Honor it before it's ripped to shreds

Happy Constitution Day! Here are a few issues that involve the Constitution today:

* Bradley Manning is being detained for whistleblowing -- giving Pentagon videos and documents to Wikileaks.

* The Dream Act comes up for a vote soon. This act deals with children who, at a young age, came with their parents to America illegally and grew up as Americans, yet who are still illegal.

* The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy has been declared unconstitutional yet is still in force.

* The Patriot Act gets renewed sometime (I don't know how soon).



I've written before how the Fundies don't like adoption and are taking it out on gays. In another attempt at reproduction control Fundies are speaking out against sperm donors and are beginning to try to pass laws regulating or banning the practice. They work real hard not to say it, but it's no coincidence that gays and lesbians tend to have children through sperm donation. Once laws are on the books to regulate sperm and eggs it isn't that far to regulate what sperm and eggs create.



Three gay "warrior angels" lined the route the pope took through northern England today. They were there quietly protesting his anti-gay pronouncements. I love their, um, … wings.

Portugal!

In spite of last week's visit by Pope Benedict, the president of Portugal has signed the bill granting marriage rights to same-sex couples. The other countries permitting gays to marry are: Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and parts of USA and Mexico. The prez. isn't signing it because he actually approves of same-sex marriage. Quite the contrary. However, he knows the Parliament will override his veto and he would rather they spend their time on the country's economic crisis. How sweet of him. We'll take a win any way we can get it.

Botched primary job

Christopher Hitchens, avowed atheist, has an essay in Newsweek wondering why the Pope hasn't been brought in for questioning about his role in the growing child molestation scandal. He goes on to document that for many years as Cardinal Ratzinger his main job was damage control around the scandal and he did a mighty poor job of it. That questioning may happen. Various victim lawsuits are making their way towards the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court. The pope can't be granted diplomatic immunity because no country regards Vatican City as a separate state. So if the pope travels away from Rome -- he's planning a trip to Britain soon -- one of the scandal's victims could hand him a subpoena. Alas, Newsweek search doesn't provide a link.

Don't expect certain groups to change

It may be true that the new GOP chairman is Michael Steele who is black and somewhat moderate. But it seems the true leader of the GOP at the moment is Rush Limbaugh. Don't expect the party to change any time soon.


A bit more of just why Jews are annoyed with Pope Benedict bringing those renegade bishops back into the fold: Back in the early 1960s Vatican II, which brought the Catholic Church into the modern era, rejected the longtime Catholic belief in "blood libel," that Jews were guilty of killing Jesus. These bishops hold tightly to that discredited belief.

If Benedict is healing old rifts, how about the rift with liberal Catholics in America, the ones that question church teachings on birth control and gays? Either Benedict is carefully moving his church to the right, or to be welcomed back you have to split, not merely dissent.


Twenty years ago, when Papa Bush was prez. and gays were, um, involved in such organizations as ACT-UP to fight for rights and AIDS medications. Just think, in those 20 years what we might have done if we weren't busy battling for our rights and the church wasn't busy denying our rights. Just in 2008 (not to mention the other 19 years) there would have been somewhere around $78 million to spend on poverty, homelessness, and healthcare, and to nurture ideas such as fairness and tolerance. Sigh. To be sure, we've gained a great deal of ground in 20 years, But Kalamazoo just hit a wall (AKA, the AFA) with a civil rights ordinance.

I think he's got it backwards

This one has gays (and many other people, especially Jews) astonished and appalled. Pope Benedict has welcomed back bishops who were excommunicated because they thought the Catholic Church was not conservative enough. These same bishops have said some pretty bizarre things, mostly around denying the Holocaust, but also claiming that 9-11 was engineered by the US government. And gays are the ones branded as disordered and ushered into the closet or out of the church?

Red loafers? Gotta go

I love a bit of irony. Franco Zeffirelli, gay man and respected film director, who knew over-the-top costuming, has offered to be the fashion consultant to the pope. He says the pope's vestments are too cold, sumptuous and showy. But these are more sober times and high-tailored church wear is not appropriate. Benedict has been known to wear red loafers and a red velvet cape with ermine trim. If Zeffirelli thinks Benny's outfits are too much, he'd better listen.

Pope Benedict sticks his foot in it again.

He claims that the nuclear family (headed by one man and one woman, natch) is the "first and indispensable teacher of peace" and that everything that weakens the family and the acceptance of new life is an obstacle to world peace. Didn't realize we had so much power. Considering the number of kids who have hellish childhoods (no peace learned there) and the amount of violence in the world through history (they couldn't have all had gay parents), Benedict doesn't have a clue about what he's saying. Alas, it isn't the first time.