More Denials of Reality from the Anti-Gay Marriage Crowd

For the latest rational-defying, fact-free screed against gay marriage, check out this article from Ken Klukowski. It seems Iowa has joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in recognizing that disallowing gays to marry is a violation of the equal protection clause. The ruling came from a court with a mix of Republican and Democratic nominees, but that hasn't stopped the baseless, shrill, and often blatantly false screams from the social conservatives:

Klukowski said: "In a democratic republic, the people should rule through their elected legislators and executives. Judges decide cases of law, not of policy or morality."

Judges should rule on whether a law is violating someone's constitutional rights, which is what they did here, no more, no less. That the ruling may have policy or morality implications is trivial - practically any ruling will.

Kirk said:"...it affects children. Also you should care because it is wrong for judges to make law. Do you honistly think these judges have more wisdom the the last 6000 years of human history?"

How does it effect children? No one ever explains this. And 6,000 years ago polygamy was the norm, as it has been from most of the world for most of the time since then. Do the people saying this ever read any books, perhaps dare I say it, the Bible?

Mother of 4 said: "Reality will remain reality and marriage -- the permanent emotional, legal, and spiritual bond between a man and a woman by which two are made one upon which is built nothing less than civilization and the future -- will remain marriage, unequaled and inimitable. "

Marriage is permanent now? I guess the planet on which this mother lives doesn't have the extraordinarily high divorce rate that we have here on Earth. And how is a civilization built upon heterosexual marriage going to fall apart if homosexual marriage is allowed?

Cambermeister said: "...your [heterosexual] commitment is now slightly more diluted in the minds of America's children...It was always about the children. The gay community won't make up there own word for marriage because they WANT to confuse small children."

How are heterosexual commitments diluted? All the ones I know of seem as strong as ever? How does this confuse children? Why would gays want children confused?

Dan asks: "Why would a man want to marry another man? Sex? They do that anyway(sick). Kids? Impossible!
Marriage benefits?"

Yeah Dan, safe sex and marriage benefits, the same as any heterosexual couple who can't have kids. Oh, and you do know lots of homosexuals have children, right? And that your heterosexual sex is sick to many of them, right? Hello? Does reality penetrate your skull at all?

Cambermeister again: "In less than a generation, a tiny minority that practices an evolutionarily incomprehencible [sic]behavior first asked the majority to not persecute them. Then asked us to not descriminate [sic] against them. Then asked us to accept them. Now they are Demanding [sic] that we Celebrate [sic]them."

Oh this is rich: people who deny evolutionary science now attempt to co opt it for their purposes. Can you spell "hypocrite"? It's also blatantly untrue, since homosexuality appears all over nature. Indeed, for some species, it's the norm. Further, no one is asking anyone to celebrate homosexuality. They simply want to live their lives married to the people they are attracted to the same as the rest of us heteros. Really, it's not complicated.

Renny said: "Hetersexuality and homosexuality are merely behavioral practices of individuals. That some heterosexuals sometimes have homosexual liaisons and vice versa proves neither *class* is mutually defining or exclusive."

Sexuality is about orientation, not behavior. A homosexual man having a heterosexual sex act is like a vegetarian eating a piece of meat. It doesn't change who they are. Further, there is nothing about the protected classes our civil right apply to that requires them to be permanent, mutually defining, or exclusive. After all, religion is none of these things.

Retired Geek said: "The Marriage act NEVER had anything to do with sexual preferences but rather the protection of children - which Homosexuals cannot have by definition."

I'm sure the thousands of homosexuals with children would be shocked to hear that. And if people incapable of procreating (with each other) are to be forbidden from marrying, why doesn't this apply to sterile heterosexuals?

More from Retired Geek:"Animals are incapable of using facts, logic and reason to make choices i.e. sex perversion."

Many scientists have tested chimpanzees, dolphins, octopi, and many other animals who have demonstrated complex reasoning abilities. One more Christian myth bites the dust via data.

Bill Maher on Where Our Loyalties Should Be

Responding to his audience groaning over a zinger at Obama's expense, Bill Maher bottom lines it:

"We've got to be loyal to what we believe, not the people."

Indeed. One can be supportive of an administration and it's goals while still being critical of it when it missteps. In fact, it is crucial that we do so, since we need credible critics, and the GOP bloggers have pretty much given up on themselves filling that role with their ficus on minutia like the birth certificate, and teleprompter issues.

John Shimkus: Idiot of the Month

At a U.S. House Subcommittee meeting on the energy and the environment, Representative John Shimkus (R-Illinois) denies global warming because of quotes from Genesis and Matthew.

Words fail me. The inmates are running the asylum.

Stephen Lynch's America

Here's America, warts and all.

Jim Webb and our Flawed Prison System

Jim Webb has taken a politically courageous but obviously correct position that our prison system and drug policies are in serious need of an overhaul. It is nice to finally see a mainstream politician state what has been obvious to most of us for years:

Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .

The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%.

It's tough to digest those figures. America, the freest nation on earth? We take away the freedom of our citizens at a rate that dwarfs that of China or even Iran. Face facts America, we are the most imprisoned nation on earth, and all because we've made it into a commercial enterprise that cashes in on the hypocrisy of those who say "keep the government out of our private lives" out of one side of their mouth, while screaming to imprison anyway who uses a substance they don't like out of the other. Even President Obama, who should know better wimped out when he had a national stage to educate the populace on the issue.

We don't have the luxury of this level of waste, ignorance and hypocrisy any more.

hat tip: Ed Brayton

Coyotes in the Hood

Here's a nice article reminding us that we aren't outside of nature, we are in nature, and sometimes nature decides to get into what we consider our world:

A coyote ambling into a Chicago sandwich shop or taking up residence in New York's Central Park understandably creates a stir. But even here on the high plains of Colorado, where the animals are part of the landscape and figure prominently in Western lore, people are being taken aback by rising coyote encounters.
Thanks to suburban sprawl and a growth in numbers of both people and animals, a rash of coyote encounters has alarmed residents.

Wildlife officials are working to educate the public: Coyotes have always been here, they've adapted to urban landscapes and they prefer to avoid humans.

"Even though they live in urban areas and figure out how people work ... it doesn't mean they're necessarily becoming more aggressive toward us," Gehrt said.

They also haven't changed their diet. Gehrt expected to find urban coyotes eating a lot of garbage and pets. But their scat shows rodents are still the meal of choice, followed by deer, rabbits and birds.

Coyotes view pets such as cats and dogs as competitors, not food, Gehrt said. Most coyotes are submissive toward dogs, though some will stand their ground — especially during breeding season, when they may see dogs as rivals for mates. Mating season peaked in February, when some of the Denver-area incidents occurred.

I've personally had experiences with the effects of coyotes living on a nearby golf course. The city had them caught or killed due to some disappearing pets and the usual alarmist "they're gonna eat our kids" rhetoric. Subsequently, we were overrun by rabbits, who apparently bred like crazy in the absence of their primary predators, and proceeded to completely destroy all the neighborhood gardens. It didn't take long however for that (now) prime predator real estate to attract new tenants, and soon we had a healthy group of coyotes living on the golf course and eating rabbits. Apparently we weren't the only people to experience the futility of getting rid of coyotes.

Reducing the number of coyotes doesn't work, Rosmarino said, because the animals breed more and have bigger litters when their population declines. The U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services killed more than 90,000 in 2007 to stem livestock attacks.

Simplicity in Action: A Townhall Exchange on the Economy

For those who think it is unfair that conservatives are characterized as having a simplistic unrealistic view of the economic world, I give you this typical exchange from Townhall:

Charles LPKY: "A person is in debt to where they are at the point where they can no longer pay their debtors....Should this person borrow and spend more?"

Hal Donahue: "Depends on for what purpose doesn't it. Like you start a new job in a month at a salary where you can pay; this would be legitimate. Or go deep into debt to service existing debt while you finish up medical school."

Charles LPKY: "Does not depend on anything, just simple yes or no...The bottom line is when my house hold has bills, we pay them, we do not borrow money with interest to pay our bills. Credit got the US into the economic crisis we are facing, Credit will not get us out. In my house hold we cut spending to get out of debt, we only owe on our house now. The federal govt. is using credit to spend, and not worrying about the increase in the National debt.
Logic dictates to cut spending, cut programs, and pay off our national debt."

Sure Charles, only if "logic" excludes the very real possibilities, a few of which Hal pointed out, where the returns on a borrowed investment exceed the cost of that investment.

But this doesn't wash in Conservoland. All must be simple, black and white, yes or no. And as if to make my point even more clear, here comes Walter Williams with another perfect example:

"Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to being so used, do you believe that there should be the initiation of some kind of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions but I bet that your average college professor, politician or minister would not give a simple yes or no response. They would be evasive and probably say that it all depends."

There's your mainstream conservative attitude towards all our complicated moral and other problems: concerning onesself with all the facts and the relevant context is evasive. No wonder they have no answers for an ever-complicated world. Today is their day.