14-year old Jamey Rodemeyer killed himself only five months after creating this “It Gets Better Video”.  My heart is broken. We aren’t doing enough.  

I’m sure his family would appreciate your prayers.  

officialssay:

The U.S. Army, in a memo announcing that the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law prohibiting openly gay and lesbian soldiers from serving in the military will formally end tomorrow. 

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”- MLK Jr.

nrcyall:

Dear lord have mercy…no words.

Nobody But The Baby - Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch

Three divine voices.  

(via nrcyall-deactivated20121203)

“We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.” Article I, North Carolina State Constitution

This week, the North Carolina General Assembly passed an Anti-LGBT marriage amendment to the state constitution.  The amendment will go on to the voters for final approval or disapproval in May.  Hopefully the voters of NC will show a stronger sense of genuine conservatism, compassion, fairness, justice, love, and equality than their legislators.  

Dolores Umbridge moves to Arkansas.

Money quote: “You couldn’t just come in here and get with four people and decide you want to start an organization. You would go through your city council, with legal documentation, the right paperwork and get it in approval.”

Words fail.

conservativebrew:

Arkansas Town Bans Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly

From NYT article:

The City Council adopted an ordinance last week making it illegal to form any kind of group without its permission.

That is a clear violation of the Constitution, legal scholars agree. But it is also a sign of just how nasty politics has gotten in Gould, a farming town of 1,100 some 70 miles southeast of Little Rock, where members of the Council have struggled with a local political group that seeks to influence how the town is governed. The mayor, Earnest Nash Jr., also happens to be a member of the political group, the Gould Citizens Advisory Council…

…Last week, the Council overrode the mayor’s veto of two other controversial measures. One required that the citizens advisory council cease to exist. The other made it illegal for the mayor to meet with “any organization in any location” either “inside or outside Gould city limits” without the Council’s permission.

The advisory council, which calls itself a nonpartisan group that educates voters and raises money for public causes, says it will continue its work. But the Council, in one ordinance, accused the group of “causing confusion and discourse among the citizens” by harshly criticizing local officials at public meetings.

As a result, the City Council said, “No new organizations shall be allowed to exist in the City of Gould without approval from a majority of the City Council.”

“If freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” - George Washingtion

commonsensepoliticks:

buh-bye then!

One of my former political science professors, the esteemed Dr. Michael New,  has a sharp post up at the Corner highlighting the challenges that accompany statutory limits on spending. He asserts: 

“Overall, one problem that has consistently hindered the effectiveness of fiscal limits is enforceability. Attempts by legislatures to circumvent spending caps typically inspire little outrage from voters or taxpayers.”

and warns:

“The Gramm Rudman Hollings Act did result in some spending cuts and may have done some short-term good. But mostly it encouraged creative bookkeeping. In order to reach the deficit targets, expenditures were frequently placed into the budgets for subsequent fiscal years.”

Spending restraints are a tool for reducing the debt and recurring deficits, but they do not absolve lawmakers from making the difficult choices as to what and how to limit spending, and they are futile if legislators are permitted to circumvent the restraints through chicanery and bookkeeping gimmicks.  

  Yesterday,  Mike Kelsey on the Heritage Foundation’s blog asked, “Were the Founding Fathers Committed to Ending Slavery?”  

His claim:

“It is commonplace to dismiss the Founders as racists who may have attacked slavery from time to time in writing but never in action. Critics of the Founders often claim that, since the Constitution did not abolish slavery, the Founders were unconcerned with actively fighting the institution in their lifetime—even if they may have wanted slavery to disappear at some vague point in the future. This argument is both misguided and naïve.”

     He counters this claim by arguing that the founders expressed their desire to end slavery through the Northwest Ordinance:

“The final article of the ordinance declares unwaveringly that ‘there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.’ By a firm majority, Congress had officially repudiated slavery.”

     Kelsey’s core contention is that the founders made politically necessary sacrifices in the creation of the Constitution, despite their desire to see slavery eradicated, in order to make a unified nation.  

    But this is confusing.  If the founders desired to see slavery ended, who were they compromising with in the Constitutional Convention?  Well, other founders of course.  

     Some did want to see slavery ended.  One could lump the founders into three rough groups; the ardent abolitionists, the wanna-be abolitionists, and the anti-abolitionists.  

     The ardent abolitionists include delegates to the Constitutional Convention such as William Patterson, Gouverneur Morris and Rufus King as well as  other early leaders such as John Adams.  These men felt that slavery was a “foul contagion in the human character” and “an evil of colossal magnitude.” (McCullough, David. John Adams. 133).  These men wanted to see slavery ended, but accepted that they had to make compromises with pro-slavery founders in order to maintain national unity.  

    The “Wanna-Be Abolitionists” are those founders who expressed disgust and moral disapproval of the institution of slavery in general while owning slaves themselves.  Two notable examples in this mold include two of our early Presidents; George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote that slavery was “the most  unremitting despotism on the one part and the most degrading submissions on the other,” (McCullough, 331).  Yet, Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves, not even freeing them upon his death (as did George Washington).  

     The pro-slavery faction among the founders was largely Southern and included men such as John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney, who argued forcefully and successfully for the inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution.  This clause requires that escaped slaves who flee to free states be returned to their owners:

     So, how are we to look at the founders with regard to their views on slavery?  We must see them as individuals with conflicting views on some different topics.  A majority of the founders probably felt that slavery was a moral evil, but this was not a unanimous or dominant view.  Had it been, then the founders would have been able to ban slavery outright in the Constitution.  Sectional differences made the achievement of both abolition and national unity impossible, so the pro-abolition founders wisely chose to compromise in order to place the nation on secure ground, while still working to limit slavery’s power where they could; ending the slave trade and in the 3/5 Compromise for example. Kelsey and I share broad overall admiration and respect for the founders, but a one-dimensional portrayal of the founders is a disservice to their legacy and their posterity.  

     Pundits and historians should avoid describing the views of America’s Founding Father’s as if they spoke with one authoritative voice. There are some topics on which the founders achieved broad consensus while others were bitterly disputed. Invoking the founders draws upon deep wells of cultural memory and national pride. We have a responsibility to convey their views and philosophies accurately and in context, rather than twisting them into talking points for our respective, contemporary political motives.  

My thoughts on guest-blogger Russell’s post “Of Marriage and Gay Men”:

• Russell frames the argument over marriage in terms of religious extremists seeking to limit the constitutional rights of a minority.  Anti-marriage equality activists, however,  argue that they want everyone to have the same rights, that gays CAN marry (just not each other).  They contend that allowing same-sex couples to wed is a “radical redefinition of marriage.” 
• The Puritans certainly fled England to escape the tyranny of the English monarchy, but they had no intention of setting up Plymouth Colony on the basis of Church-State separation. They just wanted their vision of the church to be the one in power.  Just ask Roger Williams or Anne Hutchinson.
• Russell argues that the implementation of marriage equality would not have much of an impact on straight society.  I strongly dissent from this view.  Marriage equality for LGBTs will have a strong egalitarian influence on the marriage institution, and will remind all minority groups that America is a nation dedicated to liberty and equality under the law.  Marriage equality is a big deal for gays and straights alike.  
• Economic gains from marriage equality are very significant to the individuals involved, but I don’t see the argument as having tremendous moral force, and I can’t imagine the impact being more than marginal. After all, even though the gays will be buying bucketloads of flowers and glitter  for their weddings, with the repeal of DOMA they would also get the federal tax benefits offered to married couples. 

- I greatly enjoyed reading Russell’s first post, and I hope you did too.  I would be really interested to see where this blog could go in a discussion/dialogue based format….

***This is Rats’ Alley’s first guest blog.  I welcome my good friend Russell, thespian and Darth Vader impersonator extraordinaire. He writes with rather more emotion than I am generally inclined to and employs more aggressive figurative and emotional language.  Hopefully his submissions will present an interesting change of pace.***

by Russell Stephens

Fifteen score and fifteen years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. In their bold declaration, they stated that every person to enter this world is pre-packaged with certain God-given rights, and they did not modify this with exceptions based on race, creed, or any other modifier. They used the word “all” – not a very arguable term. It explicitly asserts totality without hint of modification; it is perhaps due to this totality that Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words have become the cornerstone of many major manifestos and declarations on the rights of mankind, as beacons of independence in war-torn states. But today, some 235 years after the Continental Congress adopted, signed, and posted Mr. Jefferson’s credo to good old King George, it seems that some Americans have forgotten the meaning behind that simple three-letter adjective, and are fighting tooth and nail to have its definition legally augmented.

The issue of civil rights has plagued the human race since (at least) the advent of written history. From the captivity of the Israelites in the days of Moses, to the African American slave trade in the early days of America, to more recent battles including women’s suffrage (a concept still unheard of in some Middle Eastern nations) and black voting rights, there has always been a group of people who insist on adding a “but” to the rights of “all.” In today’s legal system, the Egyptians and plantation foremen of old have assumed the shape of fundamentalist, right wing extremists who will stop at nothing to ensure that homosexuals are legally relegated to second-class citizenry. Politicians like Michele Bachmann go so far as to label members of the gay community as people dealing with an “issue of sexual dysfunction […] and sexual identity disorders,” and are, as such, to be pitied. She cites her having a gay family member as justification for her “compassion,” almost as if to say I know what you’re going through…my cousin is gay and it’s just AWFUL. But, she says, fighting tirelessly to achieve discriminatory laws enacted is NOT gay bashing. This may be technically true, but is going one mile-per-hour over the speed limit not technically breaking the law? She asserts that, if the federal government passes a law legalizing same-sex marriage, it would have a “profound impact” on every “man, woman, and child” in the state of Minnesota and, to carry it further, in America. I am not going to dive in to scriptural evidence decrying homosexuality; that would involve too much translation, interpretation, and differences in sociopolitical precedent for right now. Not to mention, was the primary reason that the Mayflower sailed for America in 1620 that there should be separation between church and state? I am proud to be a Christian, but I understand the need for this delineation. If the Christian Church (pick a denomination from the veritable smorgasbord at hand) were in charge of the American government, we would likely be at the hands of fundamental extremists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and, thus, no more just than the totalitarian Islamic states of the Middle East. By this token, then, Rep. Bachmann’s justifications for the illegalization of gay marriage completely invalid. Her bases for such action stem from irrational and erroneous notions like gay men’s being risks to public health, gay couple’s parenting skills being sub-par to their straight counterparts, and that homosexual relationships are “from Satan.” It would seem, therefore, that the bulk of her rationale is religious in nature. So, going back to the precedents set in 1620, what about this makes her point valid? Aside from the fact that she is a fundamentalist and extremist – in my humble opinion, the words and actions of extremists are not worthy of recognition – her vendetta reflects deep cultural resentment and propagandistic dismissal of facts (the same pledge she signed also condemned certain Islamic denominations and other social minorities). That this woman is exploiting her position as political representative to tout her didactic vendettas is nothing but a disgrace to Messrs. Jefferson and Lincoln and all the other champions of human rights.

Now, as Lincoln orated, we are engaged in a great civil war. Despite my obvious bias in favor of gay marriage, I can see no reason that legalizing the institution would have any effect on the rest of the American population. It would seem to me that, if a person is not gay and subsequently opposed to gay marriage, he should refrain from engaging one and leave it at that. That being said, I can only see the positive impact of gay marriage; the tax revenue brought in from Hobby Lobby’s floral and wedding sections alone would probably knock a sizeable dent in America’s trillion dollar deficit – a deficit which, I hasten to add, was largely created by straight people.

(via commonsensepoliticks)

Yes he is.  And $4 trillion over ten years is not enough.  

-Campaign Slogan drawn from the Iowa FAMiLY LEADER pledge signed by Bachmann (And Rick Santorum).