Justice Kennedy Spars With Michigan’s Special Assistant Attorney General

Justice Kennedy

Fellow transplanted northerner blogger Bob Felton has an even lower opinion of Christofascists and their view of marriage as merely "a cosmic license for sexual intercourse" in order to procreate than I do.  But he sums up the Christofascist view of marriage all too accurately and today quoted batshitery for Bill Donohue of the always deranged Catholic League as yet further proof.  Donohue in a rant against same sex marriage stated:

Not only is love as a basis for marriage a relatively recent phenomenon — most marriages throughout history were arranged or based on duty — it is profoundly detached from the historical purpose of marriage, which is procreation. Once love is given primary status as a condition for marriage, the institution itself is no longer recognizable.

That's right, per Donohue and a host of lunatics on the Christian Right, marriage is really all about treating women as brood mares and regulating the offspring.  Love has nothing to do with it. Sounds crazy?  You bet, but that is in essence part of the argument John Bursch, Michigan’s special assistant attorney general, made to the U.S. Supreme Court today to justify Michigan's gay marriage ban.  The argument did not seem to sit well with Justice Kennedy.  A piece in Slate looks at the exchange:

Kennedy finds himself in an argument with John Bursch, Michigan’s special assistant attorney general, about whether marriage is a dignity-conferring enterprise, or not. Bursch, defending his state’s ban on same-sex marriage, is explaining that the purpose of marriage is not to confer dignity but to keep parents bonded to their biological children.

Justice Kennedy—who opened argument Tuesday morning with the observation that this whole case is about an institution whose definition has gone unchanged for millennia—looks rather shocked. The author of the majority decision outlawing sodomy bans in Lawrence v. Texas (“Adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons”) and the decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in United States v. Windsor (“It seems fair to conclude that, until recent years, many citizens had not even considered the possibility that two persons of the same sex might aspire to occupy the same status and dignity as that of a man and woman in lawful marriage”) did not want to hear this. Indeed, it seems like Kennedy wanted it to be perfectly clear that he is the guy who gets to say that if marriage is nothing else, it is a dignity-stamper.

Bursch explains that if marriage is expanded to include same-sex couples, the whole purpose of the institution will change. According to him, that view of marriage is “keeping the couple bound to that child forever,” whereas the new purpose (once gay couples are allowed to wed) will be about “their emotional commitment to each other.” This presumably less noble view of marriage will then proliferate, and result in illegitimacy, which the state seeks to avoid. Kennedy looks stunned. “That assumes that same-sex couples could not have a more noble purpose, and that’s the whole point. Same-sex couples say, of course we understand the nobility and the sacredness of marriage,” says Kennedy, the presumed swing vote.

Later in the argument, Bursch circles back to say, again, “marriage was never intended to be dignity bestowing.” At which point Kennedy almost bursts a pipe: “I don’t understand that [marriage] is not dignity bestowing. I thought that was the whole purpose of marriage. It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage. … It’s dignity bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that same ennoblement.”

Bursch replies that the “state is trying to figure out how do we link together these kids with their biological moms and dads when possible, the glue are benefits and burdens, but not necessarily dignity.” Anthony “Dignity” Kennedy can’t even believe it: “Well, I think many states would be surprised, with reference to traditional marriages, they are not enhancing the dignity of both the parties.”
But the other problem with the procreation-only argument is: What about old people? As Ginsburg ponders, “What if a 70-year-old couple wants to get married?” People cheer and applaud. Kennedy notes that Bursch’s premise “that only opposite-sex couples can have a bonding with the child” was “just a wrong premise,” adding “under your view it would be difficult for same-sex couples to adopt some of these children. … I think the argument cuts quite against you.”

There's more, but one can see why Christofascists - at least the far right Catholic  element - are anti-divorce.    Love, happy, supportive relationships are irrelevant to the equation.  It's only about legalizing sex for the purpose of breeding and raising children.  No wonder Christofascists are such miserable people.

Right Wing Freaks Out Over Obama's Prayer Breakfast Remarks

Hate merchant Bill Donohue

Personally, I find it obscene and offensive that presidents and members of Congress continue to attend the so-called National Prayer Breakfast which is sponsored each year by Christofascist extremists.  The organizers' goal is to turn the U.S. Constitution upside down and make their perverted form of Christianity the de facto national religion.  That said, it has been fun to watch the flying sheets of spittle after Obama rightly remarked that it was necessary to overcome the horrors and perversions that religion has all too often been used to justify.  Anyone with an accurate knowledge of history knows that Christianity has much blood on its hands.  And for a compilation of some of the murders conducted in the name of Christianity done by burning victims, check out Bob Felton's post here.  It makes ISIS' burning of a Jordanian pilot look tame.  Crooks and Liars looks at the right wing melt down over Obama's simple statements of fact.  Here are highlights:

President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he discussed freedom of expression along with highlighting the many acts of barbarism that are happening now and have happened throughout the centuries which were justified under the guise of religion. He also explained in depth about how as Christians, we can overcome these perversions of religion. President Obama spoke for about thirty minutes and used almost three thousand words today, but the only part of the speech the right wing media is focusing on is when he brought up the Crusades.

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India -- an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity -- but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs -- acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.

How dare the president put into context the historical atrocities performed over centuries in the name of God! As usual the Catholic League's Bill Donohue took front and center stage on Fox News and was fuming because Obama dared to mention Christ and demanded that he apologize. Neil Cavuto actually defended Obama for the most part which kind of surprised me, but Donohue, the pedophile priest apologist didn't. 

What Donohue is actually demanding is to be the president's speech writer/approval monitor. Bill has no problem with the speech except when Obama mentions acts of brutality perpetrated by Christians and Catholics. He immediately tries to rewrite history and said that the atrocities happening name in the name of Islam far outweigh anything that happened in the history of the world.

More of Obama's speech, which appears to make Donohue's whining completely unfounded.

But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge -- or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism -- terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.

The real truth is that a world free of religion would likely be a kinder, less violent place where much suffering inflicted by the "godly" and "pious" would no longer occur. 

Money and Self-Enrichment - The Real Motivation of "Family Values" Groups

There's more behind the agenda of "family values" groups and organizations besides bashing gays and disenfranchising blacks and other minorities so as to maintain white privilege.  And, yes, they want to maintain a pre-modern world and society in many other ways as well.  But the real motivation for many of the leaders of such groups is money.  Cold hard cash.  They live the good life while duping the gullible and ignorant like slick con artists and peddling hate and bigotry.  What's even more disgusting is that many of these groups purport to be "educational" in their efforts and shockingly hold tax-exempt status which significantly ups the gravy train for their leaders.  Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher have made out like bandits at the National Organization for Marriage, locally, Pat Robertson has made many millions of dollars, Catholic League blow hard Bill Donohue reportedly makes between $350,000 and a cool half million a year.  The list goes on and on.  To show how the system is milked, Think Progress has done a review of how the Joseph Goebbels like Gary Bauer (pictured above) has lived well while peddling "family values" hate.  Here are highlights:

Gary Bauer has been one of the nation’s most visible and outspoken social conservatives since his work in the Reagan Administration — fighting against LGBT equality, pushing to restrict women’s reproductive rights, and promoting Islamophobia. But while the former Republican presidential hopeful’s myriad political organizations and tax-exempt groups claim to support conservative values, a ThinkProgress analysis suggests that of late he uses them primarily to funnel money into his own pockets.

As president of American Values, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) “charitable” organization focused on “defending life, traditional marriage and equipping our children with the values necessary to stand against liberal education and cultural forces,” Bauer received an annual salary of about $120,000 in 2011 — and another $30,000 in other benefits. His wife Carol, who worked 10 hours a week as secretary/treasurer for the organization, received an additional $60,000 in annual compensation for her efforts.

But Bauer augmented this . . . .  by hiring himself as a “consultant” for the various political committees he controlled.   . . . . With hundreds of thousands left in the bank, Bauer hired a campaign strategy and communications consultant: Gary Bauer. In the 2005-2006 cycle, he took $40,000 in fees; in recent years his figure has risen to $3,000 a month. So far, Americans United to Preserve Marriage has paid Bauer more than $260,000 — and between 2009 and 2012, Bauer received more than half of the committee’s total spending.

Finally, Bauer turned to his oldest available account for his most lucrative work.  . . . . starting in March, Bauer began paying himself $13,750 a month for “political and admin” consulting — $68,750 over the past five months, and several times more than the $8,250 the committee has given, total, to federal political candidates so far this year. At these rates, his annual consulting fees for these committees would project to more than $200,000. This would be in addition to his full-time American Values job . . .

As I said, spreading hate, lies and bigotry can be very, very lucrative as financially stretched widows and ignorant individuals are fleeced of money that cannot afford to be giving away to charlatans like Bauer et al.  The IRS truly needs to revoke the tax exempt status of these scam operations.

Mexican Catholic Bishop: Homophobia is a Mental Illness

I can hear heads exploding at the Vatican and bishopric around the globe (they probably had to call 911 for blowhard Bill Donohue of the Catholic League) over remarks by Mexican Bishop, Raúl Vera (pictured above), who believes that homophobes are actually the depraved ones, not gays.  While Bishop Vera doesn't get all of the theories of what causes some of us to be gay, he does get right the theory a prominent researcher explained to me some years ago that hormones play a role in determining sexual orientation in vitro.  In short, unlike most of the Catholic Church hierarchy he comes close to accepting modern scientific knowledge rather than the ignorant writings of wandering nomads from 2500 years ago. Blabbeando has details.  Here are excerpts:

A lot has been said about Pope Francis' recent of the cuff comments on gays ("Who am I to judge?") and hundreds of religious leaders world wide have been asked to share their thoughts but I was still surprised to see this interview with Saltillo Bishop Raúl Vera posted by Terra Mexico yesterday ("Homophobia is a mental illness: Saltillo bishop").

The Bishop has some funky theories on what determines whether someone is born gay (he chalks it up to hormonal differences) but speaks forcefully against religious based homophobia and calls homophobes the perverse ones. 

Here is Bishop Vera on a mother who worried her son was hanging out with a bunch of "degenerate gays':

One mother came to me and said that she was being watchful of her son because he was hanging out with "those degenerate gays" and I said "so blame yourself for it because that's the way your son developed in your womb and he didn't develop into a degenerate or a perverse person. He was born with a certain constitution you are trying to ignore. Calm down, you are the mother of that child and he began to be who he now is inside your womb. So the first one I'd kick out would be you because you are the perverse one who is first in line." That's what I said.

And on homophobes:

Why would I immediately think a gay or lesbian person is perverse or depraved the moment they approach me? That's how people who are homophobic react. It's a mental illness in which you see gays as depraved and promiscuous.  You have to be sick in the head for that.

He also tells the reporter people have to stop bashing gays with the words of the Bible and that they should read the passages they use to condemn gays within a historical context to realize the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.
Yesterday's interview is not the first time Bishop has supported LGBT issues. The AP says that he backed a same-sex civil unions law in the region and was called to the Vatican two years ago to explain an outreach program he organized for gay youth.

He has also received death threats for his outspokenness.

Kudos to Bishop Vera.  Would that the self-loathing queens in Rone (and in Richmond and Arlington, Virginia) were so enlightened.  One humorous aside on the blog post is this:

Over at Reddit, there has been some back and forth on whether Bishop Vera was insensitive in calling homophobia a "mental illness" from people who feel it unfairly groups people diagnosed with mental illness with people who hate gays.

For those who don't follow Blabbeando regularly, it has excellent coverage of LGBT issues in Central and South America.  Interestingly enough, some years back both this blog and Blabbeando were listed in the top 100 LGBT blogs by the UK's Lesbian and Gay Foundation.  It was the editor of Blabbeando, Andrés Duque, who let me know this blog had been so honored.

Don’t Throw the IRS Under the Bus

By way of back ground I often work with clients seeking to set up non-profit entities that seek exempt status determinations from the Internal Revenue Service.   The forms are lengthy and require attention to detail and a lot of supporting documentation.  If not prepared properly and correctly documented, you WILL get enhanced scrutiny.   In doing review, the IRS focuses on possible political activities, but it also looks at whether or not the entity is being established as a means to enrich private individuals rather than support the entities avowed purpose.   One need only think of the large six figure salaries pulled down by Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown at NOM or Bill Donohue at the Catholic League to realize that "non-profits" can be most lucrative.  A piece in The Daily Beast makes the case that we should not be too quick to throw the IRS under the bus.  Here are highlights:

Since the hullabaloo over IRS investigations of Tea Party groups broke last week, Democratic partisans have mostly been telling President Obama the same thing. First, clear this scandal off your plate so you can focus on the others. Second, the people responsible for this mess, at least according to the Inspector General’s report, were bureaucratic grunts and Bush appointees—you don’t owe them anything. Third, everyone hates tax collectors anyway. In other words, stand aside as congressional Republicans beat the IRS to a pulp.  That would be a terrible mistake.

It would be a mistake because while Obama is not personally implicated in the IRS controversy, the things he believes in most deeply are. Conservatives love the IRS scandal because it supposedly rips the smiley-face mask off government and reveals it to be a “sinister” (Peggy Noonan), “arrogant” (Noonan), “ravaging tyrant” (David Brooks) abusing largely powerless American patriots. As a perennial warning against the abuse of government power, that story has merit. But as a description of the actual relationship between the public and private sector in America today, at least outside the national security realm, it’s mostly nonsense.

The right’s tale of powerful IRS ideologues preying on weak and naïve citizens’ groups bears little relationship to reality. In truth, as an invaluable New York Times investigation explained yesterday, the Cincinnati office that reviewed the Tea Party applications was an “understaffed,” “unglamorous” “backwater.” Its ill-trained, “low-level” staffers “rarely discussed politics.” What they did discuss, according to the Times, was the fact that they were “overrun with applications” that they could not competently process.

In 2010, the fewer than 200 employees of the IRS’s Determinations Unit were already struggling to respond to tens of thousands of applications for tax-exempt status from 501(c)3 nonprofits threatened by a change in the tax code. Then along came the Supreme Court in Citizens United, which made it clear that corporations could contribute directly to another category, 501(c)4 nonprofits, which could spend vast sums to influence elections without having to disclose their donors. Soon, boatloads of new political organizations began asking to be designated as 501(c)4s, a category traditionally meant for groups that perform “social welfare” functions like volunteer firefighting and maintaining community gardens. (Those are some of the actual examples used on the IRS website.)

Since 501(c)4s cannot make political activity their “primary purpose,” it made sense for IRS staffers to look carefully at the politically oriented applicants. (“Which do you think deserves special attention to determine possible violations of the political rules?” writes Kurt Eichenwald in Vanity Fair. “Patriots for Obamacare? Or the Laurel Garden Club?”) As the “review process slowed to a crawl” under the weight of all these new applications, IRS staffers in Cincinnati, few of whom were experts in tax law, began using keywords like “educating on the Constitution” and “social economic reform/movement” to screen applicants. These short cuts didn’t only flag right-of-center groups. Contrary to Noonan’s claim that “only conservative groups were targeted,” more than 24 liberal groups were lumped into the same category.

What happened at the IRS Determinations Unit wasn’t OK. It was a mess. But it was a mess born less of over regulation than under regulation. The core problem was that after Citizens United, a section of the tax code designed to allow people to donate anonymously to garden clubs became a popular way for billionaires to secretly funnel vast sums to Karl Rove (and his Democratic equivalents) to savage political opponents and sway elections.

Obama can’t let the GOP’s tale of totalitarian regulators and oppressed Tea Partiers go unchallenged. When it comes to the relationship between government and the market, we do not live in an age of tyrannical government power. To the contrary, we live in a second gilded age in which the people who benefit most from America’s exploding income inequality have used their wealth to disembowel the regulatory systems through which government protects ordinary Americans.

A right-wing Supreme Court has made it virtually impossible to regulate money in elections. And now Republicans are casting the Tea Party—a movement founded in part by robber barons like the Koch Brothers—as the victim of a mythic, all-powerful IRS in order to further neuter an actually existing IRS that is already too weak to make the rich pay their taxes or respect the rules of democratic fair play. With any luck, the GOP will render it unable to help competently implement Obamacare as well.

It might seem shrewd for Obama to sit out the IRS scandal while he focuses on bigger fights. But this scandal is about government’s capacity to make private wealth serve the public interest, and for a progressive president, there’s no bigger fight than that.

Catholic League: Democrats Must Nix "Offensive" Blogs

Professional self-nominated victim and disingenuous whiner, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has sent out an press release on behalf of the League having a hissy fit over the fact that the Democratic National Convention has granted credentials to two blogs that do not kiss the Roman Catholic Church's corrupt, disingenuous ass. The two blogs are Bitch Ph.D., which looks at current events from a feminist perspective, and Towleroad, a gay blog which I have had linked in my blog roll for almost the entire life of this blog. Here are some highlights from Bill "Let's Kiss the Pope's Ass" Donohue's hyperventilating:

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The two most offensive are Bitch Ph.D. and Towleroad. “On the home page of Bitch Ph.D. there is a picture of two children: one of them is shown flashing his middle finger. Today’s lead post, which was written August 17, is called ‘Jesus Christ.’ It begins with, ‘I’m a really crappy Catholic who hasn’t been to mass in ages because most parishes around here ‘will’ insist on being aggressively anti-abortion….’

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“Towleroad describes itself as ‘A Site with Homosexual Tendencies.’ Accordingly, it shows men in jock straps and underwear. It also has a post on Pope Benedict XVI that takes him to task for wearing a cape with ermine. Some of those who commented on this described the pope in a vile and profane way.

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“Both of these blogs should be cut immediately from the list of credentialed sites. Neither functions as a responsible media outlet and both offend Catholics, as well as others. To allow them access to the Democratic National Convention sends a message to Catholics they will not forget. We look for Leah Daughtry, CEO of the Convention, to nix them ASAP.”

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If Donohue doesn't like Towleroad, I guess he'd have an aneurysm if he read this blog, although the blog has had at least two visitors from Vatican City (Were they viewing the "male beauty photos? Or gathering evidence for a decree of excommunication?). To fix this problem, I sent the Catholic League the following e-mail:

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I would suggest that if Catholic League president, Bill Donohue, spent as much time and effort demanding a thorough house cleaning of the Catholic Church hierarchy of those bishops and cardinals who facilitated or covered up the sexual abuse of minors, the Catholic League might me taken more seriously by thinking, rational individuals. His disingenuous cries of anti-Catholic discrimination, etc., truly are getting old. Particularly when the League continues to kiss the posteriors of a corrupt hierarchy many members of which sold out children and youth to "protect the Church".

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The Church's refusal to hold bishops and cardinals accountable was the final straw in my decision to leave the Church. Sadly, I believe only large numbers of Catholics leaving the Church for other less corrupt denominations will bring the much needed changes the Church needs so desperately.

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Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath for a response. :)