New Jersey Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage

In case you haven't heard yet, the New Jersey Supreme Court made a ruling on Wednesday that called for equal rights to be granted to all citizens, regardless of sexual-orientation. Some are calling this the next step down the aisle for gays and lesbians.
Here is the press release sent out by Equality Advocates Penssylvania yesterday.

VICTORY! NEW JERSEY SUPREME COURT RULES FOR EQUALITY
In a groundbreaking decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court
ruled today that lesbian and gay couples must be granted
equal relationship rights under the law.

In the Court's opinion in Lewis v. Harris, New Jersey
Supreme Court Justice Barry Albin stated, "To comply with
the equal protection guarantee...of the New Jersey
Constitution, the State must provide to committed same-sex
couples, on equal terms, the full rights and benefits
enjoyed by heterosexual married couples." The Court gave
the New Jersey legislature 180 days to decide whether to
amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or
enact a parallel structure with all the rights and benefits
of marriage.
Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, formerly the Center for
Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, praised the decision. "This
is a critical step towards achieving true equality and
justice for lesbian and gay families. We urge the New
Jersey legislature to treat all families equally by granting
marriage for all committed couples," said Stacey Sobel,
Equality Advocates' executive director.
It is unclear at this time what the impact of the decision
will be on Pennsylvania's same-sex couples. It will not,
however, affect the 1996 Pennsylvania Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA), which prohibits same-sex couples from being
married in this state. That legislation also states that
Pennsylvania will not recognize same-sex marriages from
other states.
Lee Carpenter, the legal director of Equality Advocates
added, "The reality is that thousands of gay and lesbian
Pennsylvanians are involved in committed, loving
relationships, pay their taxes, and contribute to their
communities. However, these citizens are denied the very
basic legal protections that others take for granted, such
as the right to visit a loved one in the hospital or
automatically inherit property. We hope that in the coming
years Pennsylvania will remedy what is clearly an unjust
situation."
# # #
Equality Advocates Pennsylvania is dedicated to achieving
equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
individuals in the Commonwealth through direct legal
services, education and policy reform.

I will be busted for this later, I am sure of it. You have to love that web crawler. But, as a political commentator, I find it hard to keep my mouth shut in this one.

My personal reaction:

This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Call it the Republican October Surprise, but same-sex marriage has once again become the ultimate WMD - Weapon of Mass Distraction. Watch as the religious right jumps onboard the bandwagon, stir up their constituency and flood the voting booths with anti-gay votes instead of pro-political platform votes.

Already, check out the letters to the editors of the NY Times.
The article itself stated:
The ruling in New Jersey left it to the Legislature to decide whether to legalize gay
marriage. Even so, the threat that gay marriage could become legal energized
conservatives at a time when Republican strategists say that turning out the base could
make the difference between winning and losing on Nov. 7. With many independent
analysts predicting Republicans will lose the House and possibly the Senate, President
Bush’s political team is counting on the party’s sophisticated voter turnout machinery to
hold Democratic advances enough that Republicans can at least maintain control.
Read More!

Can anyone say "Iraq?"

Lessons in postmodernism, 1.1

"A generation raised on channel surfing has lost the capacity for linear thinking and analytical reasoning." - Chuck Colson.

My hope is that this post is neither too academic, nor too philosophical for the average reader, but rather an exploratory journey into the way the collective American psyche is affected by the media - my outlet.

Who is Chuck Colson, and why does this quote have a significance? Let us consider the source. Wiki, our favorite public encyclopdia - which in and of itself is a postmodern creation - tells us that Colson is one of the Watergate Seven. Colson spent four years in prison for his participation in the presidential campaign fundraising scam. He emerged with a hardline evangelical Christian message and a mission to promote prisoner rehabilitation (which, I feel, is an excellent cause).

However, Colson's efforts are destined to fall on deaf ears, because he does not understand the minds of the generation to which he is speaking. He has spoken out against same-sex marriage, argued that Darwinism is an attack on the sanctity of Christianity and the ability of God to create, and he has said that postmodernism is anti-Christian because it preaches a message that is void of hope.

This is where the quote becomes relevant.

The postmodern mind is one that pieces thoughts and belief systems from a collection of pre-existing ones. For example, the postmodern musician crafts music from a compilation of other works. The creativity of form is derived from the way in which the pieces are compiled, thus making it new and original. George Barna, a sociologist and postmodern theorists out of Santa Barbara, CA, calls this the "mosaic."

Postmodern creation is non-linear in its construct, just as Colson described.

The reason why this is threatening to people of Colson's belief is that it implies the need for unique approach for every individual. The message is recieved in a unique way, therefore it must be tailored in a unique way for "salvation". The development of a personal understanding of God leaves the Christian faith with a dilemma. How does a pastor or a preacher address such an audience?

Not buying it yet? Allow me to pose another example.

Postmodernism opposes the concept of the meta-narrative, a cultural schema which defines experience and knowledge. In other words, Postmodernism rejects the idea that every person within a culture will have a specific worldview as a derivative of the culture itself. One more time. Everyone in America does not define their cultural identity on the basis of football, cheeseburgers and George Orwell's Animal Farm, simply because those were part of the common American adolesence. Have you ever known an American who was also a vegetarian, pacifist and a communist? I have. He was my sociology teacher freshman year at Pierce College in Los Angeles. But, he was as American as they get. Fact of the matter is, Postmodernism recognizes the beauty in all of the differences in people. It elevates the importance of the individual experience, and it breaks down the limitations imposed by grand narratives.

Convinced?

Colson claims that he was not, but let us revisit his statement.

"A generation raised on channel surfing has lost the capacity for linear thinking and analytical reasoning."

I would like to introduce Chuck Colson to this amazing new invention called the Internet. Members of this generation that lacks the ability to reason are developing it and using it for new and amazing was to communicate, non-linearly.

Laying the smack down.

Don Walten, evangelist preacher and founder of Truth Ministries, went on a rant this week about Rosie O'Donnell in a Florida magazine called Witness (see the full article). In his bluster, Walten addressed a variety of topics ranging from the national doctorine of seperation-of-church-and-state to Islamic values. He turned each of these topics on their head, shook them out and then used them to accuse O'Donnell of ignorance.

The piece was birthed out of a comment that O'Donnell made on ABC's morning talk-show The View. Apparently, O'Donnell's fellow co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, was in the middle of a speech about the dangers of militant Islamic extremists, when she was interupted by a statement that sent Walten on a writing-spree. O'Donnell compared fundamentalist Islam with fundamentalist Christianity saying, "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

Walten decided to refute that statement in a "humorous way".

"While poking fun at Rosie for her serious gray cell deficiency is tempting, [I limited] myself to poking holes in her absurd assertion," Walten said.

Walten first attacked the notion that there is an actual seperation of church and state in the United States.

"To begin with, there is no such thing as separation of church and state in America," he said. "The words 'separation of church and state' are nowhere to be found in our Constitution."

He quoted the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to prove it.

While Walten is correct in respect to the Constitution, he failed to recognize that the doctorine is recognized in Supreme Court law and is found in the texts and writings of our Founding Fathers (proof). The doctorine was referred to in numerous cases that have defined our concept of civil rights, and in conjunction with the Fourteenth Amendment, it has been applied to states and localities as well.

An example that Walten should be familiar with is Abington School District v Schempp (1963), which officially banned prayer in public schools. A follow-up case, Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), created the "Lemon test", which established that a publicly sponsored school must have a secular purpose, must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.

A history/ civics lesson:
A government that does not have seperation of church and state would, in fact, have a state sponsored church. For example, in the United Kingdom there is the Church of England - also known as the Anglican Church - which was founded by Henry VIII when the Catholic pope would not grant him a divorce. Henry VIII made himself, as king, the head of the church. Today, Queen Elizabeth II is the "Supreme Governor of the Church of England".

Our government allows room for the practice of any and all religions, and is not directly tied to any religious organizations in order to prevent biases. Although Christian principle's are central to the government and moral structures in the United States, they are not protected by the law any more than those of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews or even Muslims.

Walten would have us believe that freedom of religion is corrupt. He would have us believe that allowing people to choose for themselves is dangerous. And, he would have us believe that the United States is as much a theocracy as, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia.

"In Rosie O'Donnell's twisted interpretation of the Constitution, our government must never act in accordance with Christian beliefs or convictions. If it does, it is acting in cahoots with the church and in violation of the Constitution," he said. "Thus, if the church condemns homosexuality, the government is constitutionally bound to condone it by legalizing its practice and sanctioning same-sex marriages."

Walten also stated that O'Donnell would be killed for her statements in an Islamic state. He said that "...Rosie O'Donnell, who would be imprisoned or executed for the crime of homosexuality in a Muslim country, to denounce Christianity, the very faith upon which our country's freedoms were established, as tantamount to Islam is more than a little preposterous...In a Muslim country, however, she'd still be in the closet; or worse, she'd be in the gulag or a grave."

(An imporant note: A Muslim Country is one in which the majority of is citizens are Muslim. The majority of these countries have secular governments and are governed by secular laws. An Islamic country is one that is government by Islamic law. The laws against homosexuality are not related to a region, but rather, a religion.)

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights and organizations such as Amnesty International have given numerouse reports on the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in recent years. Although there are laws prohibiting "homosexual acts" in Islamic nations, the excerise of these laws is dependant on the country itself. For example Iran, a country notorious for its human rights violations, has recently been in the spotlight for the beheading of two homosexual men.

Walten's rant had O'Donnell killed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, 250 people in attendence of a gay wedding were arrested in August. However, 230 of them were released the same day. It is believed that the rest of the people were detained for illegal drug use.

As an aside, Honduras, a Catholic country, has been in on the Amnesty International watchlist for killings and discrimination as well.

In truth, Islam as a religion, is evolving on the issue of homosexuality in the same way that Christianity is. There are many unanswered questions, and in countries where civil and human rights are not held to the same standard that they are in the United States, there is still a great deal of intolerance toward homosexuals. However, Muslims are bound by teachings of the Qu'ran to love others as themselves - same as Christians are by the Bible. The right to judge is left to God alone. Don't believe me, read what an imam had to say, or check our what the Qu'ran says.

Foley artistic sound-off.

Fo‧ley  /fo~li/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[foh-lee] –adjective :
of or pertaining to motion-picture sound effects or soundtracks: a Foley artist; the Foley editor.

Apparently the Mark Foley scandal has become a mirror to the media. While many in the American public are standing on the sidelines gasping for the various reasons that they find this scandal offensive, the media is using it for catharsis.

The true political leanings of a newspaper have always been broadcast on the editorial pages, and it is interesting to see the variety of perspectives being taken by papers nationwide. Here is Philadelphia, the opinions range from utter disgust and accusations of hypocracy (The Philadelphia Inquirer), to anger at the fact that Foley is hiding behind "gay" and defaming the gay community (Philadelphia Gay News).

Nationwide, the opinion is even more diverse than that.
Media Matters gave an impressive, comprehensive rundown of what the papers are saying.

Whatever the stance on the Foley scandal is, the fact that these papers are taking a hardline approach on it proves that the public has a plethora of hardline opinions as well. Remember that a paper dies without circulation, and therefore, it will not print material that scares the public away. People are prone to read the papers that they agree with... at least that's the way its supposed to work. In the case of Foley, many issues that divide this country have come to the surface:
-Gay Marriage, the weapon of mass distraction.
-Government corruption, the conspiracy theorists never go away they merely gain different supporters.
-Child pornography, we can't leave out the Catholic Church.
-Obsession with scandal, what will one day be the death of us all.

Now, take a look at that slate. Do you see any real political issues? Anything that shakes the earth? Any discussions of war, Iraq, people dying, soldiers doing multiple tours in at Fort Sandbox, or how the Bush Administration and Congress lied to the American public about its intellegence in order to create a conflict with an old foe? No. Not here.

My dad always says, "The best play in baseball is the sqeeze." (For clarification on the sqeeze, click here.) Mark Foley has laid down the best bunt in recent history, and the Republican Party is giving is on its way to sqeezing the media to another Democratic defeat. Although they are trying to spin it as the "rank hypocrisy" of "GOP leaders" in a scandal that has served as a "hard lesson for a party in which 'family values' has been a political mantra," (Lebanon Daily News) the truth is that the massive amount of attention being paid to Mark Foley is only a distraction from the real issues facing this country in the midst of election season.

Mark Foley. The greatest Foley artist of them all. Creating background music for the Bush Administrations cover of an unfounded war. God forbid that be a topic for election debate.