http://apathyisfun.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_apathyisfun_archive.html
go to iceland to work on an organic farm
via Nate Silver:
It's not likely that Sotomayor is downing bottles of Cristal and snorting coke in the bathroom every Friday at Hotel Gansevoort, or having four-martini lunches with the Sex and the City girls at Bryant Park.
Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom










Gingrich On Prop 8 Protests: "Gay And Secular Fascism ... Prepared To Use Violence"
Media Matters reports on a Fox News discussion between Bil O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich on protests against the California gay marriage ban:
O'REILLY: OK, now, the culture war. I know you've been flying around the country, and you're doing stuff. In the last three or four days, this is really nasty stuff. I mean, you know, hyper -- we're gonna show you some of the video. A woman getting a cross smashed out of her hand. We had a church in Michigan invaded by gay activists. We're gonna show you the video on Monday of that -- we have exclusively. We had a guy in Sacramento fired from his job. We had boycotts called on restaurants.
I mean, it is getting out of control, very few days after the election. How do you assess that?
GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.
"Long inculcation in attitudes of cringing meekness has taken taken its toll among homosexuals, combined with a feeling, still widely prevalent, that reasonable, logical gentlemanly and ladylike persuasion and presentation of reasonable logical argument, could not fail to win over those who would deny us our equality and our right to be homosexual and to live as homosexuals without disadvantage. There was--and is--a feeling that given any fair chance to undertake dialogue with such opponents, we would be able to impress them with the basic rightness of our position and bring them into agreement with it.
Unfortunately, by the approach alone we will not prevail, because most people operate not rot rationally but emotionally on questions of sex in general, and homosexuality in particular, just as they do on racial questions. It is thus necessary for us to adopt a strongly positive approach, a militant one. It is for us to take the initiative, the offensive--not the defensive--in matters affecting us. It is time that we began to move from endless talk to firm, vigorous action.
We ARE right; those who oppose us are both factually and morally wrong. We are the true authorities on homosexuality, whether we are accepted as such or not. We must DEMAND our rights, boldly, not beg cringingly for mere privileges, and not be satisfied with crumbs tossed to us."-franklin kameny on homophile militancy, 1965
I strongly support civility in this struggle. Religious services and practices should be scrupulously respected. But when a church, like the Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and protested because they are a religion.Battle stations!
I have never done anything - nor would I do anything - to impede or restrict the civil rights of Mormons. I respect their right to freedom of conscience and religion. In fact, it is one of my strongest convictions. But when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war.
And I am not a pacifist.
Everyday, even in the remotest places, the citizenry of this nation is being bombarded with patriotic rhetoric like the meaning of being [American], the uniqueness of this country, the paradise we'll all live in if we only vote and give money to one of the political rackets on the stage.



