar story--immigrated in search of security and a better life for their children.

No word on whether proficiency in White Privilege Studies will now be required in order to graduate from Arizona high schools, or if it will simply continue to be assumed.

The Saddest Video I Have Ever Seen

Old Yeller and Dumbo--Jesus, seriously, fuck Dumbo--will more reliably make me cry, but this display of an utter lack of humanity, empathy, or compassion saddens me to the very core and makes me feel hollow inside.

As usual with this sort of thing, the comments on Wonkette are the only things keeping me from spiraling into complete heart-and-soul-schmerz. Good job, Teabaggers. Your country thanks you. By which I mean Jesus weeps.

0-32.

The advantage to being a lifelong Cubs fan is an apparently genetic propensity for not getting overly bent out of shape over absurdly long losing streaks. Be that as it may--and despite being rich with metaphors--baseball is not life, and my reaction to Maine voters last night overturning their state's nascent marriage equality law (making such ballot measures voted on by my fellow citizens 0-for-32 now) is about as far from wait 'til next year as you can get. It is more along the lines of if you voted for this latest round of bigotry, fuck you.

That's it. It's not a constructive reaction, nor is it polite, and I am utterly unapologetic. There is so much this morning I find disingenuous about this election, this campaign, this issue every goddamn time it comes up and "the people" slap it down. We patiently point out logical inconsistencies in the usual litany of arguments the anti-equality camp trots out like clockwork, parrying every sacred rite invented by God bleating with the availability of religion-free weddings in a courtroom, every procreation yelp with newlywed senior citizens and young but sterile folks, every marriage is a holy union you faggots can't handle with the high divorce rates among evangelicals, and it doesn't matter. When the organized bigotry industry can draw on the no-limit ATM that is the Mormon-Catholic alliance (second collection, anyone? before we have to sell the church, that is? last one out, shut off the lights, 'k?) and produce TV spot after TV spot hammering the same lies over and over to a population with the collective critical thinking abilities of a turnip on a five-day bender, nothing we do matters. Nothing.

Won't someone think of the children? Seriously? This still works? How does this still work? It works when someone agrees to pimp out his five-year-old to stare into the camera with Puss-n-Boots eyes and say daddy, the teacher told me in kindergarten today I have to marry a man. The children will be taught gay marriage. Oh, the vapors. Kindergarten will turn into Kindergaytown. It will be an all gay all the time curriculum. No reading or math or naptime. Just gay. Gay, gay, gay kindergarten and first grade and third grade. Because that would totally happen.

And it works. Every. Goddamn. Time.

Yeah, I think of the little kids. I think of the fact that all those grownup gay folks who want to get married in Maine were little kids themselves once, and they all turned out gay despite not hearing one peep about gays, married or otherwise, when they were in kindergarten. I think about the gay kids who are still killing themselves at a rate that is horrifyingly higher than their straight peers and wonder if hearing gay=normal in elementary school might have created an environment for them where they wouldn't feel so hopeless. Shit, I wonder if I had learned the first thing about lesbians in school that was more extensive and accurate than the single sentence if you're infatuated with another girl it's just a phase that will pass, I might not have spent my entire middle school and high school career feeling like an outsider without knowing why, never quite fitting in, always just different enough from everyone else to not be counted as anyone's best friend. It might not have taken me 31 years to figure out what my deal was, all the while noticing other women similar to myself and thinking wow, she looks a lot like me, I wonder if she catches a lot of shit too. And the perfectly nice guy I was married to for a while as a result would have been spared a world of hurt.

So I think of the children, and I think of the adults they've grown into, and I wonder how otherwise intelligent people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can stand there with a straight face and say marriage is a question that should be left to the states. Because it is never just "left to the states" when a national organization based in another state pulls in piles of money from even other states and buys airtime and flies their mouthpieces from yet other states into the target state to spread as many lies and as much fear as necessary to change laws to their liking and leave their muddy footprints on the lives of people they have never met and will never see, in a state they will likely never set foot in again once their meddling is complete and their crowing is over.

So please, spare me this morning the too-familiar platitudes about how these votes are just getting closer and closer, as if losing by six percentage points instead of sixty makes it a lower-case loss instead of an upper-case LOSS, as if it makes a bit of difference in the real legislative world or in the lives of couples who apparently are supposed to shrug and smile and say well, honey, we're not quite as second-class citizens as we used to be! Maybe next year!

Fuck next year. Bring on the ban-divorce ballot measures, because I will totally vote for that shit to protect sacred marriage and guarantee every child a mother and father at home. Hey, I got mine, so fuck y'all. That's the American way.

Boggle.

The Obama administration has released a brief regarding a suit filed by a married male California couple against the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Neat! Unfortunately, the brief, in a variety of ways, tells us to STFU and marry a straight person if we want our slice of the government's precious, limited pie.

I don't often link to Aravosis, but the man is a lawyer, and he parses the brief at length and better than I could. I will just add my two log-cabin-backed pennies to the discussion, regarding this:

Loving v. Virginia is not to the contrary. There the Supreme Court rejected a contention that the assertedly "equal application" of a statute prohibiting interracial marriage immunized the statute from strict scrutiny. 388 U.S. 1, 8, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967). The Court had little difficulty concluding that the statute, which applied only to "interracial marriages involving white persons," was "designed to maintain White Supremacy" and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 11. No comparable purpose is present here, however, for DOMA does not seek in any way to advance the "supremacy" of men over women, or of women over men. Thus DOMA cannot be "traced to a . . . purpose" to discriminate against either men or women.

Miss the point, much? No, the purpose of DOMA is clearly not to discriminate against either men or women. That's because the purpose of DOMA, and even more so the purpose of the defense offered by the administration, is to discriminate against both men and women who happen to be gay. And when Obama's lawyers start trotting out the legalese equivalent of "you have the same right as everyone else to marry someone of the opposite sex," well, I start putting my fist through the nearest wall.

Patience, my ass. Putting off action is one thing. Actively working against a cause you pledge your support to whilst campaigning for dollars and votes is entirely another.

Maybe one of my lawyer friends can talk me down. You guys enjoy a challenge, no?

You're Not Paranoid if They're Really Out to Get You

By now you've probably heard about the Mormon memo, which starkly illustrates both the depth of the animosity toward gay people and the frighteningly patient long-term planning that has gone into the effort to relegate us to underclass status for ever and ever, world without end. If you haven't heard about it, the memo dates to 1997, when it was spurred by Hawaii's short-lived movement toward marriage equality, and outlines the Mormon strategy to prevent or rescind marriage equality--homosexual legal marriage, or "H.L.M." in LDS parlance; we have not seen such an affinity for acronyms in a grievously long time--wherever it might pop up, anywhere in the nation.

For at least eleven years the LDS has been plotting and planning, to borrow a phrase, the best way to eliminate civil rights from a group that had never done anything to the Mormons more offensive than simply existing. A couple things stand out here for me. First is the recognized need for the Mormon church to coattail with the much higher profile (at that time, at least) Catholic church on anti-gay activism. The second might seem like a throwaway bullet point, but it might be the most disheartening snippet in the entire memo for me.

That last bullet: "...in order to win this battle, there may have to be certain legal rights recognized for unmarried people such as hospital visitation so opponents in the legislature will come away with something." In other words, in order to take the big important rights away from the faggots and dykes we might need to cave and let them see each other in the hospital, but Xenu knows that if we could get away with it, we'd eliminate that right too. Hospital fucking visitation. It's been my own personal whipping boy, the reductio ad hospitalum bandied about by people who might not reduce our relationships to a sex act but most definitely are happy to reduce the huge sphere of marital rights and responsibilities to the single issue of ICU access. And now we learn that it's the fucking shriveled little carrot the Mormons grudglingly consent to dangle in front of us even as they prepare to whack us with the stick.

Kiss my giant lesbian ass, Mormon church. You forfeited any claim on my civility when you decided to launch a crusade to strip me and mine of full citizenship in this country.

Snap Judgment

Quick, what are these people celebrating?

What glad tidings have provoked such joyous, fists-in-the-air cheering? Did their candidate win the presidency? Or a senate seat? Did they just learn of a tax repeal that's going to save them some precious grocery money? Are they celebrating anything that directly impacts their own lives?

Or are they celebrating the passage of an amendment that just took away marriage rights from people who are different from them?

If you guessed the latter, you are, unfortunately, correct. Hey, from left to right, Bob Knoke, Amanda Stanfield, Jim Domen, and J.D. Gaddis? Fuck. You.

Not That You Need Another Reason, But...

If the hypocrisy on congressional earmarks, the strident anti-abortion stance, the lifetime NRA membership, the spouting of Christian revisionist history, the equating of geographic proximity to Russia with foreign policy expertise, and the conflation of small-town mayorship and 22 months as small-state governor with so much more awesome and directly transferrable experience than Obama can ever dream of were not enough, now there's this. Sarah Palin enthusiastically supports "hunting" by shooting wolves and bears from airplanes. It may be a step up from Cheney-style "hunting" that involves shooing functionally domesticated quail out of cages and into the line of fire, but, aside from the the fact that trophy hunting of any kind is disgusting, the airplane-assisted version doesn't even pretend to be sporting.

Wanna be a real tough Alaska guy or gal who will impress me? Get out there and kill a bear with a pocketknife. High-powered rifles with scopes from a plane? Not so much. And wolves, no matter how you kill them? Forget it. I'm really sorry that wolves who have fought their way back from the brink of extinction, caused by government-sponsored or sanctioned eradication programs, are eating so many moose that you can't just walk out your back door and shoot one without working for it a little. But when Palin offers cash incentives--$150 per set of wolf legs you turn in--for you to go airborne and eliminate the need for stealth or tracking skill just as long as you have enough ammo, she becomes, in my mind, exactly like the idiots I know in Illinois who go out on Saturdays to see how many coyotes they can shoot because the coyotes eat rabbits, which said idiots also like to eat and don't want to be out-competed for. Which is kinda hard considering that a single pair of rabbits can crank out upwards of 35 new little rabbits each year, which in turn start their jobs on the rabbit production line in about six months. If you set out to exterminate a predator like that, I hope you also go out the other six days of the week to shoot the vermin the coyotes are taking care of for you, and if you aim to exterminate wolves from Alaska you'd best get out and perform all the other roles they take care of in that ecosystem.

And if you do it from a plane? Way to go, tough guy.

Will I concede that there's anything to like about Palin? Sure. She appears to bathe regularly. Always a plus. But I have yet to hear a single goddamn policy position that makes me do anything other than scream.

%@$#*&^%

I was so fucking stoked for my day this morning, despite waking up probably a dozen times during the night due to various combinations of restless dogs, a sore back, and an unexpectedly cold house--curse the decision to pack up the heavy blankets last weekend--and then I got out of bed and read this in the paper.

Let people of Arizona legally define marriage
Opinion by Cathi Herrod

Cathi Herrod is an attorney and president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative advocacy group based in Phoenix.

Charming. I pounded out my own op-ed response, but as it clocks in at 935 words, the Daily Star won't give it a look. Not that it likely matters much, really. You either believe her crap as gospel or you, well, recognize the crap factor. You use reason or you don't. You appeal to emotion and superstition or you don't. You live and let live or you take every opportunity that is handed to you to beat someone else down, just because you can. One online commenter huffed that since people voted to take away his rights as a smoker in the last election, he's going to vote to take away gay rights in this one. He wouldn't really care either way otherwise, but a man needs to take his revenge where he can get it.

Oh, look. Now we have an hourly update from the Star telling us

A proposed ballot measure to impose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is advancing at the Legislature.

Approvals by House and Senate committees means a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman could be considered by the full chambers as early as next week.

If it passes it would appear on the state's November ballot.

Fucking excellent. Gee, do you think it will pass a legislature dominated not just by Republicans, but by Arizona's own special brand of nutjob Maricopa County "the solution to more school shootings is more guns in schools" Republicans? You think?

I really, really hate this state sometimes.

Boltgirl Wades Into the Muck So You Don't Have To.

I have written before about the the bubble-like existence I have been privileged to enjoy living and working as an archaeologist in Tucson who also happens to be gay. Really, it's the kind of fantasyland a lot people can only dream of--my family is finally just about at full acceptance (even my elderly Very Conservative Christian grandmother, sort of) and it's not even remotely an issue at work. So when I don't have to deal with active discrimination in my daily life, it's easy for me to forget exactly how not there other parts of the country can be.

Hell, to see the full force of vitriol I don't even need to leave the state, but merely trundle up the interstate a couple of hours. The city of Scottsdale (quite upscale suburb of Phoenix) recently added gender identity and expression to their nondiscrimination policy, and the howling nutjobs predictably came out of the woodwork to glom onto the comment section following the Arizona Republic's online story.

Several people apparently confused this employment nondiscrimination ordinance with a hate crime statute, but most managed to stay on-topic. The comments run about 2 to 1 for the anti-gay camp. The anti comments fall into the usual categories we've come to expect. As always, spelling and grammar take heavy hits.

Learning Someone is Gay = Having Their Sexuality Shoved Down Your Throat!

Look, for the most part, most people just don't like gays. But if you folks would just take it back to the closet, no one would know, nor would anyone care, and you wouldn't be chastised for it.

For God sakes, get a life and quit whining....if you love being gay, no one cares as long as you don't put it in other people's faces. Personally, I don't want anything to do with any of you and if you come into a bathroom when I'm there, I'll make sure you're removed.

Gay = Pedophilia! And Stealing!

how about N.A.M.B.L.A. are they the next protected group. I know, I know. It's not a choice, the nambla people where born that way, yeah, uh huh.

I wonder when equal rights and special protections will be granted to pedophiles also.

What is next, are you going to give thiefs special gights because they like to rob people??

Gay = Perverted! And Mentally Ill!

Gays don't have anymore rights than any human being. The only rights they should have is to be imprisoned for being perverts. Gays don't have any specific Constitutional rights. I don't think anyone except for the perverts (gays) would fight for this country if there was.

I have no sympathy for them. If they want to be treated like normal human beings than they need to act and live like normal human beings. They are deviant and to deserve to be treated as such.

There is nothing natural about being a homosexual. If you are a homo or "Gay" as they like to call themselves, you have something seriously wrong with the wiring in your skull!

It's Only About Anal Sex!

Equal rights are fine but why give the wierdos special rights. I like kinky sex myself once in awhile but I don't expect anything special because of it.

How can a guy look at another guy's smelly hairy butt and fall in love?

Equal Rights = Special Rights!

The fact is, the laws like the one passed in Scottsdale open the door for "hate crime" laws, which are nothing more than justification to silence the masses and impose harsher punishment on "gay bias" crimes than on those involving the average Joe. That is WRONG.

What a joke. The privileges of protection under so-called hate crime laws have NEVER extended to: whites, straight males or Christian.

It's a Choice!

I believe that sexual orientation is a choice one makes. There's no proof that genetics dictate sexual preference.

I choose every day not to be gay. So being straight must be a choice.

Maybe you don't choose your orientation but you still choose your sexual partners.

The Children! Think of the Children!

this presents a danger to everyone in Scottsdale. Imagine your child having to share a bathroom, a school locker room or some other restricted area with a person of the opposite gender?

We will not accept this disease and should eradicate it before it affects our children.

But Not the Suicidal Gay Ones!

33% of gay youth will attempt suicide? The natural "thinning of the herd process" in action.

Thanks for the reality check, Phoenix. Merry Christmas to you too.

Meanwhile, the state of Arizona appears to be on the brink of offering DP benefits to state employees, which would be very good for many reasons. One of them is pre-emptively loading the ammunition against the next inevitable push for a constitutional amendment reserving all of the rights, responsibilities, and incidences of marriage for male-female pairings, up to and quite possibly including the possession of a tiered cake and monogrammed bath towels. It's also sure to set off another round of refreshing comment-posting by our fellow Arizonans. Stay tuned.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiice...

A stunning letter to the editor in this morning's Daily Star:

Re: the July 10 article "Drivers, take water for border crossers, new coalition urges."

I am still floored by the article asking citizens to carry extra water in our vehicles to help illegal border crossers.

Excuse me, but when did refusing to aid and abet illegal activities become "an indictment on us as a community," to quote Dr. Norma Price?

Why is this issue even news? I've lived here for 19 years, and every summer it's the same story. If illegals continue to try and cross our desert in triple-digit heat, they're going to die. This is a no-brainer. Weren't two people arrested a few years ago for doing just what this new coalition is asking people to do?

I for one will not help these folks. If this sounds cold, so be it. I am a law-abiding citizen of Tucson and plan to keep it that way.

Deborah Hodges

Tucson

Do I even need to say it? Yes-no, yes-no... ::mulls for two seconds:: Well, Law-abiding Deborah, should your car break down on Route 86 west of town this summer, make sure you're carrying your birth certificate and voter registration card with you, because if I don't have proof positive that you're an American citizen, you're not getting any water from me. Actually, I will also need notarized affidavits stating the same from two other American citizens, which means I'll need proof of their citizenship, and their witnesses' citizenship, and...

Because obeying the law always outweighs saving the lives of other human beings. Always.

On Being Michael Savage's Syrup of Ipecac

Yes, these days we do need a scorecard to keep track of which right-wing commentator made which bigoted statement about gay people; no news there. No news, old news, so what else is new? They're coming with jaw-dropping speed and frequency, almost to the point of making it difficult to keep getting worked up about them, but if we don't get worked up I fear the attacks will regain some cachet of 1950s legitimacy.

I will leave the business of Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a faggot, for now, since she's being thoroughly shredded and eaten even by fellow conservatives.

Michael Savage, though, gets a special (if overdue) shout-out this morning. Savage presented his radio audience with this little tidbit (a clip of Melissa Etheridge's Oscar acceptance speech) on February 26:

ETHERIDGE: I have to thank my incredible wife, Tammy, and our four children, Becky and Bailey and Johnnie Rose and Miller, and everyone --

SAVAGE: Turn it off. Get her off my show. I don't care what her name is. I don't like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. How's that? I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it's child abuse.

He repeated the "child abuse" accusation shortly thereafter, although it was nearly swamped by the other bon mots used to describe gays:

You say there are people who are sexually confused, who think that they're men when they're women. They're not normal. Normal people are not like that.

Maybe the police will come and take your child away in a few years if these scum-sucking vermin continue this brainwashing garbage.

So we get the gist: gays are child abusers, and raising a child in a home with two parents of the same gender is abusive. Too bad Mr. Savage wouldn't know what real abuse was even if it slapped him in the face.

Normal people are like Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy are normal.

Because straight is normal. And normal is not abusive. So when Daddy bundles eight-year-old you into a single-engine plane and crashes that plane into Grandma's house to get back at Mommy for divorcing him, well, that's not abuse. Or when Daddy kills four-year-old you and stuffs your body into a plastic tub in a storage unit and is strongly suspected of offing your five-year-old brother as well because Daddy's in a nasty custody dispute with Mommy, gee, that's not abuse either. But when Melissa Etheridge accepts her Oscar and, like every other Oscar winner, lovingly references her partner and children, that's abusive.

Is that hyperbolic on my part? Yup, totally. Because while rational people would not project these two cases of heterosexual filicide onto all heterosexual parents as evidence of their unfitness to raise children (despite the reporting of such heinous acts on a near-daily basis), anti-gay people tend to seize on any individual instance of child abuse by a homosexual (whether that person is a parent to the abused child or not) as rock-solid evidence that gays shouldn't be anywhere near kids, let along allowed to parent them.

And then, most disturbingly and dangerous of all, are the people like Mr. Savage, whose visceral reaction at the mere thought of gay parents--even loving ones--is all the evidence they need to "prove" that gays are abusive, abnormal, uh... scum-sucking vermin.

At least he's honest. He's the face of anti-gay bigotry laid bare, stripped of the Bible-based, child welfare-based, natural law window dressing piled on, layer after layer, in an attempt to conceal the nonrational gut reaction at the base of all the opposition to civil rights or even recognition of gay humanity: If it makes me want to puke it has no right to exist.

Thanks, Mike. You're a beautiful fucking human being.

On Coaches and Character.

With so much else going on the world--getting to that in a post later today--I'm not sure why the Tony Dungy thing has irritated me so deeply. It started as mere annoyance at yet another pro athlete or coach thanking God for winning the Super Bowl, as if God gives a rat's ass about championships in any sport. It grew as the Colts' owner joined the coach in asserting that God had a plan for their team which involved carefully orchestrated tests of character to ensure their eventual success for the glory of his name. Oops, His name, that is. But the clincher was Dungy's postgame response to being congratulated for being the first African-American to coach a Super Bowl champion (well, the first to coach a Super Bowl team, period, a distinction he now shares with the opposing coach, his close friend Lovie Smith):

"I'm proud to be the first African-American coach to win this," Dungy said during the trophy ceremony. "But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only the first African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that."

Dungy and Smith are hailed, as they absolutely should be, as demonstrations of how far our nation has progressed in civil rights and opportunities for African-Americans. But Dungy prefers to be hailed as a Christian. At first blush, it seems that he was taking a step beyond even the unprecedented enlightenment that made it possible for an NFL team to hire and go to a championship under a black coach: Judge me not by the color of my skin, but on the content of my character. It was awe-inspiring for a moment. While he was proud of what his achievement symbolizes for the African-American community, he preferred to be recognized not for the way he was born but for how he has chosen to live.

For his brand of Christianity.

By their works ye shall know them (Matt 7:20). Tony Dungy will be busy this month lending his time, name, and face to Christian groups who use the Bible to argue that not all people should be recognized and lauded for their character. He's headlining a fundraiser for the Indiana Family Association, a political group that, because of Biblical precepts, actively supports legislation to strip civil rights away from people like me.

The man who would prefer that people see him as a Christian first, African-American second is carrying the banner for a fundamentalist movement that 40 years ago used that same Bible to argue that black men shouldn't marry white women, that black kids shouldn't be educated in the same schools with white kids. And 150 years ago used it to argue that black men were unworthy for any life outside of slavery.

The man who has been held up as a symbol of our nation's enlightenment is simultaneously being claimed by groups who would have us revert to the dark ages. Depending on how you read his quote--Lovie Smith and I are not only the first African-American but also Christian coaches--you might get the impression that he's saying they're the first true Christian coaches to hit the Super Bowl. I certainly did when I heard it live.

I want to admire the man for breaking the color barrier, for conducting himself like a gentleman, and for contributing considerable amounts of time and money to charitable causes. But if I am to judge him by his character I must consider his entire character, and seeing him volunteer to be the poster boy for organizations that demonize gay folk as a group with no consideration for our individual characters--indeed, for the seeming conviction that there can be nothing lurking within us aside from the most perverse sin--saddens and angers me.

Tony Dungy's Christians will not judge my character. I can only judge theirs.

Back to Massachusetts

Tom Shields, right, and Kris Mineau, left, of the Family Institute celebrate with Massachusetts state Rep. Philip Travis, D-Rehoboth, center, an anti-gay-marriage amendment supporter, and unidentified woman. photo by Elise Amendola / The Associated Press

This picture from Massachusetts says it all. The sad thing, though, is that if you hadn't read the caption, you might think the photo had captured an older gay couple finally celebrating their long-delayed nuptials.

But no. No, no, no. These men, at least one of whom wears a wedding ring, are celebrating coming one step closer to denying gay people a civil right they themselves personally exercise. They got theirs, so screw everybody else.

The quiet resignation of the unnamed woman getting a kiss and a grope from the codger on the left might be the most illuminating part of the photo. Keeping marriage straight with clearly defined power divisions--it's a good day for these old men, indeed.

The Demographics of Our Personal Bubble

The monthly work meeting rolled around this morning, the one in which all the project directors and artifact analysts go around the conference room talking about what we've accomplished in the past month. It is almost as painful as going around the Thanksgiving table, but in a different way. More specifically, in an agonizingly boring way. I find different ways to amuse myself. Sometimes I doodle, sometimes I time the two most long-winded people to see if they'll suck up a quarter of the 60 minutes allotted to the entire group yet again this month. Today I did a highly accurate demographic analysis impervious to the absence of maybe five of the regular attendees.

Of the seventeen people in the room, we had five men and twelve women. One of the five guys is gay, two of the women are for sure and a third pings strongly. One person of the seventeen is a semi-observant Jew, but as far as I know none of the others currently adheres to a religious affiliation; at least five of these are strongly opposed to organized religion of any strain. Ten are married, two are in committed but non-state-sanctioned relationships. Four that I know of have been divorced. Nine have kids. Two are vegetarian. All have at least a bachelor's degree; six hold a master's, and eight have doctorates. Everyone votes Democratic, as far as I know.

Spending 40-odd hours a week in this environment, and then spending a significant chunk of my weekend time with my soccer team (5 dykes out of 15 women on the roster), at Bookman's, or at Trader Joe's (helloooooo) means that most of my daily interactions take place within a very progressive sphere. My experience with homophobia has largely been voyeuristic, reading stuff in the paper or online, wondering what it would be like to face bigots in real time, separated only by the air we both breathe. Secondhand accounts, pounding out fuming responses to comments on blogs and online newspapers... my anger is real and feels visceral enough, but still I sense the separation between my theoretical sparring with anonymous posters via pixels on the screen and a face-to-face confrontation.

In my world--despite what my apparent fixation on gay issues for this blog would suggest--I think of myself as just another person. Teh Gay is a part of my identity, but it's allowed to languish pretty far down on the list of attributes. To borrow a vile phrase from the bigots, my sexuality isn't shoved into my face by people who would define me solely on the basis of who I happen to fall in love with, who would reduce my entire being down to a specific sex act based on my wardrobe or the way I carry myself or the fact that, as a straight friend once pointed out, I don't get a lot of attention from the guys at the Ace Hardware because I walk in looking like I "know how to do projects." Got no experience with harassment in the workplace. The home loan officer didn't bat an eye when my partner and I sat down to sign the mortgage papers together. The lady at the gym approved my request for a family membership and looked at me like I was weird for doubting that same-gender heads of household qualify as a family under their policies.

So I worry, sometimes, that my bubble has built a false sense of security in my head (similar to this couple in Wisconsin). I felt it with each new state constitutional amendment that passed in November, felt it for sure when Prop 107 here in Arizona was defeated by a much closer margin than I had anticipated. The naive question keeps bumping up against the inside of my skull: who are these people? How can anyone still be so mean-spirited? I will find out, I'm sure, sooner or later. No bubble lasts forever.

Dammit, Janet!

Headline in the national news section of the Daily Star this morning: N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Energizes GOP Base. It is time to stop using the term "base" and start calling them what they are. The revised headline, of course, should read "N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Energizes GOP Bigots." Or perhaps "N. J. Ruling for Gay Marriage Gets Fundie Knickers in a Twist."

Proposition 107, the ballot measure in Arizona seeking to amend the constitution to outlaw gay marriage and civil unions, is polling increasingly poorly. This is good. Governor Janet Napolitano is opposed to it. This also is good. Curiously, though, Napolitano is also opposed to gay marriage:

Napolitano has said on several occasions, including this week, that she does not support gay marriage despite opposing Prop. 107. The governor said Wednesday she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman.

This is fascinating, given that I've always assumed she was a big ol' dyke herself. Other people seem to have assumed the same thing.

A reporter from the liberal New Times newspaper questioned Napolitano on Prop. 107 and her gay marriage stance at a Wednesday press conference. The questions quickly turned more aggressive, including bringing up rumors the governor is gay.

Napolitano has said on several occasions that she is not gay and said she was offended by the New Times question.

Whatever, Janet. Napolitano has been vital to moderate and liberal interests in Arizona since she's been in office, vetoing haybales of inane legislation delivered by the Republican legislature. She's stood up for gay rights in the workplace and supported domestic partner registries. Hearing the "one man, one woman" line coming out of her mouth is disheartening, unless she meant it as a veiled threat to the child-raping polygamists in Colorado City.

Not likely. Please, woman, do not put me in the position of having to vote against you for being a hypocrite. There are no other champions of reason bobbing anywhere in sight in the gubernatorial pool.

Equally puzzling ("puzzling" here meaning "spurring me to bang my head on the table") was the Daily Star's Prop 107 summary, published Saturday:

● Real-World Impact: The amendment would block "activist judges" or the Legislature from changing the law to redefine marriage, which backers say must be preserved as a traditional institution. Critics say same-sex marriage already is illegal in Arizona, and the move mostly punishes straight couples by denying them domestic-partner benefits. Gay and lesbian activists also say it would be a blow to them.

Just love it that gay folk--you know, the people the measure was written specifically to hurt--are mentioned as an afterthought, as a footnote. Granted, if demographics are the sole basis of the argument, then the move does indeed "mostly punish straight couples," simply because unmarried straight couples outnumber gay couples by about 10 to 1 in Arizona (taken with the obligatory grain of salt required by self-reported census numbers). This argument is mitigated, however, by the fact that unmarried straight couples truly are in a voluntary situation. I recognize that some of those couples are senior citizens attempting to preserve Social Security and pension benefits from deceased spouses, or non-seniors attempting to shield their new partner's income and assets from a vindictive alimony-seeking ex-spouse, but these exceptional circumstances certainly do not apply to all 115,700 straight couples in the state.

And--regardless of the reasons these people have for not marrying--if a civil union ban is passed and the unmarried couple relies on domestic partner benefits for health coverage, they do still have the option of traipsing to the courthouse, plunking down fifty bucks, and bingo, having their relationship recognized by the state, no questions asked. In that regard, the bulk of the punishment falls squarely as intended: on the backs of gay and lesbian couples who will have no recourse when their partner benefits are taken away.

Given that, the recent No on 107 flyer that landed in my mailbox last week was more than a little disingenuous. Pictures of two straight couples, one 30-ish, one 80-ish, were prominently featured. No pictures of same-sex couples, no mention of us at all save for the statement that gay marriage is already prohibited by statute. The focus was on straight couples.

I wish the people fighting for us were actually fighting for us on principle, not just because they had the potential to be hurt themselves. You know, that old thing about injustice anywhere meaning injustice everywhere, or whatsoever you do to the least of these? That thing? Yeah, it would be nice.

Want Pride? Got Yer Pride Right Here

I did not participate in any Pride activities this year, keeping my streak of forgetting to go to Pride alive and well. I forgot about the Saturday picnic until it was already late Saturday afternoon, and was unable to hit the Sunday parade due to a full slate of soccer games played and refereed. I failed to see any coverage in the paper this year, which was a little odd. They usually stick in a token picture of a drag queen or two, but if they did it this time around I missed it. Homer's coverage was pretty good. Gotta love the Gaysha.

However, I love this. Coming on the heels of David Kuo's published assertions that the White House is, in fact, only paying lip service to the religious right's face while calling them nutjobs behind their backs, the American Family Association has its modest knickers in a twist because Condi Rice not only swore in an avowed homo as the new AIDS czar, but was nice to his partner and called his partner's mother the new czar's mother-in-law.

You can feel the apoplexy coming off the screen in waves.

An Associated Press photo of the ceremony also shows a smiling First Lady Laura Bush and Dybul's homosexual "partner," Jason Claire. During her comments, Rice referred to the presence of Claire's mother and called her Dybul's "mother-in-law," a term normally reserved for the heterosexuals who have been legally married.

I love the scare quotes, not just around mother-in-law, but around partner as well. Actually, scare quotes isn't the most apt descriptor, but it's less unwieldy than "eye-roll-and-disgusted-head-toss-teamed-with-that-little-chuh!-sound." Calling the avowed homosexual's sodomite co-sexual-sinner a partner, as if the relationship were on the same hallowed level as Donny and Marie, or Tinker to Evers to Chance. Now there were some partners, people! But there's more:

"We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse," says Sprigg. "But even beyond that, the deferential treatment that was given not only to him but his partner and his partner's family by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is very distressing."

What the hell was Condi thinking when she treated those people respectfully, and at an official ceremony, no less? Doesn't she know that do-unto-others bit is only for people who deserve it, and that she should've snatched that Bible right out of the sodomite's hands and smacked him upside the head with it? But the capper was this:

He also notes that Rice's comments defy an existing law on the books protecting traditional marriage. "So, for her to treat his partner like a spouse and treat the partner's mother as a mother-in-law, which implies a marriage between the two partners, is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act," the FRC spokesman states.

Time to call in the FBI or, better yet, appoint a special prosecutor to investigate a sitting Secretary of State who not only treats sinners politely but blatantly violates federal laws forbidding speech implying that the mother of an avowed homosexual's sodomite plaything is anything but, well, let's face it, the mother of the spawn of Satan.

Tap Tap Tap... Straight Folks? You're Next.

The evangelical wing will never be content demonizing only us urine-drinking, rectum-intromissing sodomites and the wicked, hedonistic liberals who get abortions at every opportunity. Now they're coming after anyone who uses contraception--yep, even the 91 percent of people who believe married folks should be able to decide when or if they're going to have a baby.

The new strategy, as summarized in the Chicago Tribune, was unveiled at an anti-abortion meeting in sunny Rosemont yesterday:

Experts at the gathering assailed contraception on the grounds that it devalues children, harms relationships between men and women, promotes sexual promiscuity and leads to falling birth rates, among social ills.

Oh, but this takes me back to what passed for freshman theology in high school, particularly the semester-long "Reverence for Life" curriculum that left me alternately snoring and indignant. The ability of a man and woman to have sex without fearing an unwanted pregnancy--even if they're married--somehow means they're not selflessly sharing themselves with each other. Sex for pleasure rather than brusque, businesslike reproduction means you're selfishly closing yourselves off from God's gift of life (conveniently left out of this line of reasoning is why God's additional gifts in the nether region department included the clitoris, glans penis, and G-spot).

It's the let-them-eat-cake mentality, the same one we've seen endlessly applied to the poor (you can't afford health insurance? why, go out and get a second--or third--job!), to the hurricane-smacked (you didn't have a car to evacuate with? why, you should have just walked to Texas!), to HIV-infected women in Africa (you didn't want to get sick? why, you should have stopped having sex with your husband!). Now it's being applied to people who want rational family planning (you can't afford a[nother] child? why, just don't fuck!).

Commenters in the Trib article speculate that the no-BC'ers will push not for across-the-board contraception bans, but rather another creepy war of attrition similar to that waged against abortion rights over the past decade:

What's more likely, experts suggest, is an ongoing "chipping away" at access to contraceptive services. This could entail cuts to federal programs that pay for birth control. Likely it also would involve a state-by-state push to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions for reasons of "conscience."

You gotta hand it to these folks. They have been very patient, taking years to groom candidates for entry in local-level public office with designs on hopping up the legislative ladder one level at a time. Now that the groundwork has been laid, with various states enacting the pharmacists' right of refusal laws, how many bible colleges will start adding pharmacy programs? Nothing like a little point-of-sale control to get the practitioners of your ideology firmly entrenched in the front lines.

And if you do not personally subscribe to this particular strain of Christian thinking that teaches birth control is unacceptable under any circumstances because it befouls the couple's relationship with each other and with God? If you perhaps think you should not be subject to religiously derived moral rules about a highly personal matter that do not proceed from your own beliefs? Well, tough shit, pal.

Prop 107, round one

Here we go. Arizona is one of several states that will either put a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on their ballots for the first time in November, or will subject an amendment approved by their legislatures before the voters for ratification. Arizona's version is Proposition 107, heart-warmingly titled "Protect Marriage Arizona." Although gay marriage is already prohibited by statute here in cactus-and-canyonland, some municipalities have been forward-thinking enough to offer same-sex domestic partner benefits.

The text reads:

TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT MARRIAGE IN THIS STATE, ONLY A UNION BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN SHALL BE VALID OR RECOGNIZED AS A MARRIAGE BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS AND NO LEGAL STATUS FOR UNMARRIED PERSONS SHALL BE CREATED OR RECOGNIZED BY THIS STATE OR ITS POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS THAT IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF MARRIAGE.

The second part, of course, is the kicker, inserted specifically to roll back those partner benefits and force Pima County, the City of Tucson, the City of Flagstaff, the University of Arizona, and other government agencies to rescind health insurance and family leave for folks like us. It's the mean-spirited final gob of spit to the face. No marriage, no civil unions, no benefits extended to a county worker's partner or their kids.

Lest anyone think marriage or civil unions are no big deal, that we should just cough up a couple thousand bucks, hire a lawyer, and draw up all the legal documents we will ever need, here's a little dose of reality. State-recognized marriage in this country confers 1,138 rights and responsibilities upon the couple. All the legal documents in the world won't mean shit if you find yourself in a state whose constitution explicitly forbids the recognition of same-sex relationships intended to approximate marriage. There are already hundreds of anecdotes out there about what happens when a gay couple's best intentions run afoul of some asshat who's more interested in validating his own narrow worldview by going by the book than in being a decent human being during someone's time of need. Read these for the barest glimmer of our worst nightmares come true.

Now let us run down some of the organizations supporting the Arizona legislation. The Center for Arizona Policy has supported a full roster of marriage-related legislation in Arizona, including the original gay marriage ban in 1996. They cite the support of Daddy Dobson, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and Arizona Families for Home Education. Not surprisingly, they do battle with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on a regular basis. Their front-page support for 107 is limited to calls for help with circulating petitions and joining in the 40-day-prayer cycle for the November elections, but links are provided to "issue briefs." Several of these are devoted to homosexuality; the "Civil Unions and Gay Marriage" brief focus on activist judges, "marriage counterfeits" (civil unions are actually intended to undermine authentic marriages), and the fact that state recognition of civil unions is nothing more than ammunition for lawsuits designed to redefine and destroy marriage once and for all.

The Protect Marriage Arizona website is decorated with photos of happy young heterosexual couples (see, they even threw in one of a white woman and a Latino man, to show how progressive they are!). Their talking points recycle--surprise!--the same tired rhetoric about activist judges and the necessity of both a mother and a father if kids are to have any chance of turning out normal, along with a giddy dose of what-will-they-allow-next hysteria, although, perhaps to their credit, they stop at polygamy and don't trot out the usual references to bestiality. These points have been refuted a thousand times over, and doing so again here would take me into the wee hours of the morning.

The argument against these people, for me, quite simply crystallizes around the notion that when perfect (and perfectly drunk) strangers can get married on a whim in Vegas, automatically accruing all 1,138 of those federal rights and responsibilities for the price of a xeroxed license and a cab ride, only to nullify the whole thing the next morning after the hangover subsides to a dull roar, rinse, repeat, as often as desired, there is little left of the institution of marriage to "protect." Believe in the sanctity of marriage? Then don't screw around, don't get divorced. Don't believe in gay marriage? Then don't marry someone of your same gender.

We are still going to find each other and fall in love (and even become a "couple," as scare-quoted by the PMA people; see the first question in the FAQ). We're going to buy houses together, raise kids together, go through everyday crises together. We will pay taxes into a Social Security system that refuses to recognize us when we are bereaved. We will raise children despite the state refusing to acknowledge our parental rights. We'll get up in the morning, go to work, come home, make dinner, and go to sleep, in order to get up in the morning and do it all over again.

In short, we're just like everybody else. Except that everybody else can go about their business without having to cart medical power of attorney papers around on vacation and then wonder if the emergency room in the middle of Kansas will pay attention to them. Everybody else can buy a house with the spouse without worrying that it will go into probate if one of them dies. Everybody else with a good pension can be confident that their spouses will inherit it tax-free. And everybody else can sleep well at night without having to worry that a hateful in-law will have sole legal claim to the child they've raised from birth, should their spouse die.

Read the posts from Republic of T listed above, and then come up with a coherent argument supporting the idea that any of those relationships somehow threaten the social fabric of our country. That they're somehow abominations not entitled to the same dignity and protections as the marriages of our straight neighbors and friends. That the extra dollop of agony those people suffered is somehow justified in the name of Jesus.

Tomorrow, links to the opposition.