Finally the Pope and I Agree - Universal Health Care Coverage NOW!

As strange as it sounds, I agree with the Pope.  In a Vatican conference yesterday Pope Benedict XVI emphasized that health care is a moral responsibility of all countries and nations should, "guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay."

Meanwhile, the Republicans and Tea Partiers want to roll back the clock and deny coverage to millions.  They scream and holler that we are sliding into socialism.  Bulls**t!

The meager insurance reforms passed by Congress are far from Universal Coverage and that goal is something the Pope and I agree on.  We must have coverage for every citizen if we are going to continue to be a serious player on the world stage.

Felps Cult Now Picketing Children's Funerals - Way Off The Deep End!

The Westboro Baptist Church (Fred Phelps Family Cult) is now picketing children's funerals.  Why?  Well they want revenge since someone slashed the tires on their cult-mobile and then no store in Oklahome would sell them new ones...none except WalMart.  ( that is the subject of a whole different rant.)

Now they figure nod only does God Hate Fags and the USA but now God Hates Oklahoma in general.  These wackos are potentially dangerous.  Someone is going to get fed up and do something drastic and it will not be pretty.  I sincerely hope they stay safe, and they come to their senses!

Willow Palin - Bigot and Homophobe

Seems Sarah Palin's daughter, the one who isn't "Dancing With the Stars" is quite the little bigot.  She revealed her true inner ugliness on her Facebook page by calling critics of her mother and sister, "fagots" and "gay".

TMZ has clips from the Facebook postings.

Latest news is she has apologized, but  the whole thing really emphasizes the underlying problem.  Palin and her brood are not very nice folks.  Under that perky exterior is not a Mama Grizzly, but a nasty bigoted spirit that would be more at home in a trailer park than the great wilds of Alaska.  Just my opinion.

Peter LaBarbera - TSA Pat Downs a Gay Conspiracy!

Peter LaBarbera, a man fixated with all things homosexual, thinks the latest contriversy involving the TSA and "pat-downs" is a gay thing.  He conjectures that "homosexual TSA agents are getting secretly turned on."  More to the point  LaBarbera says, "The reality is, most traveling men would not want Barney Frank to pat them down at the airport security checkpoint."

Well Peter, as a gay man, neither would I.  Barney is just not my type.

LaBarbera is once again trying to whip up any anger and fear he can toward the LGBT community.  Make no mistake, though he sounds like a loony, he is a genuine LGBT enemy is there ever was one. His Americans For Truth About Homosexuality website is filled with not just lies, but purposefully alarming photos of gay men at events like Folsom Street Fair.  Let's face it, LaBarbera is most likely fixated on naked men!

Texas Hops On The Crazy Train Again? Birther Bill In Texas Legislature

Just when you think sanity might have been restored the delightful Texas State Rep. Leo Berman (R) has introduced a "birther" bill in the Texas Legislature. Berman is the same representative who was famously quoted as saying, "Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us."

Now easy as it would be to just paint this guy with the broad brush and call him "frigging nuts",  he represents a real problem in this state and pretty much most of the US.  For a long time the Democratic Party has believed that reason and facts will win the day.  If there were ever an argument against that, the last election cycle would be it. That little debacle for the Dems was won not by reason but by emotion.  Mostly it was fear and bigotry.  Fear stoked by the economic situation many American's find themselves in and bigotry disguised as the "Tea Party".  The whole "take America back" thing is about having a black man in the White House.  Every other argument is predicated on that unspoken premise and a closer examination of their rhetoric will reveal it.

So, meanwhile the Dems keep relying on reason.  How has that worked so far?  Not at all.

The whole birther thing is a racially charged non-issue anyway, but don't let reason get in the way of some good old fashioned fear.  Even though the Obama birth certificate has been widely circulated and there is more than ample proof of his citizenship, the birthers persist.  Why, because it is a good excuse to scare people and to tap into that old bigorty thing again.

So while I could just call Rep. Berman wacko, I will instead call him what he is, a politician who knows how to whip up his constituents with the most powerful tools in the GOP arsenal. 

More Dickishness - This Time From Scalia

Anton Scalia, long known as one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court  has just gotten his Tea Party card stamped.  In a statement before the House Judiciary Committee Scalia and Breyer were asked what they would change about the Constitution.

"Not much," Breyer said. "It's a miracle and we see that through" our work.

Scalia called the writing of the Constitution "providential," and the birth of political science.

"There's very little that I would change," he said. "I would change it back to what they wrote, in some respects. The 17th Amendment has changed things enormously."

That amendment allowed for U.S. Senators to be elected by the people, rather than by individual state legislatures.  If this amendment were discarded, the main effect would be that corporations, already free to give as much money as they have to candidates, could buy state legislatures and in effect run the Senate.  That is a frightening and ominous idea.  You think you saw corporate money in the last election?  Just wait.

Oklahoma, Where Only Straight Kids Get To Graduate

Oklahoma may be "OK" in the song, but in reality it's not a good place to be LGBT, at least in Del City.  There the high school has actively blocked two lesbian students from graduating, strictly because they were a couple.

In the story in the Advocate the school board claims it has never gotten a conplaint, and their policy is clear.

"It is the policy of the Mid-Del Public School District not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs, services, and activities," said a statement from district officials. "The safety of our students is always the priority of Mid-Del Schools."

You will notice that "sexual orientation and gender identity" are missing from that statement.  There's the truth.  Unless we get our rights spelled out to the letter, the hetero-normative world will continue to deny us our rights.

Isn't it time to call for an Equal Rights Amendment that clearly gives all American's equal rights?

Fred Phelps Cult Can't Get Tires Fixed In McAlester, OK - Awwww!

In the same spirit of "Christian Fellowship" that the Westboro Baptist Church shares, they couldn't find anyone to help in McAlester, Oklahoma last Saturday. Seems these good "fag hating" people had their tires slashed while they were protesting at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey. Dismayed, and apparently without spare tired the group reportedly tried without success to find someone to help them.

No service station or tire store in the city would sell to them or service their minivan. Finally after limping away on flat tires, they called AAA and got a tow to a WalMart who will sell to anyone.

Now in reality, I think it's too bad that no one would help them. I also think these people are well on the way to the loony bin, but still I would offer help just to get them out of my state.

McCain Gets More Dickish - Now Wants Another DADT Study and Hearings?

OK let's face it, John McCain is a dick.  Yea he's a charming old man, but underneath that feeble exterior is a real asshat.

Take his stance on DADT, first he said once the military leaders said it was OK to repeal DADT he would be fine with it.  Well that was two years ago and now that not only has the leadership in the military said they have no problem with gays and a pentagon study recently leaked which indicates there is no problem with it, now old man McCain changes his tune.

Now he insists that the newest study isn't enough, and then there should be another study and after that hearings and then he might consider a repeal....blah, blah, blah.  And all this because he is worried someone might get a peak at someone in the showers.  Oh grow up!

There are men and women both straight and gay already in the military, and so far the showers haven't turned into some kind of gay Porky's movie.  Our men and women in the military are mature enough to fight and die, they are mature enough to know where sex is appropriate and where it is not.  And they already do know that.

Why old farts like McCain doesn't realize that is beyond me.  Now every time I hear him speak I keep envisioning that old guy screaming at the kids to "get off my lawn".  It's time he retired or moved into the 21st Century.