I sometimes wonder why some people are “famous”.  Carrie Prejean, the infamous Miss California contestant that lost her crown gave a speech at the Values Voters Summit this past weekend.  Listen, let’s get one thing straight.  Prejean wasn’t “persecuted” for her views on gay marriage.  Its because she was so inarticulate when she did it.  “Opposite Marriage”?  What the fuck is that?

I swear, religious conservatives love letting idiots speak for them.  Turning Carrie Prejean into Joan of Arc is like trying to turn a hockey mom from Alaska into Vice President….oh….wait.

I can appreciate this tongue-in-cheek amendment.  It’s a blatant jab at those “moral” Proposition 8 supporters.  No one can give a solid or rational explanation of why gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry.  There’s basically 2 arguments.

1.  Gays getting married is a gateway to other deviant behavior such as pedophilia, necrophilia or bestiality.  First off, that implies being gay is deviant behavior.  Secondly, those other behaviors are ILLEGAL.  Last I checked, being gay wasn’t illegal.  Well, at least anymore.  Some states used to make it illegal.  Hell, some Countries did (and still do) make it illegal.  But nowadays its not.  So why the hell is marriage illegal for them?  It makes no sense.

2.  Some asinine religious reason.  Religious arguments in the gay marriage debate are always a non-starter for me.  First off, there’s the obvious “separation of church & state” issue.  I don’t care what your religion wants to recognize but the states obviously sound.  Then there’s the problem that these people protest gay marriage but not the other things like divorce, adultery or fornication.  I don’t see a part of the “Defense of Marriage Act” that outlaws adultery or punishes fornication.  Not only would that be too much like right but half these fuckers talking about protecting the “sanctity of marriage” would be breaking the law then.

Again, I’m glad this man is doing this.  Maybe it’ll wake people up.  Maybe….

President Barack Obama Nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor to Supreme Court
So the President finally made it official that he was nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the soon to be vacant seat in the Supreme Court.  While the media has been going crazy over this, its not really a big surprise to me.  When Judge Sotomayor’s name was brought up as being in the running for the nomination, I figured that unless she owed $150,000 in back taxes or was running an illegal Mexican sweatshop in her basement, she was getting the nomination.  Come on.  First off, she’s obviously qualified.  Let’s be real, President Obama has been a pretty calculating and smart guy.  He’s not going to be an idiot *cough* George W. Bush*cough* and do something stupid like nominate some unqualified person, say the head of the International Arabian Horse Association to in important position like FEMA *cough*Mike Brown*cough*.  The Right is going to try to unite against her, but the first President Bush appointed her as a District Court judge.  And then Bill Clinton appointed her to the Court of Appeals.  So she’s been nominated by both Republicans and Democrats.  Like I said, obviously qualified.  This isn’t a Harriet Miers situation.  You have a qualified candidate, who happens to be Latino and a woman?  This is a win-win situation for the President and a lose-lose situation for Republicans.  The President gets to fill this position with a qualified candidate that also fills two sought after demographics:  Women and Latinos.  These are two groups that Republicans viewed as a weakness throughout President Obama’s campaign (even though he proved that wrong) and if they try to block this nomination, they will certainly feel the wraith of those two interest groups.  We said it during the campaign but it rings true during his first term:  This shit is chess, it ain’t checkers.

Jon & Kate Plus 8
So there’s been this big discussion over the new season of Jon & Kate Plus 8.  For those that don’t know, this is the show that follows a husband and wife and their eight kids.  Child Exploitation at its finest if you ask me.  Not only that, but apparently there’s also adultery charges being thrown around and now siblings of the two parents are talking to the press trying to give the “inside scoop”.  But here’s the thing that kills me.  You people, yes you who watch this bullshit on a regular basis are being played like Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar.  It came out that the season premier for the new season did huge numbers.  Why?  Because people couldn’t see that they were getting played and watched it.  I hear it all the time.  “I only watch it cause it’s funny” and “I think it’s stupid but it’s entertaining”.  So, you think it’s stupid but you watch it anyway…causing more people to watch it, causing this stupidity to stay on the TV.  It’s not even like this shit is real.  Kate Gosselin’s (the mother) sister-in-law Julie came out and blogged trying to “expose” the show saying that the trips they went on for the show were paid out of TLC’s budget.  No shit.  Do you really expect me to believe that in the middle of a recession, this couple has the time and money to drag 8 kids halfway around the country?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Yet 9.8 million people tuned in to watch this bullshit.  If you watched it, you fell for the oldest advertisement trick in the book.

‘The Real Housewives of DC’
Speaking of idiotic reality shows, Bravo has announced that it will be filming ‘The Real Housewives of DC’ soon.  Why must we continue to put up with this bullshit?  Again, sheeple are the reason this shit continues.  First off, what consists of being a “real housewife”?  Does it mean you have an insanely rich husband and so therefore you sit on your ass all day being snobby, completely out of touch with the fact that we’re in a recession as you spend your husbands money every chance you get?  This show might make sense to me if these were real housewives and real mothers.  You know, those unsung heroes that stay at home and actually get work done.  They cook breakfast, clean the house, run all the kids to school, help the kids with their home work, go shopping for everyday items (like food and toilet paper…not fur coats and diamonds) and take little Jimmy to soccer practice, etc….all while having a 18 month old attached to their hips.  That’s a REAL housewife.  And I might actually watch that because that’s reality.  Not these fake socialites that haven’t really worked for shit.  Oh and to all you ladies watching this shit…if you think your watching this bullshit doesn’t effect the way your man looks at you…you’re wrong.  I would hope most women would be offended by this crap and be protesting for it to be taken off TV.  Trust me, shows like this are far more damaging to women than booty shaking rap videos.  It makes not only the women in these shows look like gold diggers…but also those that watch it.  I mean, it’s okay in small doses…but when you’re rushing home to catch this bullshit, it says a lot about your subconscious thinking.  To flip it, think about how you would feel if you man was rushing home to watch porn or booty shaking rap videos.  And NO, sports doesn’t count.

Proposition 8 Upheld
The California Supreme Court has decided to uphold the results of the vote in November for Proposition 8.  All I can say is:  Fuck. Really, listen people.  Whether you are “for gay marriage” or “against ‘opposite’ marriage”, you have to agree, this shit is getting old.  My whole philosophy on this thing is, gay people are still gay.  Not allowing them to marry hasn’t made them all flip their “gay switch” from on to off.  So all this does is prolong this idiotic argument on even longer.  No one that is against “opposite marriage” can give a good, logical reason as to why gay shouldn’t be allowed to marry.  Allowing gays to marry doesn’t open up the gates for you neighbor to marry his pet llama.  Animals, like children, can’t give consent…so that’s taken care of.  If you’re worried about your “confused” children like this obviously homophobic ad claims:

then how about you as a parent sit down and have a conversation with your child about it.  First off, if you aren’t gay, your son wouldn’t be asking you if he has two daddies.  The problem is, parents these days don’t want to talk to their kids about tough issues.  If Big Bird on Sesame Street doesn’t talk about it, then their kids won’t learn it.  Its not just the gay issue, but sex, violence in video games and everything else parents outsource.  Also, pulling out the Bible in this argument is bullshit.  This country is based off of religious freedom and while you can use the Bible as a guideline, making laws solely based on that spits in the face of the Founding Fathers and you might as well start using the Constitution for toilet paper.  You might not like gays or the “gay lifestyle”, that’s fine.  I actually sympathize with that.  But I won’t let my personal feelings and beliefs get in the way of the fact that writing into a Constitution an amendment that’s sole purpose is to limit the writes of individuals is wrong.  If you aren’t for gay marriage…then don’t get one.  Plain and simple.  I wish these “defenders of marriage” were this outraged at Britney Spears 24 hour marriage or all the “Who wants to marry a Millionaire” reality shows.

When you’re the first African-American/Minority to hold the office of President, you should feel pretty good about yourself when after naming just about your entire cabinet, the only thing people can really complain about are superficial and trivial issues.  By now we’ve all heard the latest gripe with Obama:  “He’s turned his back on the progressives, women’s groups and GLTB groups that got him elected”  by selecting Rick Warren to give the 3 minute invocation at the Inauguration.  Wow…that’s some slap in the face.  I mean, a whole 3 minutes.  That’s like three bags of Uncle Ben’s Minute rice.  Geez people, give me a break.  The comments I’m reading from some liberals would make you think that Obama’s one step away from signing a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage on January 21st.

It’s time to get some things straight.  I saw a member of Americans United for the Seperation of Church and State on Count Down call Rick Warren “Jerry Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt”.  Okay, Warren might be a religious right conservative Republican who set Obama up in a hostile environment at the Saddleback Forum but Jerry Falwell he is not.  Remember this little tidbit from the late Jerry Falwell and his buddy Pat Robertson when they spoke about who was to blame for 9/11:

“The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I’ll hear from them for this, but throwing God…successfully with the help of the federal court system…throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad…I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America…I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen.”

Falwell and Robertson blamed 9/11 on the ACLU, pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays.  Now that’s some hateful speech right there.  When I look up Rick Warren and try to find controversial statements about Gays, this link is all I really find.  The GLTB community is saying that Warren has compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia.  Not quite.  Here’s the actual statement Warren made from the link before:

The issue to me, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Keep reading it over and over again to see if you can find the hateful comments.  Read the entire “controversial” interview if you want.  I know I couldn’t find the hateful comments.  Calling someone’s comments “hateful” because you disagree with them is no different than when the Bush Administration called people “unpatriotic” for speaking out against the war.  Warren is basically stating his position which is marriage should not be redefined as anything other than two consenting adults, one male and one female.  To him, because it’s been like that for 5,000 years it should not be changed.  I disagree and believe that as times changes, society should evolve as well.  I believe that Proposition 8 was wrong because for the first time the Constitution was changed to specifically limit the rights of a group of individuals (This is actually Obama’s stated reason for not supporting Constitutional ban…not because he supports gay marriage) whereas Warren saw it as reaffirming a religious tradition.  We have a fundamental disagreement.  I do not see anything hateful in his statements.  Are super liberals really trying to put him in the same category as a Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Rick Santorum?  Hell, remember John Hagee?  He blamed Katrina on a Gay and Lesbian parade down in New Orleans.  Warren is nowhere near that bad.  To be honest, his position is not really that far from Obama’s. Throughout the campaign Obama said that while he was not for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, marriage was between a man and a woman and that he supports civil unions.  He’s flatly said he does not support same-sex marriage.  On several occasions.  I just do not see where the beef is.

Super Liberals, or Progressives as they like to call themselves need to be careful or they will fall into the same trap that Conservatives did these last eight years.  See, this country isn’t liberal or conservative.  It’s moderate.  It’s not center-right or center-left, it’s center.  You are not going to convince everyone in this country to believe the same thing you do and that’s fine.  We just spent eight years under a President who governed from the socially conservative right (yet somehow completely forgot about being fiscally conservative), completely shutting out opposing viewpoints and now liberals seem to think that the election of Barack Obama is “Payback Time.”  I voted for Barack Obama specifically to avoid “liberal payback.”  Sure, if Obama had picked a bunch of progressive liberals for his cabinet and used his near majority in Congress to push through super liberal legislation, I would feel better about the government than I have the last 8 years.  However conservatives would feel just as bitter as I have the last 8 years and that means the country would still be divided, therefore our society as a whole would have made zero progress.  Obama said it best, he’s going to become President of the UNITED States of America, not the Blue States of America, not the Red States of America…the UNITED States of America.  I’m willing to compromise for the better of my country.  I’m willing to let Obama sit down at the table with those he disagrees with on some issues to try to move the country forward on others.  Bush tried to cram his beliefs down our throats.  That did not work.  Cramming liberal beliefs down conservatives throats is going to be just as ineffective. Change takes time.  You cannot rush it.  You want to hold Obama’s feet to the fire on torture, Health Care, tax cuts, Iraq, Gitmo and all his other campaign promises…be my guest (I’ve stated before, I will be lighting him up if he sticks with the plan to arm Afghan militias).  But remember, he also promised to work with people he disagreed with so you cannot complain about it when he does.  Rick Warren is not on the Obama team, he’s not going to be making policy.  He’s giving a 3 minute invocation.  It’s really not that serious or that much of a snub.  Get over it.

I have to be honest, I’ve been suffering from an election night hangover since the 4th. Finally hearing the race called for Barack Obama last Tuesday capped 2 years of the most grueling election campaign in recent memories. Now while I wasn’t on the campaign staff, I have to be honest…the election wore me out. So I took a little break after the 4th from writing. You probably notice the new site design, well I worked on that this weekend. Anyway, with the election over…I can now turn my attention to things outside of presidential politics and get back to the social commentary thing as a whole. What better way than to start with the latest hot debate…Gay Marriage.

If aliens from a distant planet came to Earth searching for intelligent life, I’m convinced that if they stumbled upon the gay marriage debate in this country, they would enslave us all as lower life forms for our incapacity to think rationally. Let me start off by saying that those in California that voted for Proposition 8 (the amendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage) were wrong. Not only were they wrong but I firmly believe they are idiots. We’ve seen people argue this gay marriage issue for several years now (brought to the forefront in 2004) and every time I see it argued I become completely baffled because I don’t understand why it’s an issue that requires government intervention. What the imbeciles that voted for Proposition 8 have done is set a precedence that puts us all in danger. Let’s look at what these morons did.

Proponents of Proposition 8 say that we must not allow gays to get married because marriage is between a man and a woman, being gay is sinful and we must also think about the message it sends to our kids. But Proposition 8 only bans gay marriage. It doesn’t ban being a homosexual. So what really has been accomplished? Gay people aren’t going to all the sudden say “Son of a bitch…we can’t get married. Guess we gotta go straight now.” So what these morons managed to do was have their State Constitution re-written to limit marriage to only between a man and a woman because of their own bias and prejudice. Gays can still love each other, be intimate with each other, live with each other and do everything else that a heterosexual married couple can do…they just can’t call themselves married. How retarded is that? $38 million was spent on the campaigns for and against proposition 8. $38 million. Are you starting to see the problem with this?

To my Jesus freaks out there. Let me talk to you for a minute. Look, I love Jesus too. But what you have to realize is that the United States of America was built based on religious freedom. That means laws in this country have to be written with everyone in mind…not just Christians. I cringe every time I hear a religious person say “Well the Bible says…” when talking about legislation and constitutional amendments. The standard for writing laws in this nation should be “What is in the best interest of everyone in this country” not “What is in the best interest of Christians”. Changing the California State Constitution was not done to protect the citizens of that state. It was done to limit the rights of a subsection of the state. The arguments against gay marriage would make more sense if Proposition 8 was a constitutional amendment to banning homosexuality. That’s really what the proponents of gay marriage bans want to do, but they are too cowardly to come out and “say it loud, I’m a bigot and I’m proud”. So instead they hide behind the “think of the children” claims. This notion that we must protect our precious youth from the “gay agenda” would be laughable if I haven’t actually heard people say it. Look, being gay isn’t a “gateway drug” to perverted, deviant behavior. If we’re going to start making laws because we don’t want to “corrupt” our youth, well then kiss goodbye to the following: pornography, rap music, rock & roll, country music, jazz (hell, just go ahead and say all music), R-rated movies, PG-13 movies, PG movies,video games, fantasy books, fiction books, cable news, alcohol, clubs, adultery, pre-marital sex and I could go on. This is the precedence California has set by rewriting their constitution based on religious beliefs. What’s next? Prosecuting women for not being virgins on their wedding night? You might think I’m blowing things out of proportion…but there are countries that already stone women for not being virgins. No, I don’t think we’ll go that far…but it does seem ridiculous that we have legislative arguments as to whether gays can get married or whether a crime committed against someone because they are gay should qualify as a hate crime (I can’t believe anyone actually argues that it shouldn’t be). If it’s a religious argument against gay marriage, then the individual denominations should determine whether they bless the marriage or not. That is NOT the job of the government. Why would you want the government having a role in your own personal choices and decisions?

Now you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned anything about whether I think being gay is natural or a choice. I haven’t even given my opinion on what I think of the gay lifestyle. I haven’t because that’s not the point. You don’t have to like gay people or the “gay movement” to understand that having the government tell people who they can love and how they can express that love is wrong. I’ve heard people say “I think marriage is between a man and a woman.” Great…then don’t marry anyone of the same sex. End of story. Being gay isn’t contagious. You can’t get “gay” by being in the vicinity of a gay married couple.

I’ll leave you with this thought. A man beats his first wife and gets thrown in jail for a year. His wife divorces him and takes the kids. He gets out and finds a new woman and gets married and they have kids. He beats his second wife and verbally abuses his kids. He gets divorced again. He then meets a new woman and…wash, rinse and repeat. He does this for 20 years. Replace the wife beater with an adultery who cheats on every woman he marries or a deadbeat dad who hasn’t seen any of the children he’s fathered in 20 years. All of them are allowed to get married over and over again. Yet the gay couple that’s been happily living together for 20 years can’t get married. Can you honestly say that makes any sense? You want to talk about messages being sent to kids. “Timmy, you can beat your wife, cheat on your wife and not see your kids and society will still accept you…but if you are gay….fuck you.”