A Bad Week For Bigotry

I haven't paid much attention to politics lately; let's just say it's antipathy instead of apathy this time. I really don't live or die for this like many I know. Change is gradual and in America gradual is somewhere around fifty years time. Health care was introduced by Harry S. Truman, it passes in 2010, and nobody notices until 2012. It took 97 years for our government to enforce the 14th Amendment in the case of African Americans. Yet we all hope something is happening, and maybe you share my grief at the wasted term that will be Obama's first term in office. Yes, he will be re-elected and possibly then be willing to make the politically-suicidal but correct decisions to run this country.

But this week, you can feel change in the air. In California, one man said what the rest of us either don't have the balls to or just don't have the capacity of reason necessary to agree. There are certain rights that each lawful citizen of this United States is free to do: vote, live where they choose, marry whomever they choose,  worship how they please, and whatever they so choose with their bodies that doesn't infringe upon another citizens rights. There are more, but these are important in a sense. All of the above have one thing in common, they are matters of privacy.

The American people are both inherently concerned about their privacy from other people and completely blasé about their privacy from the federal government. The problem this creates is that big brother is ultimately just a faceless person that makes human decisions just like that other person you wish to be private from. So when a judge decides that the voters of California and the proxy morons from Utah supporting them are idiots, it shocks me that a human being can make a justifiably sane decision regarding the private lives of people he does not know. The Constitution, its amendments, and ever subsequent modern rulings specifically state that marriage is a right that every citizen possesses.

Read the full text of the ruling here, the ruling starts on p. 109

The brilliance of the decision's careful wording is likening gay rights to black rights. The creation of separate domestic partnerships/common-law marriage or whatever you wish to call it is unconstitutional under the ruling in Brown v. Board that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional. The same laws to prevent blacks from marrying whites in the past that we (hopefully) find foolish today run parallel to the belief that two same-sex people cannot marry.

Then, he proceeds to just rip into the proponents of the law. This is probably the most thorough lambasting of a defendant I've ever read in a court case, and it's all done with precedents cited and reasoned controlled language. If you state man and woman have been being married for ages due to God/nature's intention, how can you explain homosexuality in man and nature? Is God making mistakes, because if he is, he is fallible and therefore not God. See where that argument takes you theologically; legally, it's just as detrimental to the proponents case. Second, never statistically argue the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and its benefit to the state. Third, arguing that marriage is solely for procreation is archaic and takes away all reasoning for getting married. Procreation and proper child rearing can occur outside marriage, so what purpose does marriage serve? That the proponents tried to argue that same-sex marriage violated their first-amendment rights, because they wouldn't be allowed to criticize it is the most hilariously awful argument ever presented. First, it's untrue; second, it's petty; third, it's downright intolerant. Idiots are free to go around talking about the dangers of homosexuality, but not to restrict the rights of other citizens to practice their rights to marry another person.

But here are the kickers:

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of
proponents’ case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in
the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that
same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples.

Try in your mind to fundamentally argue this point legally: that two people trying to enter into the union of matrimony are unequal to two other people.

And farther back, to my full point, which I took too long to get to:

The resulting evidence shows that Proposition 8 simply conflicts with the guarantees of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

Which brings us to more idiotic old white racist males, the Republican caucus.

The idea of repealing part of the Fourteenth amendment has been proposed by some Republicans to disallow the citizenship of those born to illegal immigrants in the United States. The Republicans are the "party of the family" and "values", and what they are proposing would not just eliminate the rights of Hispanics to citizenship but to all future native-born Americans. It is a plan to amputate the arm of liberty to remove the bullet of illegal immigration.

Now, the 14th Amendment is vague, and probably the most used, discussed, and misinterpreted amendment to the Constitution. But this is clear, all native-born citizens regardless of race are entitled to the rights declared to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It's interesting that in the Prop 8 ruling, the case against free-schooling for these children comes up, because it ruled that the children's families contributions and their under-utilization of state facilities actually made the schooling financially prudent. That the state had no reason to suspend these rights, as they had no bearing on the operation of the state.

In this case, the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot, not just for today but for the future as well. There is no way that any modification or repeal of the 14th Amendment would get near the required votes. In an attempt to garner votes from a small racist minority, the Republicans are alienating the fastest growing voting demographic in the United States. For the same reason that Republicans who fought against civil rights lost the African American vote, these Republicans are going to lose the Hispanic vote. Possibly, until another great shift in politics, but none like the 1960s shift is likely to occur soon.

But hell if the party of Lincoln wants to piss on his greatest legacy, I'm game to watch them torch their house while inside.

Note:
Jason Linkins makes two hilarious points as he known to do: 1)I want to see Louisiana Governor and upcoming Republican Bobby Jindal's reaction 2)When Alan Keyes is the sane one, something is out of kilter.

Here is an opinion by Rep. Luis Gutierrez  
Why We Should Welcome McConnell's Demand for Hearings on Rescinding 14th Amendment

Here's a post more up my sarcastic alley:

Finally, It's Time to Shred the Constitution

And I didn't mention it, but another significant blow to bigots was the statement made by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Most Americans have no idea about the tenets of Muslim nor care to understand the difference between a terrorist and a member of the Islamic faith. I would hope though that all have a concept of religious freedom in the United States.
Defending Religious Tolerance: Remarks on the Mosque Near Ground Zero
Another Linkins post about the Conservative reaction to the ruling
Best excerpt:

In fact, the two men -- Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry -- were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
"I'm a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.
But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
"I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here," a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.
The incident underscores how contentious -- and, perhaps, how irrational -- the debate over the mosque has become.

I apologize for all of the links being to Huffington Post which posts mostly liberal pieces. I would post links from a right-oriented website, but I prefer to keep my lunch down and limit any exposure to ideas which make me lose all faith in mankind.