Drug-Sniffing Dog Becomes Latest Victim of War on Civil Liberties

An innocent Springer Spaniel named Max who was used by a police department in Devon (the one in southern Britain) to violate the human rights and civil liberties of people who chose to possess recreational drugs has been euthanized after coming down with an extremely rare and aggressive nasal tumor. Although there is no scientifically demonstrated link between nose candy and nose cancer, Max's vet refuses to rule it out as a potential cause since this type of cancer is so rare in dogs, and Max spent most of his life inhaling things most dogs normally don't. Max's owner, a cop named Ispector Higgins, is quoted in the Telegraph saying,

He was a fighter until the end and always very dignified. He has had a good life and a successful one as a police dog. Just think of all the bad people he managed to put away.

"Bad people." Hm. That's a loaded statement. While I'm very sorry for Inspector Higgins' loss, I would like to point out that Max might [would probably] be here now if he hadn't been trained and used on a daily basis to violate the privacy of people who are obeying all the laws of common sense [by not doing things that victimize other living beings]. No one has the moral authority to tell other mentally competent and consenting adults what they may or may not smoke, snort, swallow, inject or otherwise ingest in the privacy of their own homes. The "War on Drugs" is a transparent farce--an excuse for corrupt and fearful governments to assert physical control over their populations. It is also a massive and perverse monument to the power of corporate pharmaceutical, alcohol, and tobacco lobyists. Max is its latest innocent victim. His life could have been much more fulfilling if he had died of tumor caused by sniffing explosive residues.

I like the guy who screamed, "God DAMN America!" better

It appears as though president-elect Barrack Obama has begun to sell out the Queer community before he even takes office with the careful selection of a raving bigot to deliver an incantation at his official inauguration. Rick Warren, leader of a superstition-based organization near LA dedicated to the legal subjugation of lesbian and gay people often referred to as a "megachurch" by the corporate media, will attempt to lead our nation in an organized superstitious ritual during the inauguration of our next president. Plans for a public protest have not yet been formalized.

Response to passage of Propostion 8 continues to grow nationwide

In California, another legal complaint was filed today because it is believed that the Mormons did not properly and legally report all money and labor that they donated to the political cause of persecuting gay and lesbian families in California. The California Supreme Court also appears to be taking the legal challenges to Prop 8 that have already been filed very seriously. Meanwhile, California Attorney General Jerry Brown appears visibly aged since November 5th. Perhaps he is losing sleep over the prospect of having to defend Prop 8 in court while also defending the validy of all the same-sex marriages performed between May and now? To complicate matters further, county clerks across the state are unclear on when or whether to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses, and some appear to have made the decision based on subjective criteria. None appear to have made the decision in coordination with any other.

A nationwide protest planned for tomorrow, November 15, continues to attract national media attention. A "No-Gays-for-a-Day" nationwide protest is in the works for Friday, December 5, and Kathy Griffin has agreed to headline since her show is not airing on the planned date nor does she have any live gigs scheduled [and presumably her quote was met]. She plans on spending that day in the private company of Cher and Bette Midler.

In a less positive development, envelopes containing a "suspicious white powder" that turned out to be a "harmless substance" arrived in the mail yesterday at openly Mormon temples in LA and Salt Lake City. It is not known whether authorities are investigating the possibility that the envelopes were mailed by a Mormon (or Mormons) intent on making the LGBT community look bad (like that woman in Pittsburgh who carved a backwards B on her face and then falsely claimed to have been assaulted by an Obama supporter on the Drudge Report just before the election). After living in this country for thirty-eight years and paying attention to the news for about thirty, my best educated guess is that they aren't investigating that possibility, nor have they even entertained it. The authorities will, however, almost certainly use this episode as justification for further government encroachment on human and civil rights, especially in certain minority communities. Regardless of who sent them, the envelopes did cause the Mormons to temporarily divert money and labor that would otherwise have been spent persecuting gay and lesbian people, so I guess you could still say that every cloud has a silver lining [and maybe even magic underwear].

Passage of Prop. 8 in California catalyzes nationwide protests and resistance

It is now very clear that Proposition 8 was approved by California voters by a margin of 4.6%. This ballot proposition reclassifies gay and lesbian Californians as second-class citizens by reinstating a ban on same-sex marriages that was ruled unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court in May of 2008. This ban effectively withholds over one thousand special rights, responsibilities and privileges from up to 10% of the state's population. It is legally unclear whether the proposition will retroactively annul the tens of thousands of same-sex marriages that have been performed since the court decision that legalized them. It is also legally unclear whether the proposition will withstand numerous legal challenges that have already been filed against it.

The proposition passed with no small amount of financial and volunteer help from Christian extremists, many of whom, such as the Mormons in Utah and the all-male [wink] Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Vatican City, reside far beyond California's borders. Local nondenominational megachurches in California also contributed money and volunteer time to legally attacking the human rights of their own neighbors. If you'd like to know whether anybody in your hometown abetted this latest example of tyranny of the majority that will permanently stain American history books, you can search this database by specific name or browse a list of contributors by state and/or city. Hmmm, it appears that a John Templeton, Jr of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, president of the Templeton Foundation, felt so strongly in favor of persecuting gay and lesbian families in California that he donated a honking $450,000 twice. Must have a been a good year for him.

In GLBT communities across the United States, reaction to the passage of this punitive and ambiguously worded proposition has been unexpectedly swift, assertive, widespread, and well attended. The international press has even taken notice. Protesters appear to be focusing their resistance on the Christian extremists who made this theft of human rights their latest crusade in a long, ultimately unsuccessful series of reactionary attempts to force those whose behavior they take issue with because it violates some of their superstitions to live the way they do.

If you'd like to protest Proposition 8 yourself, you are invited to make a big creative sign and go to your local city hall, Mormon temple, or Roman Catholic cathedral basilica this Saturday, November 15 for a national day of protest. You can find specific information about any planned protests in your hometown here. In California the demonstrations began spontaneously immediately after the results became known and continue to this day, especially in the gay-friendly areas of West LA and the San Francisco Bay. A protest at the Mormon temple in Manhattan, NY also attracted thousands on Wednesday, November 12.

If public demonstrations aren't your thing but you still want to express your feelings about this perversion of democracy, you can chat with a Mormon missionary online. Fun questions to ask might include, "Which version of traditional marriage is most traditional, the one where there is one woman and one man or the one where there is one man and as many girls and women as the man can afford or keep captive?" Or, "Why do you hate gay people and want to steal their human rights and dignity when Jesus said to love everybody as you would yourself?" You can also feel free to boycott the states of California and Utah, the former being much more difficult than the latter.

Californians pervert the machinery of democracy to abet religious extremists in an obsessive drive to re-secure special legal status

The state of California, second in the United States following Massachusetts to ensure legal equality for all of its citizens, has suffered a temporary legal set-back in the form of a confusing, discriminatory, and punitive ballot initiative that was funded in no small part by Christian extremists from other states, including the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in Utah. Although California election officials have not finished counting all the votes, the Christian extremists have already claimed victory in their obsessive drive to re-secure special rights for themselves and those who share their ancient, superstitious beliefs regarding the consensual sexual behavior of legally competent adults. Despite numerous appeals, it appears likely that California's gay and lesbian citizens will once again, at least temporarily, be designated second-class citizens to appease Christian extremists.

Connecticut becomes third US state to treat all citizens equally under law

Their supreme court issued the decision Friday.

Boycott the 2010 Census [Unless They Decide to Allow Their Workers to Record Data Accurately and Truthfully]!

According to this story in the Silicon Valley Mercury News [that I read about on Pam's House Blend], the US Census Bureau has announced that it plans to instruct its employees to lie when recording data about married gay and lesbian families in the upcoming 2010 census. Because of the irrational refusal of the federal government to acknowledge the existence of non-heterosexual marriage, [which those taking the red pills often attempt to excuse by uttering the magic incantation, "Well, it's because of DOMA,"] federal workers recording data for the upcoming census will be instructed to "classify" married non-heterosexual couples as "not married." The full effect of all this inaccurate data is yet to be determined, but it might have something to do with lower funding for social programs in communities with higher concentrations of gay and lesbian families.

A good way for gay and lesbian families to respond to this affront to their dignity might be to boycott the census entirely and refuse to provide any data beyond a statement such as, "Due to the federal government's pig-headed, naive, irrational, and superstition-based refusal to acknowledge the nature of reality as it pertains to the existence of non-heterosexual marriage, this household refuses to participate in the 2010 Census in any way." I think that might be technically illegal, which would make this an act of civil disobedience. You have been warned. However, I personally have refused to participate in the census and sit on federal juries since the mid-nineties for the very same reasons and have never had to face any consequences.

Gavin Newsom Was Right!

It looks like California is going to become the second state in the nation to treat all of its citizens equally under the law. Unless, of course, the apartheid-loving, psycho-Nazi-Jesus-freaks who have appointed themselves arbiters of morality for our entire nation gather enough signatures to put a special referendum on the ballot to nullify the court's decision and then convince enough of their neighbors to vote for it. Governor Schwarzenegger has vowed to uphold the ruling. If he ever had any chance of winning Cali in the general election, John McCain would have shit his pants.

Raging Bigots Stifled By One Courageous Pennsylvania Senator

At the behest of Republican Rasputin-wannabes such as Karl Rove, Pennsylvania, not unlike many other "swing" states, has recently been subjected to repeated efforts by Christian extremists (who receive much of their funding from forces outside the commonwealth) to ratify a constitutional amendment that would relegate our law-abiding and tax-paying gay and lesbian citizens to permanent second-class citizenship by denying them legal recognition of any marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships they might choose to form. Before any constitutional amendment, even bigoted and Nazi-apartheid-like amendments such as this one, can be put to the citizens of Pennsylvania in a referendum, it must be passed by both houses of the legislature in two consecutive sessions with reconciled language. Last session, the House and Senate each passed very different versions and then did nothing to reconcile the versions, putting the Christian extremist bigots back at square one. This session, the extremist forces managed to convince one bigoted freshman lawmaker to re-introduce the failed legislation.

They didn't anticipate the reaction they would receive from Senator Vince Fumo this time around. No one did. Fumo has always believed that gay and lesbian people deserve equal treatment under the law. Now that he's announced he's retiring because of health issues and an ongoing corruption investigation, he apparently feels more free to really say what's on his mind. During testimony before his committee, Fumo informed one Christian extremist who happened to be African American and was speaking in favor of the amendment that Fumo's more conservative colleagues in the Senate would certainly vote to re-legalize black slavery if they could do it on a secret ballot. People pretended to be shocked, but anyone who knows upstate Pennsylvania (anywhere besides Philadelphia and its adjacent suburban counties), knows that Fumo was telling the sad truth, not committing hyperbole as the Daily diplomatically asserts in this op-ed.

After the slavery revelation failed to derail the legislation (which would be surprising almost anywhere besides Pennsylvania), Fumo attached an amendment to the amendment so that it would also outlaw most heterosexual divorces. Up to that point in the debate, the bigots kept asserting that they were not bigots, and all they wanted to do was to protect the institution of marriage. However, when they were faced with the prospect of legislation that might actually preserve a few marriages (on legal paper at least) but would do nothing to subjugate gay and lesbian citizens, they turned around and went home as very unhappy and unfulfilled bigots. The amendment was promptly tabled. The next time it could possibly come up for debate would be after the 2008 presidential election.

Thanks to the infinite fuck-ups and abuses of the Bush-Cheney junta, our beloved country is in a sorry state. It's nice to know (and it gives me hope that we may re-establish democracy on a national level very soon) they don't always get their way.

American College Students Banned from Withholding Personal Contact Information from Military Recruiters

In a clearly desperate attempt to maintain troop levels more than five years into an ill-conceived, ill-fated, illegal, and disastrous invasion of Iraq, the Defense Department has dreamed up a new, superdraconian interpretation of existing draconian regulations that clearly interfere with the free speech rights of every employee of every university in the country that receives any federal funding whatsoever. If the DOD gets its way, students who request that their respective universities withhold personal academic, demographic and contact data (such as academic interests, home addresses, and unlisted phone numbers) from military recruiters will have to have that data withheld from ALL prospective employers, even if those students specifically request that that information is withheld only from military recruiters. The DOD is very well known in the United States for its discriminatory and unfair treatment of gay and lesbian citizens. It is unclear why it has become so intent on obtaining the personal data of many folks it would never hire because of its own discriminatory and abusive policies.

State Department Incapable of Maintaining Security of the Private Data of American Citizens Under Leadership of Bush-Cheney Junta

Private contractors [scabs] working for Condoleezza Rice recently hacked into the private passport files of Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama. The whole world is screaming about it. This development is not prophesied to lend much momentum to the junta's efforts to bully congress into passing a continuation of the so-called PATRIOT act, legislation that actually abrogates many of the rights and responsibilities that our patriotic forebears fought, rallied, protested, and died for.

One Small Victory For One Small Mind

The Daily News is reporting that the owner of Geno's Steaks, whose name is actually Joey, will not be prosecuted further in response to his posting a sign explaining that he is capable of conducting business in only one language.

Democracy Is Fragile

Funny [weird, not funny ha ha] that this chapter takes place in Texas.

Chair of FCC helps Bush-Cheney junta evade justice

It should come as no surprise that FCC Chair and Republican political appointee/operative Kevin Martin has refused to allow the FCC to investigate the illegal wiretapping of law-abiding American citizens by the Bush-Cheney junta. She's too busy making sure the parts of human anatomy that religious extremists consider shameful remain fully covered on the commercial broadcast and basic cable channels. If things were going as our Founders intended, Congress would step in to exercise some kind of oversight to protect our basic rights and liberties, but the Democratic majority in Congress appears to be paralyzed by the fear of appearing to oppose or question the Bush-Cheney junta's brilliantly fascist and fictional War On Terrah.

Inspiring and Sad at the Same Time

Fifty school children (albeit, the best and the brightest of this year's graduating seniors) turned a tour of the White House and visit with the alleged president into an opportunity to give him a handwritten letter urging him to do everything in his power to end all the well documented human rights abuses currently being perpetrated by the Bush-Cheney junta.

Homeland "Security" Inappropriately Targets Gay, Lesbian, and Environtmentally Concerned Americans for Intimidation and Harassment

Apologists for the United States' pathetic and deplorable slide into fascism [and especially for allowing the Bush-Cheney junta to get away with election fraud twice] would like to explain away this web page as the ramblings of a bigoted Alabaman whose internet user privileges need to be curtailed. The page was pulled down after a minor hubbub began to swirl around it on the web. [Of course, most corporate "news" outlets ignored the story until the existence of widely read independent bloggers made that impossible.] Ganymede's Ghost obtained the copy shown above from a Google cache after simply searching the Alabama Homeland Security URL for the word gay. It was the only hit despite the fact that they tried to remove it. Having just been singled out for antigay harassment by a homeland "security" associate myself [for the putative offences of wearing a belt and forgetting to remove my keys and iPod from my pockets at an airport checkpoint] over a thousand miles away from Alabama in the birthplace of our liberty, I suggest that this web page is indicative of a national policy directive that is not yet widely publicized.

Dick Cheney Is Full of Shit

Responding to a shortage of virgin unicorn blood, doctors seem to have discovered that pumping Dick Cheney full of shit has slowed the process believed to be turning him into a giant blood clot. We may all rejoice in the fact the process has been slowed down enough to allow him to continue the Bush-Cheney junta's assualt on the rule of law.

LA Cops Respond With Disproportionate Force

And a happy effen May Day to you, too. Apparently, a few dozen troublemakers, in a crowd of thousands demonstrating for fair legal treatment of economic migrants, started trouble with the cops and messed things up for everybody. Still. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the LA cops look very wrong. These scenes are especially disturbing to me because I've seen MacArthur park on what would pass for a better day in downtown LA, and it's very close [by LA's car-dependent standards] to the homes of two close friends.

Gay and Lesbian Italians Confront Bigotry Forcefully

Proving once again that there are very real consequences resulting from the public espousal of bigotry and hatred, an undemocratically chosen official of the superstition-based Roman Catholic hierarchy, "Bishop Bagnasco," has been provided lethally armed bodyguards by Italian taxpayers, hundreds of thousands of whom are gay and lesbian themselves and therefore the targets of Bagnasco's hatred and bigotry. The object of previous direct actions following speeches in which he called for the initiation of antigay pogroms, Bagnasco claims to have received during the weekend a bullet in an envelope emblazoned with his graven image and a Nazi swastika. Exactly what such symbolism was intended to signify is debatable, if we can believe Bagnasco's account at all since it is entirely possible, likely even, that he is fabricating the whole scenario in order to generate bad publicity for people who want no more than legal equality. I happen to think the bullet was intended to be more of a reminder to Bagnasco about all the innocent people who have died violently because of the church-sponsored bigotry he is actively perpetuating than it is a threat to his own personal safety. We can at least feel comforted by the fact that he's much less likely to molest any children with a lot of armed cops watching his every move.

The Brits think Hillary won the debate [and that we are obsessed with guns].