Pointing Fingers

Jew Dis Betrayal

 

Throughout the campaign it hovered, annoying, uglier than John McCain’s melanoma scarred neck.

With a voice enough to bore anyone to death, it savagely chose the wrong horse, turned on Barack Obama , dissing him as nothing less than an inexperienced, Marxist, terrorist-friendly, naïve, dangerous threat to America. It campaigned for Sarah. It said nothing as the hate and the race-baiting grew louder, shriller and angrier.

Like a pus filled, festering sore, it was ever-present, serving as little more than a sour reminder of the dull, anesthetizing repulsion he brought to the 2004 ticket – so much so that even more Bush and Cheney seemed a better prospect.

And now like a shriveled up skeksie from the Dark Crystal, it pitifully, obsequiously ingratiates himself to Obama, like a renegade slave before Pharaoh pre the obsessive compulsive desert wandering.

Oh how fucking sickening and delicious to watch all at the same time.

Fuck the niceties. Fuck the 60 votes. Fuck this whining Judas and his cheap, miscalculated betrayal. Pelosi? Reid? Your lightweight track records are beginning to reek already. Throw the whore, clutching its thirty pieces of tainted silver, and let it drown in the claws of the angry Democratic base. Buy Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins each a dozen red roses and begin the courtship. Anything else is really just more of the same.

Pride and Prejudice

California’s Shame Tarnishes a Stunning American Renewal

Nothing much could spoil the moment. When Barack Obama was announced President-Elect at approximately 8.00pm Pacific Standard Time, the hardest of hearts had to have shed a tear at the sheer enormity of the moment.

Ever since I left South Africa to become an American, more than twenty one years ago, I have found America’s hypocrisy around racism repugnant. She spoke a good game on paper, but when push came to shove, as I witnessed during the Rodney King riots, the land that spawned the Ku Klux Klan hadn’t strayed too far from her roots.

As my former country transformed, shedding Apartheid like a soiled coat, electing Nelson Mandela president, and producing the most progressive constitution on the planet, my new home welcomed me with “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell,” and Trent Lott.

It seems like only yesterday that ugly racists like John McCain’s buddy Don Imus were calling journalists like Gwen Ifill “cleaning ladies” and the young women of Rutgers’ basketball team “nappy headed hos.” The campaign leading up to last night was just as ugly. The not-so-soft whispering about Obama’s “true character”.

The stunning moment when McCain was forced to correct one of his supporters who had swallowed too much of his campaign’s racist Kool Aid, referring to Obama as an untrustworthy Arab. No, McCain defended. He was a decent human being. Because as we all know, Arabs and decent human beings are mutually exclusive.

Yet something shifted Tuesday night in spite of the thinly veiled racist slights and blatant racist email campaigns and smears, calling Obama a Muslim. That One. The Other. Too white. Not black enough. Not white enough. The replacing of Uppity with Elite. As I wrote just a few weeks back, in the thick of it – that Sarah Palin represented the “Tits on the Ticket personification of America’s racist undertone, allowing the narrowest of minds the perfect conduit to get away with voting for the bitch rather than the nigger and still look progressive.”

America said enough. The same America I begrudgingly forgave for screwing up the election in 2000, but loathed with unforgiving disdain for actually voting Bush into office in 2004, finally said enough.

America’s new President-Elect opened up a new and necessary chapter. I felt it Tuesday night, and again yesterday, and as I write now. The Bush nightmare with its ugly and hateful cast of characters will slowly fade into the background, despite the decade’s worth of damage they leave in their toxic, torturous wake.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for California, who chose to enshrine narrow-minded fear into its constitution. Funded significantly by a bunch of Utah-based Mormons, petrified at the notion of a same sex wedding, although not at the prospect of a union between one man and many women, Prop 8 passed. California will not recognize same sex marriages.

South Africa, upon shedding Apartheid, made sure that its constitution specifically prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, setting a global example of what equality looked like.

While the election of Obama -- this watershed moment, for all its wonderful, historic importance – is worthy of joyous celebration, California’s cowardly clutch to the past, where fear, hatred and discrimination still have their claws in deep, demonstrates that America still has a long way to go before attempting to reclaim her moral authority.

Dire Straights' Agenda

The agents of hate are gearing up for a last minute blitz to pass Prop 8 in California, an initiative to enshrine discrimination into California's constitution by specifically denying gays and lesbians the right to marry. If passed, Prop 8 would overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision which found denying gays and lesbians the right to marry unconstitutional. These last minute tactics include fliers containing an image of Barack Obama with his wife Michelle laughing in the background alongside the quote "I'm not in favor of gay marriage." This dirty trick has caused heated debate within the gay community, primarily because the quote is real. What's misleading is that Obama's opposition to same sex marriage, does not include enshrining it into the constitution.

Supporters of Prop 8 have also created television ads using children to perpetuate a lie that unless Prop 8 is passed, schools will be forced to teach children about gay marriage, (What would that lesson be? Make sure, if you're lesbians, to register at Home Depot?). These desperate measures expose the shrill lengths these people will go to in order to protect their precarious, failing institution. The irony is that the very fact they have been forced to lie in order to get people to support their position, is what has generated so much support and money for the No on 8 campaign. The effectiveness of the No on 8 media campaign, is another story entirely.

One of the organizations throwing money at the Prop 8 proponents, Concerned Women for America, position Prop 8 as a battle between "righteousness and ruin," claiming that "prayer is the key to getting this initiative passed on November 4." Prayer and bullshit it would seem. 

Much of the drama over the definition relates to the very word "marriage" as opposed to civil unions or domestic partnerships. And as much as I personally view marriage as a flawed construct, and as much as I believe the government should not be managing any relationships -- gay or straight -- lest they go the way of the economy, there is no mistaking that there are fundamental tangible and intangible benefits of marriage -- the deprivation of which is not only unfair, but does not make any sense.

To give just one example. A gay couple that has been together for twenty years, and have children together, whether through surrogate, adoption or other numerous possibilities, are not automatically granted visitation in hospitals or able to make life and death decisions in an emergency. Their children are not protected when it comes to issues like insurance, intestate succession or other such issues that are critical to families (so much for supporting the children, Prop 8 proponents). They are not immune from having to testify against one another, which applies to all spousal relationships, in a court of law. And from an immigration standpoint, they may not confer citizenship on one another.

According to proponents of Prop 8, a man could walk into a strip club, walk out with the first woman he sees, marry her, commit adultery every night, and that relationship is regarded as more sacred and meaningful than, say, the man's gay sister's, who has been with her partner in a loving, monogamous relationship for twenty two years.

This is what this battle is all about. And the lies and hatred perpetuated by these organizations is the most disingenuous. As it gets uglier and uglier, a sampling of just the type of people backing this are, can be found by personal attacks on me by the heads of two national organizations based on an admittedly provocative satire I wrote back in 2003.

Matt Barber, an angry little fellow, is one of the like-minded men with an organization aptly named Concerned Women for America, who saw fit to quote me from a satire I wrote in 2003, The Gay Agenda.

Barber, who clearly doesn't understand satire any more than he does his fascination with homosexuality, had this to say about me in his article titled "Unmasking the 'Gay' Agenda": "Such stark examples of homofascist persecution continue to mount. And they're by design. Noted homosexual activist and pornographer Clinton Fein addressed the 'gay' agenda in a 2005 article candidly titled, "The Gay Agenda".

Barber's attack was syndicated, appearing everywhere from CWFA, Renew America, catholic.org, Christian Worldview Network, Free Republic, MichNews etc. Details about Barber's specific attack can be found on my blog Pointing Fingers: A Gay Agenda and Concerned Women.

Another attack came from one of Barber's ilk (those whose every waking moment and recurring wet dream is consumed with the evils of homosexuality), Peter LaBarbera, President of an organization predicated on hate and lies ironically named Americans for Truth, a national organization "devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda." In a sweetly titled article, 'Queer' Quotes: Hating Jesus, and Selfishness Redefined, Peter claims he can "feel my hate," (I wonder wherehe feels it) and warns he is listening and watching. Among LaBarbera's gems:

"Check out this particularly nasty screed, 'The Gay Agenda,' by pro-homosexuals-in-the-military activist Clinton Fein -- which a friend sent us after seeing it on another wicked 'gay' blog...Though Fein is spoofing conservative Christians (we're feeling your hate, Clinton), I find Points 5 and 11 in his 35-point 'Gay Agenda' the most telling..." and

We'll leave Point 5 to the Lord to deal with, as one day poor Clinton will have to answer to Him, anyway.

And while LaBarbera at least recognized my Gay Agenda was a spoof, he couldn't resist: "we know Fein is not kidding on that one." (See his demented diatribe in its entirety for yourself.)

One of the biggest contradictions presented by these morons is this: they claim that only 2% of the population is gay, and question why 2% should be given such disproportionate power to change the "definition" of marriage. What they are unable to answer is why such a tiny percentage threatens the institution of marriage. If they were doing such a wonderful job protecting it, why is there a failure rate over 50%, and what pathetic, delicate thread is supporting their current marriage that a same sex commitment of two people would destroy it?

The first three items in my Gay Agenda satire, pertained to marriage, and probably knotted the stomachs of Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera as much as the ones they quoted out of context:

1. Gay men and lesbians should marry one another, and extol each other every tangible and intangible benefit the institution provides. They cannot stop gay marriage as long as gays are marrying. If you are gay and single without a desire to marry, marry a homosexual of the opposite sex anyway, and donate any marriage credits the government may offer to any gay organization seeking to destroy heterosexual norms.

2. Once benefits are secured, divorce. Wreck the sanctity of the institution by driving up the divorce rates from the current 52% to at least 80%.

3. Remember 52% of marriages end in divorce, the remaining 48% in death. There's nothing sanctimonious about that. Demand the institution and then wreck it. James Dobson was right about our evil intentions. We just plan to be quicker than he thought.

Finally, before anyone take offense, I did conclude the Gay Agenda with this warning:

Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this piece, it can, and likely will, be taken out of context, and used destructively by bigots and homophobes with ill intentions. From the other side, I'll be criticized for irresponsibly kindling the already raging fires by providing fresh fodder.

For better or worse,and despite it taking a few years longer than I thought, I was right on both accounts.