Damn Republican-Appointed Activist Judges

It’s not surprising but still incredibly disappointing. No, I don’t live in California. Heck, I’m not even gay. But what the hell, California! I know just as much attention should be spent on the dozens of other states that haven’t allowed gay people to marry each other at all, let alone for five whole months . . .  but I am so angry at the majority of California judges* who clearly have no ethics. They don’t have the strength of character to perform the job they’ve been selected to do: to interpret and apply the Constitution. But instead they buckled, pandering to the Right who appointed them, or maybe just afraid of the name-calling they’re sure to get anyway from the Right (well, boo-fucking woo), and in doing so they’ve made the California Constitution a joke.

A friend said to me today, “So, gay people can’t get married in California anymore, huh?” to which I responded, “Oh, they can still get married– as long as it’s to a member of the opposite sex. Sham marriages are still legal in California.”

And that is so true. Sham marriages are tolerated, even encouraged! What made my marriage (my failed marriage, btw, but that’s not super relevant right now) more valid than anyone’s? Think of all the sham marriages you know of. Off the top of your head, how many? Five? Ten? And I’m not just talking about the get-married-for-a-green-card kind of sham (which may or may not be as common as you think); I’m also talking about your aunt and uncle or grandparents who have separate rooms “because one of them snores.” I’m thinking of people who got married because of an unintended pregnancy (yes, that’s the way to make “an honest woman out of her”– by proposing  a loveless marriage). How about your friends’ parents who stayed together “for the kids”  until the youngest graduated from high school? And don’t even get me started about the politicians who run for office in Minnesota but their spouses live in California. Or the man who got married in the 1970s because he, like many people, couldn’t bear the idea of being a pariah or a freak.  (Sadly, some of these chickens went into politics, forced to seek sexual gratification in airport mensrooms). All of these marriages are bullshit, and yet, they do nothing to damage the quality and strength of anybody’s marriage, so why do some of these bigots use the “sanctity of marriage” crap as an excuse to be against equality in marriage? And how do they get away with it?

Oh, no, THAT marriage wouldn't have been a mockery at all.

It’s bigotry. It’s the majority doing their damndest to take rights away from the minority. And we oughta be ashamed.

In a recent entry in The Blarg, my friend Justin likened the anti-gay agenda of Prop 8 to the racism that we’re ashamed of in our parents or grandparents. Justin says,

You will become a family punchline, and your grandchildren will chalk you up as being both ignorant and intolerant.

“My grandparents still use the word ‘faggot,’” they’ll embarrassingly admit to their friends. “But they’re just old bigots; they’re too small-minded to know any better.”

June 12 is Loving Day, which commemorates the day in 1967 that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mildred and Richard Loving (an interracial couple  who fought for the right just to live in their homestate of Virginia as a married couple without worry of being sent to prison), striking down any remaining anti-miscengenation laws in the United States.  I am embarrassed and disgusted that those laws existed (let alone just six years before I was born!) and I know that Justin is right and that in forty years, people will feel the same sadness and embarrassment about the widespread persecution of gays as I do about the persecution of  non-whites.

*”It weakens the status of our state Constitution as a bulwark of fundamental rights for minorities protected from the will of the majority”– Carlos Moreno (who is the court’s only Democratic appointee).

Let’s just hope some asshole doesn’t put a proposition requiring the burka on the next California ballot. My BFF has glorious hair, and it would be a damn shame to have it covered.

Barack Obama Came to South Bend, Indiana, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

President Obama is giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame on Sunday. How totally cool for those graduates, right? I have no idea who spoke at any of my graduations because the speakers (and, frankly, the events on the whole) were non-spectacular. Ninety-five percent of the students who’ve written into Notre Dame’s paper, The Observer, approve of the school’s choice of speaker. But, as is usually the case, a very radical and very vocal minority of students, combined with some obnoxious members of the community and many more visitors who have nothing at all to do with Notre Dame, are making a federal case about Obama speaking there. For example, Alan Keyes (along with over 20 others) was arrested for trespassing on campus.

And what’s the hubub?  Barack Obama is pro-choice.

As a woman who was raised Catholic, I understand how important the concept of Life is to Catholics, but most thoughtful Catholics I know (including myself in my younger days when I was a practicing Catholic), understand that this issue of Life is much more complicated than whether or not abortion is legal and who thinks it should be legal. (In fact, NPR’s All Things Considered today reported that Obama’s approval rating is several percentage points higher among Catholics than it is with the general population, which pushes it well into the sixties).

This catch phrase “the Culture of Life” that the Bush administration was so adept at tossing around is meaningless. A true culture of life is anti-war. A culture of life is against the death penalty. A culture of life believes in providing food and healthcare for post-birth fetuses. A culture of life supports scientific advancements to save lives and improve quality of life for the sick and injured. A culture of life cannot only care about American fetuses. Iraqis, after all, were once fetuses. So were undocumented immigrants. As was Saddam Hussein and every inmate at Guantanamo Bay.

I’m pro-choice, as are many of my friends and members of my family. We share some common beliefs, mainly that abortion is an unhappy, yucky thing. Everyone with whom I’ve discussed this issue agrees that abortions shoudn’t occur. But we understand that making abortion illegal will do nothing to prevent abortions. Those who can afford them will stil receive them safely. Those who cannot afford them will attempt to receive them, many of them unsafely or fatally. Others will have unwanted children. The way to prevent abortions is simple: prevent unwanted pregnancies. Pregnancies are prevented by comprehensive health and sex eduacation and access to affordable birth control. Even my favorite Republican, Meghan McCain, has expressed this view. (See her great article for the Daily Beast called The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex.)

But I digress. My beef isn’t really about pro-lifers in general, it’s with the annoying people who are cluttering the streets of South Bend like they own the place that are pissing me off. Protesters are gathering to show their disapproval at Notre Dame’s choice of speaker.  An airplane has been flying over campus for the past few weeks, pulling a banner with an image of an aborted fetus. Students have called this plane annoying, and I don’t blame them. While the students of Notre Dame are trying to study and take finals, their environment is all atwitter. Students, already nervous and excited, deserve to enjoy their last weeks of college and graduation without having their lives disrupted even more by protesters. Geez, people, go home. Get lives. And if you really care about life, wouldn’t your time be better spent distibuting condoms to at-risk youths or volunteering to care for victims of domestic abuse?

And I can’t help but think that those few students who skip commencement to attend a prayer vigil elsewhere will one day regret missing their chance to hear an American President (one who can actually speak) give a speech. It’s like when my cousin invited me to Chicago to see the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field. I was never a deadhead, but I figured one day I’d be happy to tell my kids that I saw the Dead. I bonded with my cousin and everyone else there, and it’s a cherished memory. My mom skipped class when she was a freshman to hear Robert Frost at the University of Minnesota. My dad woudn’t skip class to hear Frost, and guess which one of my parents remembers that day?

I didn’t go to Notre Dame, but I worked at another prestigious Midwestern Catholic university, Marquette, for four years. And I can tell you that while Marquette’s Catholic foundation is important to the school, its academic reputation means more. And what kind of institution that wants to be taken seriously would construct a checklist of rules and voting stances, and only invite speakers whose history follows that criteria exactly? A school that doesn’t welcome discussion, critical thinking, or diverse viewpoints. And that’s the kind of school that offers its students a crap education. Notre Dame is not that kind of institution. Just the fact that their football coach (probably the best paid employee there) has a huge potty mouth is proof enough of that.

So well done, Notre Dame! Nice voice, and nice vision.

P.S. In your face, Arizona State! You wouldn’t give President Obama an honorary degree, but he’s getting a much cooler one from Notre Dame. Oh, which is also a reason the protestors are ticked. If I went through the list of people who’ve received honorary degrees from my alma maters, I’d probably be pissed too. Shoot, I got my master’s at FSU. It’s just best to leave it alone.