Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. ~~Mark Twain
So who the hell is Bret Whipple you are probably asking. Well Bret is Cliven Bundy’s attorney (which makes him sleazy enough to earn the prize, but wait, there’s more). Bret, in court filings tried to claim that Bundy and his band of scofflaws were no different from the civil rights marchers of Selma, Alabama. Let that sink in for a minute.
Read moreRight now, it’s pretty hard to decide who to give our Douche-bat of the Day Award. There are just so many people vying for the honor, with lots of pastors leading the pack. Some awful things have been said in “Jesus’ name,” and we’ll get to those, but I decided to pull out Franklin Graham from that deck first.
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Let it not be said that I won’t recognize when someone realizes they were wrong, and changes their direction. Chief District Court Judge Jim Roberson released a statement late Friday saying that all magistrates must comply with the law and perform same-sex marriages. You may remember that I’d written an article here at Deep Something about the issues with some North Carolina Magistrates thinking the Evangelical Christians have special rights when it comes to performing government duties. At first Judge Roberson was trying to give some out for those magistrates without creating an inconvenience for LGBT couples. I appreciate his interests here, but the government can give NO quarter to discrimination by government officials.
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Michael Lind has a great story at Salon.com today about how conservatives say one thing, but do another. I know that will come as a shock. Despite their claims of being the people bent on protecting Americans’ freedoms, they are actually the people who have, over the past 60 years, most sought to curtail those freedoms. Lind is careful to make the distinction between true Libertarians and conservatives, and points out that, since World War II, conservatives have opposed every expansion of personal liberty in the U.S. This really is an article you need to read, especially if you are a conservative.
Read moreWell, of course the war over writing bigotry and discrimination into the North Carolina Constitution is in full swing. I am sadly disappointed that this is what my home state has come to, but I’m not surprised. I’ve talked to several of the legislators who voted to put this on the ballot, and they absolve themselves by saying, “Well, I just think the people should vote.” But when I ask them why they don’t put every civil right on the ballot, I was called, “absurd.”
Read moreMaybe, finally gay people have decided that enough is enough when it comes to having second-class citizenship foisted upon us by krazy kristian kooks. Across the country Saturday were a series of rallies decrying the enactment of three marriage amendments on election day which enshrine discrimination in the Constitutions of Florida, Arizona and California. As angry as we may all be, we should not be surprised at the outcome. There is no leadership within the gay community, and practically no community left anyways. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has become a parody, and while I respect the work done by Equality Florida, they too have been totally ineffective. So let’s take a look at what happened, and think about what comes next.
Read moreJerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority and the face of the Religious Right during the 80’s, is dead at 73.
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