My Favorite Republican

by Pa Rock
Political Commentator

Meghan McCain, the brash, blond daughter of Senator John McCain, is still making news. Last month the young blogger took a swipe at conservative mouthpiece, Laura Ingraham, saying that she could "kiss my fat ass." (That was in response to a catty remark that Ingraham had made referring to Ms. McCain being a "plus size" model.)

This week Meghan and her mother, Cindy, appeared before the Log Cabin Republicans (the gay twig of the party) where they stated their commitment to support gay marriage. Young Meghan believes (rightly so) that the Republican party is heading toward long-term impotence unless they begin to expand their base and take in some of the groups that party blowhards have worked so hard to marginalize or eliminate.

One irony of the Republican intolerance of homosexuality is that many Republicans are themselves gay - but deeply closeted. Take for instance former Representative Mark Foley, former Senator Larry Craig, and former holy man Ted Haggard.

Nationally, public support for gay rights has increased to 45% over the past couple of years, but among America's young there is strong majority support for gay rights and gay marriage. Today's youth have friends who are gay, and they realize that these individuals are not going to bring down civilization, regardless of what they are told by fundamentalist ministers or doctrinaire Republicans. Four states now recognize gay unions. The tide has turned, and if the GOP and the other know-nothing groups want to waste their resources trying to stem it - let 'em! The future is rushing forward and all of the hate-mongers are about to be submerged in the swiftly rising waters of human equality.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't "get" the Log Cabin Republicans. I understand they are fiscally conservative and may feel more at home with Republican economic policies - but how can they align themselves with a political organization that regards them as immoral and equates their romantic relationships with incest and bestiality? Were there ever Jewish Nazis? Just thinking about either of those pairings makes my head hurt!

Milk

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

If you are planning on entering an Oscar Pool this year, here is a freebie: Sean Penn will win Best Actor for the title role in Milk - and Josh Brolin will be a strong contender for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk's assassin, Dan White.

I took in this amazing film earlier today expecting to see little more than two hours of something like a History Channel presentation. I knew the story, in fact, the actual murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone of San Francisco occurred after two of my children were born. Director Gus Van Sant weaved thirty-year-old news footage and exemplary contemporary acting into his dramatic retelling of a chaotic episode in America's past. And the timing of his film's release could not have been more poignant: it dealt with the defeat of a California hate law that targeted gays and lesbians - and its release came on the heels of the passage of anti-gay hate legislation in California just a few weeks ago. Comparisons between the two measures cannot be avoided, nor should they be.

The primary hero of this true tale is Harvey Milk, a San Francisco city supervisor and the first openly gay male elected to a major public office in the United States. But beyond that individual, the activist gay and lesbian residents of San Francisco and their relatives andc friends give heart to this important historical era. Milk's fellow supervisor, Dan White, is the front-line villain, but it is Anita Bryant, a bitter crone and shill for the orange juice industry, and a nation of Christian Fundamentalists, who are the overarching villains.

Knowing the story of the events that led to that awful day in San Francisco didn't spoil the magic of this movie. Van Sant and his stellar cast brought the events of the early days of the gay rights movement to life. Sean Penn was Harvey Milk, body and soul. He skillfully moved from a closeted insurance administrator in New York City to a successful businessman and political dynamo in San Francisco's Castro district. His flaw, an addiction to power, was only starting to present itself as problematic when he was gunned down by ex-policeman White.

Josh Brolin played Dan White as a deeply closeted male who was struggling to support his family on a meager supervisor's salary. There was a point in the tale where White reached out to Milk with some potential political deal-making, but the gay supervisor reneged at the last moment, earning him the fateful enmity of White. Brolin bestowed more humanity on Dan White than he probably deserved, and definitely more than the press did three decades earlier.

James Franco also gave a standout performance as Scott, Milk's partner throughout much of the period covered by the film. He is shown as the anchor in Milk's life, and the foil for his occasional bouts with grandiosity. It is Scott who clears their apartment of all of the political operatives and campaign workers so that Harvey is able to eat supper in peace. As Harvey becomes more consumed with politics, Scott quiety and peacefully withdraws from his life.

Milk chronicles a turbulent time in American society, a time that should be behind us, but unfortunately still rises occasionally like a festering boil in need of lancing. Dan White is dead (presumably), and Anita Bryant has been silenced and is probably drooling in a home somewhere, being spoon-fed gruel three times a day by a gay orderly too young to know just what an awful person she was in her prime. But the Christian fundamentalists still rage on, consumed by the fear that somewhere people are laughing, loving, and enjoying life on their own terms. Until these hate-riddled zealots figure out what Jesus was really about, civilization is doomed to be mired down in their intolerance and bigotry.

"There are few things in life more evil than a 'good' Christian." ~ Pa Rock

Milk is serious history wearing the cloak of exceptional drama - as history so often does. People who see this movie will not leave the theatre unaffected, of that you can be certain.

Gay Rights Are Civil Rights!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

This morning my daughter forwarded a link to me on the special comment that Keith Olbermann did on Countdown last night. His topic was gay rights and the electoral travesty that took place at the polls in California on that topic last week. Normally I catch Keith's special comments as they happen, but last night I was engaged in some other activities, so I was pleased and surprised that my daughter not only saw the comment, but she was affected by Keith's words enough to pass them along to her email list.

Keith was railing (he always rails - and he does it so well!) on the passage of California's Proposition 8, a measure that constitutionally removed the rights of gay couples to marry in California. (Generally constitutions have functioned to give people rights, not take them away!) Seventy million dollars were spent on that one ballot measure, making it the most expensive election item in the U.S except for the Presidential race.

Keith argued, quite eloquently (as always), that gay marriage does nothing to pose a threat to anyone else's right to marry. He said that all gays want are the same privileges that are afforded to straight people. He noted that up until the second half of the twentieth century nineteen states had laws forbidding people of different races to marry - laws that would have prevented the marriage of the parents of the next President of the United States.

Most of the millions that were pumped into California were spent on support of the measure to ban gay marriages, and most of that money came from the Mormon Church.

Gay activist and journalist Andrew Sullivan had this to say regarding the Mormon energy and gold that went into the passage of Prop 8:

"This was not typical church activism. The Mormon Prophet commanded that every California member give time and money to pass Prop 8. Each member was then contacted by a church authority to make sure the orders from Salt Lake City were obeyed. Mormons were organized into groups to canvas neighborhoods, knock on doors, distribute yard signs, and otherwise organize against gay marriage rights.

"Sounds like standard civic participation, right? But remember, Mormons are not allowed to dissent.

"Those who openly speak disagreement with the church's orthodoxy are routinely excommunicated..."

(Andrew Sullivan's complete comments can be found on the website of The Atlantic.)

It's ironic that the Mormon Church, an institution that was born in bigamy, would deign to tell others how to marry. (Some fundamentalist branches and off-shoots of the Mormon Church are still openly and defiantly pro-bigamy.)

Mormon's prefer to hear their church referred to as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with emphasis on the Jesus Christ part. They want other fundamentalist Christians in America to give them their proper due as also being Christians, something that did not universally occur during Mitt Romney's brief run for the Presidency. Some say that was why they so eagerly poured their monies and energies into California's homophobic ballot measure.

When it comes to the subject of homosexuality, the Mormon church gets plumb stupid. For a good sense of their institutionalized homophobia, check out the 2003 movie, Latter Days. It is the tale of a promiscuous young gay man living in West Hollywood who makes a bet that he can seduce one of the three young Mormon missionaries who have recently moved into his apartment complex. The tale gets dicey when he falls in love with his intended target, and more complications follow when the Mormon Church itself weighs in on the romance.

There has also been a recent controversy playing out in the news that focuses on the Mormon Church's uptight stance regarding sex. A young Mormon man named Chad Hardy came up with the idea of creating a calendar with pictures of shirtless Mormon missionaries. The beefcake product was titled "Men on a Mission," and it sold about a bazillion copies. The Church, however, was not amused. Mr. Hardy was promptly excommunicated, and Brigham Young University, a school completely owned by the Mormon Church, just as promptly withdrew his diploma. Fortunately for Mr. Hardy, the Church's draconian response has sent sales of his calendar through the roof. A sequel is very likely!

Boycott Utah!

But back to the subject at hand...

Anti-gay marriage amendments were on the ballot in three states last Tuesday. California's passed by 52%, older and more conservative Arizona passed it by 56%, and the ancients of Florida rejected gay marriage with a whopping majority of 62 percent. That sounds bad, but the nation's homophobia is gradually lessening as younger, and more worldly (and educated) people, begin to make their mark at the polls. (As an example, similar legislation passed by 61% in California in the year 2000 - so the bigotry has subsided by 9% in just eight years!)

The times, as Mr. Dylan tells us, they are a changin'!

God Doesn't Even Hate Fred Phelps

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and earlier this month Her choice of a modus operandi was the United States Federal Court System. Acting through the distraught father of a Marine who was killed in Iraq, God smote America's best known hate-monger, the Reverend (sic) Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church / Cult of Topeka, Kansas.

Do you know about Fred?

Fred Phelps was born in Mississippi during the Great Depression, did a stint at Bob Jones University without graduating, and eventually became a Kansas Attorney specializing in Civil Rights cases. And while he did assist in bringing an end to some of the Jim Crow legislation that was still on the books in Kansas, his gears soon began to slip and he was ultimately disbarred for bizarre behavior in Court. Fred's other accomplishments of note include fathering thirteen children, nine of whom still claim him, and founding a church - of sorts. That church, the Westboro Baptist, has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to Wikipedia, "60 of its 71 confirmed members are related to Phelps through blood or marriage or both." Both?

Phelps and his church/cult became famous and a national embarrassment primarily on one issue: their rabid stand against homosexuality. Their premier website, for those not overly faint of heart, is: godhatesfags.com. (Are you getting the picture?) It was the Phelps crew from Westboro who protested and heckled the Matthew Sheppard funeral. For awhile the group was content with just being cruel to the families of AIDS and hate crime victims. Somehow though, they have since conflated their homosexuality issues with the US Military, and are now protesting at military funerals on the premise that the United States has enabled homosexuality, and our dead soldiers are God's revenge for that transgression. The group also has up websites detailing their hatred of Canada, Ireland, and Sweden.

Though Phelps and his minions are openly hostile to the American government (and Fred himself has spoken glowingly of Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein because of their stands against gays), they are not too proud to avail themselves of the protections offered by the United States Constitution. Whenever anyone has summoned the courage to attack these bullies in Court, they wrap themselves tightly in the First Amendment and proclaim the sancity of their freedom of speech.

But maybe the lights are finally about to go out at the Westboro circus.

The Federal Court in Baltimore looked at more that just freedom of speech. Those judges also considered a family's right to privacy and the emotional distress that comes with having the funeral of a loved one disrupted with plackards and heckling. And when those good judges viewed the whole picture of what these homophobic crazies had hurled upon people who just wanted to bury their Marine son in quiet and dignified repose, they took a big step to righting a festering wrong. The Court awarded the family of the deceased Marine 10.9 million dollars to be paid by Fred, two of his children, and the Westboro Baptist Church.


May the verdict hold through appeals, may the government seize and sell the Westboro Compound to pay the damages, and may the whole place be bulldozed and salted by a team of gay construction workers so that nothing ever grows there again! And then may God bless us each and every one, especially Fred.

Amen