Semantics

Okay, this one is nuts.

Via Pharyngula, this wonderful story from the Sacramento Bee.

Last month, Rachel Bird exchanged vows with Gideon Codding in a church wedding in front of family and friends. As far as Bird is concerned, she is a bride.

To the state of California, however, she is either "Party A" or "Party B."

Those are the terms that have replaced "bride" and "groom" on the state's new gender-neutral marriage licenses. And to Bird and Codding, that is unacceptable.

"We are traditionalists – we just want to be called bride and groom," said Bird, 25, who works part time for her father's church. "Those words have been used for generations and now they just changed them."

In May, after the California State Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal, the courts mandated state officials to provide gender-neutral licenses and other marriage forms. "Bride" and "groom" became "Party A" and "Party B."

Bird and Codding have refused to complete the new forms, a stand that has already cost them. Because their marriage is not registered with the state, Bird cannot sign up for Codding's medical benefits or legally take his name. They are now exploring their options, she said.

You know what? You little dipshits have fun doing your little dipshit protest over a couple of words on a piece of paper that will be tossed in a drawer somewhere and forgotten until a few years from now, when Gideon panics about forgetting the date of your anniversary and scrambles wildly to find it. You had your church wedding. That's where you can inject all the meaning you want into your marriage. A marriage license isn't about making you feel special. It's a legal document meant to afford you the status of married couple, with all the rights and responsibilities that go with it. The wording changes nothing, except for tweaking your confused notion of what is sacred and what is legal, and giving your privileged, pompous pseudo-Christian pride a big, raw purple nurple.

Where you cross the line from being jackasses to raging assholes, though, is when you and your little pals try to equate your invented persecution with denying other people the right you're getting to opt out of.

"We just feel that our rights have been violated," [Bird] said.

To some, the couple's stand may seem frivolous. But others believe "bride" and "groom" are terms that are too important for the state to set aside.

"Those who support (same-sex marriage) say it has no impact on heterosexuals," said Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute. "This debunks that argument."

What fucking right has been violated? What difference, other than hurting your tender little feelings, do the terms "Party A" and "Party B" make? What is this important civil liberty that will be denied to you as "Party B" that you would have enjoyed as "Bride"? You're just being brats. And as bad as a couple of twenty-something brats are, what makes your petty tantrum a hundred times worse is that you're arrogant enough to use your pretend persecution in justifying your desire to continue persecuting people who actually have had their rights denied.

Bird and Codding say they are trying to figure out what to do next. Bird said she does not know what she will do if she should become ill and need insurance. "I really don't know," she said.

Fuck you. I don't feel sorry for you. Do you know why? Because you are choosing to stay legally unmarried. That's a choice you don't only want to make for yourself... you want to make it for thousands of same-sex couples as well. Gay people aren't keeping you unmarried. You are. But in almost every state in this country except yours, people like you most certainly are keeping gay people from getting married. They don't enjoy the right to make the choice you are making. You want to risk your health over some ridiculous argument about semantics on a legal document? Go nuts. But don't pretend your right to choose is being infringed upon. It isn't.

Of course, maybe I'd be more willing to accept your argument if you actually represented the incredible sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

For now, they are busy with their family (she has two children from a previous marriage and he has three) and starting their new life.

Jesus vs Rudy

This boggles my mind... kinda.

Pat Robertson has endorsed Giuliani for president.


Does Pat Robertson care more about capitalism and American Nationalism than Christianity, even his perverted version of it? Yeah. We knew that; he's made it abundantly clear when he's said things like:

"This country does not belong to the ACLU, the radical left or the communists. It belongs to God and his people. I frankly am tired of us being second-class citizens in a land our forefathers founded and claimed for the Lord."
- Pat Robertson

Being a Christian, in the eyes of Pat Robertson, does not mean following the teachings of Jesus Christ. It means being a nationalist, consumerist capitalist. No surprise there.

What I find stunning is that he has the hubris to believe that conservative Christians are willing to turn their backs on everything they've been rallying around for 8 years just because Pat Robertson says so. Giuliani is, without a doubt, the least appealing Republican candidate in the race if you're a value-voting social conservative. He's for gay marriage. He's pro-choice. His ex-wife accused him of "open and notorious adultery." He was the mayor of New York City, seen by many as the focus of sin and depravity in America. This is the man Pat Robertson is endorsing as the candidate of choice for extremist Christians?

I only care out of curiosity, of course. In practice, I couldn't possibly care less who Pat Robertson endorses. I'm just curious to see if the throngs of pseudoChristians are so mindless and weak-willed that they'll give up the values that supposedly define them for Pat Robertson's vision of authoritarian capitalism.

God Hates People Who Make Me Indirectly Support Fred Phelps

This does not sit well with me. The Phelps family, aka the Westboro Baptist Church, aka The "God Hates Fags" people, aka the lowest slime that currently oozes along the face of this planet, was just slapped with a total of 11 million dollars in damages for doing their disgusting protests at the funeral of a soldier.

Don't get me wrong. There are not enough terrible things that can happen to these people. Fred Phelps is a cancer, and his children are metastasizing into legal professions and activist positions. I truly despise them and everything that they stand for. But dammit, this is not good law.

The bulk of the award was awarded as punitive damages for invasion of privacy, with another two million tacked on for inflicting emotional distress. The problem is, the protest did not take place on private property, and while their zealous hatred causes me plenty of emotional distress, that is not their goal. Regardless of how abhorrent their convictions may be, there is no doubt that these lunatics believe in them. There should not be a litmus test for expressing convictions, and certainly not one based upon likelihood of causing someone else emotional distress.

I don't like to hate anyone, but I am imperfect, and I can not help hating the Phelps and everything that they do and stand for. But Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder gave up his life for a commitment to American freedom (whether or not our presence in Iraq is in any way related to those ends was not up to him). While the presence of the Phelps at his funeral was an insult to that sacrifice, I think this ruling may be an even bigger insult. My heart goes out to his family for their loss, but this is not the way.

Horror Flick

This has got to be one of the creepiest videos I have ever seen in my life. So, of course, I thought I'd share.



What the hell is wrong with people? Who put that video together and didn't realize how disturbing it is? This is why I don't understand the evangelical movement. I totally understand being a lazy human being, more comfortable with having opinions and philosophies thrust upon one's self than with having to do the critical thinking necessary for real spiritual growth. But when you look around yourself and see people acting like this, how do the alarms not start going off?

Pseudo-spirituality aside, any father who is this obsessed with his daughter's sex life needs to being seeing someone with a Ph.D. It's one thing to hope, or even expect, that your daughter will remain chaste. Fine, yeah, I can handle that, as long as you can handle disappointment. But when you think that sitting your teenage daughter in your lap is a reasonable alternative to romantic contact between her and someone her age, that is indicative of an unhealthy obsession. If your 16-year-old daughter's hormones are sated by sitting in your lap, that's not "Godly love." It's an Electra complex, and requires therapy. Yes, a daughter should have a good relationship with her father, but it should not replace romantic discovery. That's not only patriarchal bullshit, but a ticket to a life of either deep repression or shrink visits.

Also, the constant implication that a woman's sexuality belongs to her father until marriage, to her husband afterwards, but never to herself, is just about as backwards and dangerous as you can get. For people who rail against radical Islamists all the time, Fundamentalist Christians sure go out of their way to act like them.