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The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend:
"a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."

He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior." (CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)


Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).

"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008



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"A nutty lesbian blogger."
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The NAACP Gets It

by: TerranceDC

Mon Nov 17, 2008 at 15:00:16 PM EST


Well, the NAACP has shut my mouth on this one. I was pretty hard on them this summer, when I got wind of a PFOX exhibit at an NAACP event. But it looks like the outcome off the proposition 8 vote has raised some alarm with civil rights groups, including the NAACP. [Via Kip.]

Meanwhile, five civil rights groups asked California's highest court Friday to annul the ban on the grounds that Proposition 8 threatens the legal standing of all minority groups, not just gays.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and two other groups petitioned the state Supreme Court to prevent the change from taking effect.

The petition is the fourth seeking to have the measure invalidated. But it's the first to argue that the court should step in because the gay marriage ban, which overturned the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay unions, sets a precedent that could be used to undermine the rights of racial minorities.

Eva Paterson, president of the San Francisco-based Equal Justice Society, said the election raises the specter of voters deciding to bar illegal immigrants from public schools, disenfranchising black voters or otherwise using the ballot box to promote segregation.

"The court ruled that to discriminate in the area of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and violated our guaranteed equality," Paterson said. "Why should a slim majority of Californians be able to put discrimination back into the California Constitution?"

OK. there's one thing that bears repeating here.

TerranceDC :: The NAACP Gets It

The petition is the fourth seeking to have the measure invalidated. But it's the first to argue that the court should step in because the gay marriage ban, which overturned the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay unions, sets a precedent that could be used to undermine the rights of racial minorities.

Next time you go to a protest, somebody please put these words from a previous post on a protest sign or poster. You have my express permission to use these words over and over and over again on as many signs, flyers, buttons, etc. you want.

You may not be gay, but you may be next.

The NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and those other civil rights groups probably get that they may not be gay, but if what happened in California on proposition 8 stands, they may be next. You may not be able to fit the next part on a sign, but it's the rest of the argument.

Remember that we used to live in a country where civil rights weren't decided by majority vote. Remember that we used to live in a country whose founding documents cite "inallienable rights." Remember that we're may not be living in that country anymore, and even if your rights were not up for a vote this time around, they are almost certain on someone's hit list.

Better yet, put this question on a sign.

Which of your civil rights do you want put to a majority vote?

Or this.

Which of your civil rights do we get to vote on?

Or this.

Who gets to vote on your civil rights?

Or this. [Via Woodmoor Village.]

Image

If you think for one minute that the people who have been against civil rights from the beginning will stop with same-sex marriage or with gay people, you may be surprised. What they did in California was to establish a beachhead as a basis for overruling almost any established civil right on nothing more than a simple majority vote. In other words, they got a foothold for establishing majoritarianism.

What's unsaid and unquestioned in all of the arguments above is the increasing conservative push for majoritarianism. Or, to put it plainly, absolute majority rule. Might, in other words, makes right. The majority is automatically right , no matter what it wants or doesn't, because it's the majority. Only the current crop of Republicans and religious conservatives go a step further than traditional majoritarianism, by seeking to bar a future majority from disagreeing with the (perceived) current majority.

What's scary is that the creeping support for majoritarianism may result in a situation where no one has any "unalienable rights," that the majority can't take away, because the two avenues minorities have traditionally had to access justice that the majority withholds - the courts and the legislature- will have been delegitimized fo that purpose.They'll henceforth exist only for the purpose of enforcing the will of the majority because, as noted above, the majority can't be wrong.

What's scarier is that some pretty smart people either don't seem to realize this, or just don't question it.

Kip put it better than I did by simply placing two significant quotes next to each other.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Who's going to tell us what a civil right is and what's not? Well, the people will.

--Massachusetts Governor, Harvard Law School graduate (and Christian), Mitt Romney, June 28, 2006

Who? The people?

Like maybe Gladys? Or any of the rest of these folks?

Kaltura

Think about it for a second. If they had a shot at it, which civil rights court rulings would these people like to see overturned? And not just the people in the video, but the far more politically savvy people who get them "angried-up" and out at the polls? The people whose founders, favored politicians, and spokespersons have a peculiar habit of defending America's peculiar institution? The people who could conceivably mount a campaign to repeal civil rights rulings that they are "not against" but that are "no longer necessary"? (I'm just guessing how they might spin it.

Which would you like to see up for a vote:

  • Brown v. Board of Education (school desegregation, major blow against "separate but equal")
  • Roe v. Wade (reproductive freedom)
  • Shelley v. Kramer (racially restrictive "covenants" in real estate - This one's definitely on Glady's list)
  • Bailey v. Patterson (segregation in intrastate and interstate transportation)
  • Batson v. Kentucky (basically says you can't put, say, a Black person on trial and exclude Black people from the jury)
  • Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (defined "hostile work environment" as sexual harassment under the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
  • Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv. Inc. (same-sex harassment can be the basis for a sexual harassment claim)
  • Romer v. Evans (overturned Colorado amendment prohibiting protection of LGBT rights)
  • Lawrence v. Texas (decriminalized sodomy, overturned sodomy laws)
  • Grisswold v. Connecticut (overturned law banning contraception, right to "marital privacy")
  • And of course the major civil rights acts of
    • 1957 (established the Civil Rights Commission)
    • 1960 (federal inspection of voter registration polls)
    • 1964 (prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex, and national origin)
    • 1968 (Fair Housing Act)

You could almost line them up chronologically and figure out how far people would like to turn back the clock if they could. In a very real sense, even if you're not gay, you could be "next" on their list.

Granted, we do not have anything like a national ballot initiative, yet. But there is a movement for one, supported by former presidential candidate Mike Gravel.

I don't know if it would open the door to putting civil rights to a majority vote, and I don't particulary want to find out. Neither, apparently, does the NAACP.

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The NAACP Gets It | 20 comments
Of course it does. Actually, the passage of Prop 8 does too.
They'll keep trying to open that door wider and go through it. Whether for reasons of power, or to keep up their tenuous tribal sense of identity (the us-versus-them business), the right-wingers will persist in fighting civil rights against many categories of people.

"More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read." -- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

FINALLY, people are starting to get it
I've been wondering if the straight public were ever going to engage their brains long enough to realize this threatens EVERYONE.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

Was talking
with folks at EqualityMaine today about this- that if it could be drilled into the heads of married atheists what exactly is at stake here, alot of lightbulbs would go off...  

"It goes on one at a time, it starts when you care to act, it starts when you do it again after they said no, it starts when you say We and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more."

[ Parent ]
Where is the lawsuit...
From the liberal clergy who now have a conservative religious doctrine in place? what about their freedom of rleigion?

Not just "a majority"
...but a majority of whoever turns out and is permitted to vote in a given election.  Which could be a rather small minority of the actual population.

Suppress minority voting here, disenfranchise college-age voter, flip a few e-voting machines there, flood with a bunch of sleazy lying ads, roll in the out-of-state dollars -- and the next thing you know, a minority of radical right wingers have control of everything.

We really gotta stop this...


Thomas Jefferson: SAID IT.
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression." - Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

Majority will must be 'reasonable'...It is a sacred principle that the minority possess their EQUAL Rights...which EQUAL Law (e.g. Legislature and/or Judidicial) must protect, and to violate that would be oppression...

ENOUGH Oppression already.. STAND UP and DEMAND Equal Rights for our
Minority..and use every CASE Law in History you can to support it.

It's the Hammer of JUSTICE,
It's the Bell of FREEDOM,
It's the Song about LOVE between,
my Brothers and my Sisters
...All over this Land.


So did Thomas Paine.
I've grown rather fond of this one lately.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

I think a lot of people that voted for prop 8 (and others) really can't conceive of being the other, yet I'm certain if they looked hard enough, they could find something a lot of their allies disapprove of.


[ Parent ]
Tom Paine is great
for ethical principles that just get better the more broadly you apply them.  It's a great example of why the "original intent" idea is ridiculous -- if you stick to the ethical principles behind rights, you'll continue to find ways in which "the founders" failed to broadly and evenly apply those principles.  I'll take the principles over the "founders" any day.

[ Parent ]
better late than NEVER
I'm underwhelmed, when it was JUST our families under attack, when it was JUST us being the ONE exception to equal protection under a Constitution....they were unconcerned.

What have you done today, to make ya feel PROUD?


~Heather Small


Hm?
The NAACP endorsed a "no" vote on prop 8, I'm pretty sure at least some of the other groups were involved at least in earlier lawsuits.  

[ Parent ]
Now they get concerned!
Figures!  Only when it stands on your doorstep and threatens YOUR family do people get concerned.  shakes head

They were
Callie, the NAACP was opposed to Prop 8 from the get-go. My question is why this was never mentioned in any of the No on 8 campaign materials other than the website.

[ Parent ]
Did any of these groups
help to fight Prop 8 before the election?

I'm glad they are joining in the fight to overturn it.

funny pictures

watashi no yomeiri wa doko desu ka


Yes
The NAACP was opposed to Prop 8 from the time it first went on the ballot.

[ Parent ]
The NAACP always had it
At least the CA branch. They were vocally opposed to Prop 8 from the beginning.

Finally
This information should have been the foundation of the Yes on 8 campaign. We need to educate the public on the dangers of profile voting. I say, better late than never to start the education campaign. Place this information with photos from Saturdays protests and get it in the media and in front of people's faces NOW!  We need not rush for a response from the high court unless it completely invalidates the measure.  

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving."
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton


Yikes
I meant No on 8.

Is there an edit feature?

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving."
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton


"First They Came"-repost, sorry was in wrong thread!
Attributed to Pastor Martin Neimoller, Germany 1937.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
--------------
My sign did say "They are coming for you next!"


Andrew Sullivan
One of the reasons as a conservative he's against going the court route for our rights is exactly the point that he realizes that it reinforces the idea of the Court using its traditional role to protect minorities from the majority. I am suprised it took so long for people to get it: This is about the conservatives trying to use a new wedge issue for the same old purpose. Thank god organizations like the NAACP get it.

Politicians abuse minorities far more than initiatives do.
Politicians have done FAR more to tyrannize minorities than ballot initiatives: Legislators previously criminalized sodomy & oral sex, not to mention miscegenation. Politicians put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII. Congress persecuted Communists and friends during the McCarthy era. They still fill the jails with pot smokers, even those with licenses for legal medical marijuana in 13 states -9 of which got it by ballot initiative.

Ballot initiatives are the origin of most reforms, such as women's suffrage (passed in 13 states before Congress went along), direct election of Senators (4 states), publicly financed elections (passed by initiative in 6 of 7 states with them), and increasing minimum wages (in all 6 states that tried in 2006). See http://Vote.org/initiatives for more examples and references. The media have seized on the problem initiatives.

Prop 8 passed by a smaller margin than last time. It's miserable for gays, but it is an education for us straights. Here's how I lost my mild homophobia: In 1992 Colorado voters passed Amendment 2, which would have banned gay rights laws like we have in Denver, Aspen and Boulder, where I live. All the courts found it unconstitutional, so it never went into effect. But because it was such a big topic I re-examined my avoidance of gays. I remembered where it started: the first gays I knew of (growing up in the ignorant '50s & '60s) had picked me up hitch-hiking around San Fran when I was 18 -and had their hands all over me! Now I knew that there were gay people all around me who weren't like that, and the fear left.

Now I have several close gay friends, including our new Colorado Congressman Jared Polis. Jared did more than anyone to turn Colorado from a Red state to deep Blue. He did this not just by funding Dem campaigns (he's very wealthy, young, and smart) but also by sponsoring 2 popular ballot initiatives -Amendment 23 which raised school funding, and Amendment 41, which prohibits lobbyists from giving "gifts" to legislators. He also contributed to 37, requiring electricity from renewables, and so on.

Solutions to initiative problems have been generally agreed on and available for many decades. But legislators NEVER improve the process, only make it harder (not affecting the wealthy much.)

Voters on ballot initiatives need what legislators get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. The best project for such deliberative process is the National Initiative for Democracy, led by former Sen. Mike Gravel: http://Vote.org. Also http://healthydemocracyoregon.... and http://cirwa.org

In Switzerland, petitions are left at government offices and stores for people to read and sign at leisure, so there are less aggressive petitioners, more informed signers, and less $ required. The Swiss vote on initiatives 3-7 times a year so there's never too many on one ballot. Because they have real power, the Swiss read more newspapers/capita than anyone else.

In Switzerland, representatives are humbler and more representative after centuries of local and cantonal (state) ballot initiatives, and national initiatives since 1891. They call their system "co-determination." This works for all relationships!

Democracy is a powerful tool which is mostly used for good. I'm very sorry it's been used to deny you legal marriage. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater!


The NAACP Gets It | 20 comments
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