When asked by a reporter if he would see Al Gore’s global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Jeb Bush said, “No, I’m not going to be doing that.” (He did see the latest X-Men movie, which he described as “excellent.”)

ok, forget the al gore part for a minute. Jeb liked X-Men? GAY. Come on, folks, the alegory isn’t even a subtle one. How can people like this movie and be opposed to LGBTQIA rights?

Also, I’ve decided that I really was full of shit two posts ago. I wouldn’t advocate letting overt racism go unconfronted simply because one isn’t likely to change someone’s mind via confrontation. This isn’t any different.

but gay marriage? what’s the argument even? all i hear is buzz words. “deffending marriage”? from who? us straight blokes are the ones destroying it. we’re doing that just fine ourselves. how in the world would allowing gay marriage make that worse? what would it even effect and how? “slippery slope”? to what? why? who cares? who gets hurt (besides the gay folk who end up in poor marriages, but i doubt that’s the argument)?

so what’s the issue even?

There are a lot of people out here in the Bible belt (some even related to me via K) who vote “values” [sic]. Meaning they vote however their televangelist tells them to. They are very sincere and earnest, and they really believe that preventing abortion and gay marriage are the most important social issues of our time. They don’t know too much about the war in Iraq, and they don’t feel too great about it, but they don’t think about it too much, and it’s not on their political agenda. Why? Because it isn’t on their televangelists’ agenda. It doesn’t get preached about on the Sunday afternoon two-hour-long sermons on channel 34, or by Chuck Colson on KTOQ Radio every night. The right-wing “Christian” media network is just unbelievable, both in its size and saturation and consistency of message. But that’s a tangent.

My opinion is GW doesn’t really think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Congress will actually pass an amendment banning gay marriage. He just has to throw a bone to his “Christian constituency” so they won’t wake up and realize that the key issues of his presidency have nothing at all to do with gay marriage or abortion — they have to do with full spectrum world domination, the rich getting richer, and strengthening the executive branch’s vise grip on power.

So what does that all mean? My feeling, from knowing some of these “values voters” personally, is that it’s politically fruitless to engage them in arguments on “their issues.” What has seemed much more potentially fruitful is to actually engage them in conversations about the things Bush IS ACTUALLY DOING that they don’t hear about on their sermon shows. Because they really don’t know, and when they find out, they don’t like it too much.

On the other hand, just shifting the focus feels like a betrayal or abandonment of gay people. Even though I think there’s no chance we’ll see an amendment banning gay marriage, the President talking in favor of it alone contributes to a homophobic environment that makes hate crimes happen. So for that reason it seems morally necessary to engage these people head-on on “their issues.” So maybe I’m just full of shit.

Which seems like an appropriate note on which to end this rant.

And no matter who appointed them, the people voted for legislators that they supposedly trusted to appoint judges. So it’s not like the courts are sweeping in like some dynasty or something. And how does it work that making an amendment will let the people decide? Seems to me the issue is still being debated. It’s not an obvious choice - and an amendment would imply that it was. The judges have more flexibility to listen to the people, if that’s the logic. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I’m with Eric. I just don’t get it.

Still a good idea to let them know what you think. There are various ways to contact them, and these sites are a place to start: Evan Bayh, Richard Lugar.

this is another one of those issues i simply can’t wrap my mind around. war - i understand the debate and why people would see things differently. same with tax cuts etc. different priorities. these things affect us, but banning gay marriage? how, when and why could gay marriage even potentially be “a threat” to anything at all? this blows my mind.

from the reports i’m hearing “the people” are a category over/against “the courts”. “the people” have already made it clear that they oppose gay marriage, because elected officials have passed laws against it in most states - but “the courts” have, on occasion (once?), overturned those laws as “unconstitutional”. bush want’s to take that argument away from “the courts” by making it expressly constitutional - and therefore (according to some twisted logic) giving the power back to “the people”.

it’s those damn activist judges. all acting and everything. judging. trying to protect those damn toads and using those damn laws to do it. getting all legal on us little people. don’t get legal on me, forces of hell, my bigot-god doesn’t like that.

In our state it seems particularly important to call.

I just tried, but his voice mail box was full. I’ll try again in the morning and I would urge others who agree (and who aren’t already in Europe) to do the same.

But here’s an alternative:

“Marriage is under vicious attack now, I think from the forces of hell itself.”
– Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson