Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

It's hard to speak in absolute terms about the Libertarians, since they come in so many flavors -- mostly bitter. They all claim to stand for individual liberty (duh), a goal which, like mom, apple pie, and the flag, is hard to argue with. In the past they proudly pointed to their support of social rights -- as manifested by such hot-button issues as abortion rights and gay rights. Lately, as a result of in-breeding with Tea Partiers (why cousins shouldn't marry) they seem to have forgotten about all that. Rand Paul, scion of Ron Paul, and darling of the TeaLibertarians states, " I believe life begins at conception and it is the duty of our government to protect this life ," and came out against same-sex marriage during his 2011 Senate campaign. Hardly the stuff of individual liberty. So, what's left after social rights are gone? Property rights. Yes, the Libertarians are all about property rights. Property rights apparently trump civil rights. Said Paul , "...

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, an oppressed minority decided they'd taken all the shit they were going to and rose up against their persecutors. The scene of this uprising was the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-owned bar in Greenwich Village in New York that catered to a primarily gay clientele. The spark that ignited this was a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. The end result was 3 days of sometimes violent demonstrations against police persecution by patrons and neighborhood folk. In the words of one anonymous participant, "Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit... Predominantly, the theme (w)as, 'this shit has got to stop!'" The Stonewall Riots are often identified as the beginning of the gay rights movement in America. PBS recently aired an excellent documentary about this watershed event called Stonewall Uprising which can be viewed online (at the present) on the PBS website. It should not be missed. Watching it places current strug...

Former Arkansas Governor/Baptist Preacher Mike Huckabee has the "aw shucks" act down pat. He can spew the most incredibly offensive drivel imaginable and still sound like a reasonable, well-intention person. I bet if he'd been in Salem, Massachusetts he'd have convinced those poor women they deserved to be burned as witches. Brother Huckabee recently compared efforts to legalize same-sex marriage to legalizing incest, polygamy and drug use. He's quoted in The Perspective ( student publication of The College of New Jersey ), as saying, "You don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal...That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let's go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them." Afterwards, Huckabee took...

Air Force Sgt. Jene Newsome was working at the base when Rapid City, S.D cops showed up at her house with an arrest warrant for her partner on theft charges in Alaska. According to the AP report, she declined to immediately come home, so when they peeked in her windows and saw a marriage license from Iowa (where same-sex marriage is legal), they outted her to the Air Force . She was then discharged. "It's unfortunate that Newsome lost her job," said police Chief Steve Allender. "It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information." An internal investigation by the Rapid City Police Department has ruled the officers who spyed into her house acted appropriately. Newsome, a 9-year Air Force veteran, said, "I played by 'don't ask, don't tell.'" Of course, the simple answer is to finally get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell so crap like this can no longer take place, but considerable i...

Once again I must thank the Whited Sepulchre for bringing this to my attention (I'll try not to shamelessly rip him off). University of the Cumberlands , a Southern Baptist affiliated college in Kentucky has caught wind of the fact that Broadway Baptist (where Whited Sepulchre and my heresies are tolerated) has been ex-communicated from the Southern Baptist Convention for insufficient hatred of gay folks. University of the Cumberlands was to host the Broadway youth choir for part of their summer choir tour. That was last week. According to Whited Sepulchre (who is unusually well-connected) and legitimate news sources , a Cumberlands spokesperson called, days away from the choir's departure, with the news the choir would no longer be welcome . As part of their trip, the youth were to perform mission work with Mountain Outreach , a UC program that builds housing for poor in the Appalachians. The Mountain Outreach web site says "In keeping with the tradition of the progra...

My friend and sometimes sparring partner the Whited Sepulchre alerted me to the fact that Broadway Baptist Church of Ft. Worth, where my heresies are tolerated, has been given the boot by the Southern Baptist Convention. The nominal reason was because we tolerated homosexuals in our midst. Well, la-dee-dah. There was great huffing and puffing from Louisville, Kentucky, the scene of the crime. "The church was in effect saying that it was OK to have members who are open homosexuals," said a member of the Executive Committee. Shocking. The truth is, the SBC has been pissed at us for quite a while. Broadway, if I may venture an opinion, stopped caring years ago. The only things keeping us in the convention at all were the desire to accommodate Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty members who needed to be at a church in good standing (whoops) and the presence of a dwindling number of older members who nursed a sentimental attachment to what the SBC used to be befo...

Ayn Rand is to Conservative/Libertarian Free Market True Believers what Mary Baker Eddy is to Christian Scientists (or is that what L. Ron Hubbard is to the Scientologists?). She is the originator and high priestess of "Objectivism," a religious cult for the non-religious which elevates the individual's tendency to be a self-absorbed, selfish prick to evidence of the divine. Its major tenet, boiled down to layman's terms, is "Fuck you, I got mine." As a side note, despite Libertarians' commendably progressive views on gay rights, Rand's views on homosexuality were considerably less enlightened: she held that it was immoral and disgusting . Some of her prophets (profits?) include Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and pretty much the entire Cato Institute. As you might imagine, she's very popular on Wall Street and in Board Rooms all across America. The Randistras' Bible is her novel " Atlas Shrugged ," where in all the world's l...

This is a follow up to my previous post, To my Libertarian friends , in which I laid out some of my thoughts and criticisms of the Libertarian Party, which includes amongst its numbers several friends and associates. To sum up (so you don't have to be bored twice) I have a lot of respect for Libertarians (they tend to be extremely bright, intellectually curious people) but I don't necessarily agree with all of their positions. On economic issues, their faith in the Invisible Hand of the Free Market strikes me as a bit like believing in Intelligent Design. Their take on civil rights, workplace regulations, and some other areas strike me as naive at best. Where they have my full agreement is in the area of personal freedoms. God bless 'em. To pull a few quotes from the 2008 National Libertarian Party platform: We favor the repeal of all laws creating "crimes" without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes. Recognizing that aborti...

Mike Huckabee (see earlier post with Jon Stewart) got me to thinking about the gay marriage thing again, and I think I see a way to accommodate all parties. It's very simple, really. Get government out of the business of marriage. If the state doesn't recognize gay marriage, it shouldn't recognize any marriage. Instead, let civil government only regulate civil unions , available to all, regardless of sexual orientation. Civil unions are currently legal arrangements that sets guidelines for the legal aspects of a registered relationship: controling inheritance rights, sharing of job and healthcare benefits and the like. Property rights: the purview of the government. Churches or other religious bodies would be the gatekeeper of the religious ceremony that celebrates the spiritual side of relationships. And any church could do it: First Baptist of Dallas or the Cathedral of Hope . Since it is not a civil ceremony, the government would have no interest in who and why, or for...

As funny as he is, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is often at his best when he stops being funny. Here he is, earlier this week, debating Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee on gay marriage. This was an amazing exchange. I don't think I have ever heard the case put forth for gay marriage rights any better. If I had it in my power, I would have given him an Emmy right there on the spot. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Mike Huckabee Pt. 2