Doodles on the ceiling

Not long ago I commented that I didn't seem to have a lot to write about. And suddenly I'm deluged with lots of articles crying out for, well, whatever it is I do here. The two big church presentations are done (the second given last night) so I have time now to look over what I haven't gotten to in the last week to see if any of it is still worth bringing to your attention.

On to the little items that don't need a post of their own.

Catholic Bishop Kaleta, who is serves at the Vatican, said that homosexuals should not visit the Vatican because it would be considered a provocation and an abuse of the place. Gays pointed out that a great many of the current residents should be escorted to the door (pope too?) and that someone will have to paint over the doodles on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Then there's all that artwork that will have to go…


Maine wrote its new gay marriage law (the one that was overturned) to make sure that churches could not be compelled to perform marriage services for gays. How far should such exclusions extend? When gays apply to adopt a child? How about when they apply to adopt a child from a Catholic adoption agency? Perhaps when that Catholic agency is under contract and receives money from the District of Columbia? As part of the upcoming gay marriage bill in DC, the new ordinance bans discrimination against gays in all city contracts. The Catholic Archdiocese of DC said you do that we'll abandon all our contracts to provide social services for adoption, health care, and the homeless. We get to discriminate or we won't feed the homeless. What's a bit of blackmail between friends? The DC councilman who wrote the marriage ordinance responded fine, take your marbles and go home. We'll award our millions in contracts to people who won't discriminate.


The anti-gay forces behind opposition to the Washington state DP law frequently assured themselves that God is in control and will produce a victory. If so, God's victory was for gays -- the win has been declared. So God approves DPs? Warning, gay marriage in Maine lost. One had better be careful when speaking for God.


A Mormon leader endorse equal rights ordinance! Salt Lake City council promptly passes it. The leadership says that the same equal rights would be good for the whole state of Utah. State government doesn't move quite that fast. There probably needs to be an election replacing stodgy Mormon legislators with enlightened Mormon legislators. Considering what happened in Calif. last year gays smell something funny -- why are we being thrown a bone? Is the hopefully soon-to-be-passed federal equal rights law prompting the Mormons to take advantage of a PR opportunity?


A chart at this site shows why we'll eventually win. More than half of those under 30 approve of gay marriage in ¾ of all states and that reaches above 70% in some states. More than half of the 30-44 crowd in ¼ of the states approve of gay marriage. The 45-64 bracket top 50% approval of gay marriage only in Mass. but are close in 3 other New England states. The 65 and older group only get approval as high as 35% in Mass. and as low as 10% in Alabama.


Fundies compare stable straight marriages with gays who play around. The problem is that there aren't all that many gay marriages and none for more than 6 years to permit for a proper comparison. Yes, the ceremony and license make a difference. We consider straight engagements to be temporary.