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Why matchbox twenty's Rob Thomas is my new hero on Hitfix
You can't only support the issues that directly affect your life because what it ultimately comes down to is that any time any one's freedoms are eclipsed, everyone's rights are in danger. There will always be someone who is threatened by "the other": i.e., someone who is not the same as them. And yet they don't seem to intuitively understand that one day, someone else who has the power will see them as "the other" and will come for their freedoms.
Rob Thomas: The Big Gay Chip on My Shoulder
A civil union has to do with death. It's essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It's about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn't make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of "separate but equal" and we know how that works out.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Bigots’ Last Hurrah - NYTimes.com
Iowa and Vermont were the tipping point because they struck down the right’s two major arguments against marriage equality. The unanimous ruling of the seven-member Iowa Supreme Court proved that the issue is not merely a bicoastal fad. The decision, written by Mark Cady, a Republican appointee, was particularly articulate in explaining that a state’s legalization of same-sex marriage has no effect on marriage as practiced by religions. “The only difference,” the judge wrote, is that “civil marriage will now take on a new meaning that reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law.”
Some opponents grumbled anyway, reviving their perennial complaint, dating back to Brown v. Board of Education, about activist judges. But the judiciary has long played a leading role in sticking up for the civil rights of minorities so they’re not held hostage to a majority vote. Even if the judiciary-overreach argument had merit, it was still moot in Vermont, where the State Legislature, not a court, voted to make same-sex marriage legal and then voted to override the Republican governor’s veto.
A Gay-Marriage Solution: End Marriage?
he may find that the folks who cling hardest to marriage are gay couples. After all, what was the most sweeping part of the May 2008 decision Ming and his colleagues issued that granted gays the right to marry? It was the idea that the word marriage is so strong that denying it to gay couples violates the most sacred right enshrined in the state constitution: the right for all people to be treated with dignity and fairness.
Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms | Philip Pullman - Times Online
We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.
How to Stump Anti-Abortionists With One Question « Unreasonable Faith
Did you know you can stump anti-abortionists with one simple question?
Just ask them this:
If abortion was illegal, what should be done with the women who have illegal abortions?
Now watch their faces as the cognitive dissonance sets in. They believe abortion to be murder. Murder deserves severe punishment. Thus, women who have illegal abortions should receive severe punishment — like life in prison or the death penalty. That’s the logical conclusion.
But they can’t accept this conclusion. They know it’s absurd and unfair — which means they know abortion is not really murder.
ThomHartmann.com - To Restore Democracy: First Abolish Corporate Personhood
But the first step, as always, is awakening people to the root cause of the problems we face - the use of corporate personhood by a handful of the world’s largest enterprises to insinuate themselves into governments and seize control of legislative and regulatory agendas. As enough voters learn the history and realize the consequences of this, the solution - ending corporate personhood - will become more and more possible, and Paine’s and Jefferson’s original idea of democracy representing “we, the people” will come back to life.
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The Supreme Court ruled on an obscure taxation issue in the Santa Clara County vs. The Union Pacific Railroad case, but the Recorder of the court - a man named J. C. Bancroft Davis, himself formerly the president of a small railroad - wrote into his personal commentary of the case (known as a headnote) that the Chief Justice had said that all the Justices agreed that corporations are persons.
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What is especially ironic about this is that Davis knew the Court had not ruled on this issue. We found a handwritten note in the J.C. Bancroft Davis collection in the Library of Congress, from Chief Justice Waite to reporter Davis, explicitly saying, “we did not meet the constitutional issues in the case.” (In other words, the Court had decided the case on lesser grounds, which it always prefers to do when possible.)
NJ Report: 'Overwhelming Evidence' Civil Unions Inferior to Marriage - Towleroad, More than gay news. More gay men
The final report of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission says it gathered 'overwhelming evidence' that the civil union law not only fails to provide the same protections as marriage, it also has created economic, medical and emotional hardships for gay couples. The commission concluded that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is as unjust as government imposing racial segregation laws against African-Americans.
Rare MLK speech on civil disobedience - Boing Boing
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
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I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
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And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
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25 Banned Books That You Should Read Today
This list summarizes 25 of the most controversial banned books and tells you where you can read them all for free online. Exercise your rights by reading at least one of these banned books today!
Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you're innocent - Boing Boing
In a brilliant pair of videos, , Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department present a forceful case for never, ever, ever speaking to the police without your lawyer present. Ev
'We need to stop being such cowards about Islam' by Johann Hari, The Independent - RichardDawkins.net
Some people will instantly ask: why bother criticising religion if it causes so much hassle? The answer is: look back at our history. How did Christianity lose its ability to terrorise people with phantasms of sin and Hell? How did it stop spreading shame
Why I am an abortion doctor
I can take an anxious woman, who is in the biggest trouble she has ever experiences in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life.
YouTube - Martin Luther King "I have a dream"
The full version of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech.
The History of Marriage as an Institution
These examples, and there are more, clearly document that marriage has not been an unchanging institution with unchanging definitions of who can marry and under what circumstances. Those who claim otherwise distort the historical record.
Reason Magazine - Predictions for 2008
As the end of the year approaches, it's time for another column of government overreach predictions for the New Year. What outrageous, beyond-parody grabs at power and erosions of civil liberties will transpire in 2008? My predictions:
Taking Marriage Private - New York Times
For most of Western history... marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
The War On Bullshit » Blog Archive » 8 Reasons Why Freedom of Religion is Impossible
Freedom of religion is impossible because it is inconsistent with religions themselves. Even if it were possible, it would be folly because religious practices have the potential to be, and often are immoral and barbaric.
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