Not a “Hero”

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Kim Davis is not a hero, no matter what the religious right or ultra conservatives say.

She is a very narrow minded person who is a classic case of a person living in a glass house throwing stones.

She’s a hypocrite and spectacular failure at marriage, not to mention an adulteress and obvious fornicator, both I should point out were punished harshly under biblical law.

When she starts spouting about religion, and God, and all that stuff, all I can think is that she’s damn lucky she’s living in the United States now. Just a hundred years ago she’d have been in a much different circumstances. Even today if she where in the middle east she’d be stoned.

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Mrs. Davis is in jail for defiance of the law, and rightfully so.

She defied multiple court rulings and a direct order from the governor of the state. I argue that she should have been FIRED for failure to do her job and obstructing others in her office in the completion of their jobs.

Mrs. Davis as a public official is required to execute the lawful duties of her position. She can take vacation time to picket a law she doesn’t agree with. She can speak out against the law. She can hold prayer vigils, and light candles. She’s welcome to handle rattlesnakes and scorpions and spiders, while asking God to make the gay go away, for all I care.

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What she CANNOT do is pick and choose which laws she will obey. She’s not allowed to look at her job as a buffet.

As I was thinking about it,  I pictured that if Mrs. Davis were not the clerk, and instead the clerk had been a devout old school Catholic,  Mrs Davis wouldn’t have been issued a marriage license due to religious reasons.  Think about it, In the eyes of the church she wouldn’t be divorced unless her former marriage(s) were annulled.  Henry VIII had the same problem, the Catholic church’s refusal to grant him divorces resulted in several murders and the creation of the Church of England.

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Had my hypothetical situation occurred, Mrs. Davis would have been screaming bloody murder about the violation of her legal rights, by a religious zealot. It’s doubtful that anyone would be rallying to a Catholic clerk jailed for refusal to issue marriage licenses to a known adulterous person. That whole religious argument cuts both ways. 

Neither Mrs Davis, or any of the other people across the nation, refusing to issue marriage licenses or perform their legal duties are heroic, they’re misguided hypocrites using religion to selectively deny a specific group of people the ability to enter into a contract. 

Yes! It’s a contract nothing more.

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The contract put simply says “We’re gonna share everything equally, if you die it’s all mine, if I die it’s all yours.” This contract is freely entered into, and broken thousands of times a day. There is nothing special or divine about it except the specialness the participants bring to their joining and that the state (the government) recognizes and enforces the financial aspects of the contract.

The state was essentially providing privileged status, (which was otherwise unavailable to non members of the class), to selected  members of the population. If that’s not segregationist and unfair I don’t know what is.

The minute GLBT soldiers were accepted in the military, the government had a problem. Two service people married in a state which allowed same sex marriage were entitled to survivors benefits. But if that couple was transferred to a state which did not recognize same sex marriage, what is their status then?

Can you prosecute under the UCMJ adultery in a state where to gay people aren’t legally married anymore? Does the military still pick up the tab for spousal healthcare? Are survivor benefits still payable?

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The legal wrangling could have, and probably would have, gone on for years. The governments only logical choices were to forbid same sex relationship in the military, OR simply allow any two consenting adults to be married. The court decided in favor of the simplest, fairest, and most direct solution based on common sense.

We’re all equal under the law. Marriage is an important aspect of many people’s lives, we should all be allowed to participate equally in every aspect of our society.

If these hypocritical religious people were really smart, they’d be going to school to become wedding planners and divorce attorneys. I have a feeling these will be the next growth industries.


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Since I started writing this I noticed that Mrs. Davis has doubled down on her stupidity. Now she’s asking the 6th circuit to exempt her from following the law and the governor’s orders.

Why the hell doesn’t someone relieve her of her JOB? That would spare her from all the pain to her soul and spare those of us who call the South Home, and specifically those of us who grew up in Kentucky continued embarrassment.

Less attractive Women of the world Unite!

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I think Caitlyn Jenner has done a disservice to all the “plain” women in the world.

There! I said it, we’ve all been thinking it for a while, someone had to be the one to break the tension!

I was watching a documentary last night and paused the video to inspect an apparently female journalist because she looked like she might have been a man. As it turns out, maybe it was just a little too much botox, and a bone structure that looked more like John Lithgows’ in his performance as Roberta Muldoon in “The World According to Garp”.

Lithgow did a great job with the character but there was no way you could overlook that Roberta had at one time been a dude!

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That’s unfortunately the way it is with Jenner.

The consequence of Jenner’s  highly publicized transition, is that every woman who’s tall, or has an overly strong jawline or higher than expected forehead, or has a touch too much botox is looked at far more critically. Before Caitlyn, we knew that there were transgendered people but we weren’t sure if we’d met one, moreover, it generally didn’t matter if we had.

After Caitlyn we’re sure that any woman that doesn’t meet an idealized version of womanhood is a transgendered person.

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I felt bad that I’d paused the video and clinically examined the journalist, but with the constant Kardashian fueled drumbeat of Caitlyn’s latest antics I’m far more likely to be curious, even judgemental (I know…Me?).

It’s a case of unintended consequences, and perhaps a lesson in why it’s best to keep some aspects of your private life private.

After a while the insanity gets to me

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The Urban Dictionary defines Cisgender;

“an adjective for someone whose gender corresponds to their assigned sex.”  As in “I am perfectly comfortable identifying as the gender my parents put on my birth certificate. I am cisgender.”

Okay, I’m good with that until other definitions of the word pop up and appear to have different meanings.

So is this a term that simply exists to allow transgendered, or transexuals a word to insult, demean, or shame, all the rest of us? Why the hell should I even have to think about this?

I must have missed the memo stating that I was either supposed to become a really ugly woman, or I was supposed to live my life apologizing for being normal.

…Or white, Or male, or American, or from the South, or, or, or or…

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I’m confused as hell as to why we have to create special terms that mean the same things as terms that are already extant and well understood.

However, since we’re about creating new terms, I’ve decided to add mine to the melee.

CockNormal

The condition of being male in gender and thinking, happy and proud of being male, pleased that one’s genitalia consists of a cock and balls, a shameless man-spreader. Of, or defining a man independent of the gender chosen with which to share their dick.

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This burbled to the top of my brain because a friend sent me an article describing gay folks who are calling for a boycott of the new movie “Stonewall”.

What got me was this

“The petition argues that white cisgender gay man Danny (Jeremy Irvine) is presented as the hero while other transgender and ethnic minority cast members appear secondary, despite being a crucial part of Stonewall’s history.”

What the hell is a gisgender gay white man?

Okay, yes I know what it is. But do we need to apply such a specific label?

How about “Gay white guy” How about “Pissed off Gay Dude”

Does anyone except transgendered people give a flying fuck about the guys gender identity?

Here’s a thought, YOUR gender confusion or angst is not MY problem. Furthermore I don’t need to have your terminology forced down my throat.

I miss the “good old days,” you know, when folks who had sex with their own gender were queer and everyone else wasn’t. (It should be noted, I don’t miss the days when people who had sex with their own gender were in asylums being subjected to “treatments” that would have given Josef Mengele the ‘willies’.)

Nowdays, I feel like I need a computer just to keep the terms straight… Can I use that term like that, or is that use demonizing someone?

 

I don’t think that means what you think that means…

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I’ve been reading the various articles about the “ Social Justice” push to have confederate monuments “removed from public view.”

My views on Social Justice have changed over the years. In the words of Inego Montoya from The Princess Bride; 

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I don’t think that means what you think that means…

When I was first on the Social Justice bandwagon I had a simplistic view. I thought it was about justice for everyone and that we all were supposed to have equal access in all things. Additionally, we were supposed to respect each other’s rights and beliefs. Someone’s beliefs were to be protected just as surely as their right to speak because the two were inexorably intertwined.

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It was incumbent on the observer to listen OR NOT, however, we were all supposed to defend each other’s right to speak, be heard, or believe whatever we wanted to believe, no matter how wrong headed or outlandish what was being said might have been.

Naively I believed that the end goal of Social Justice was a completely egalitarian society were all of us rose or fell in accordance with the level of our abilities and work.

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Very lazy or stupid people fell, very clever or lucky people rose, and those of us in the middle ground could look forward to having nice lives, families, and retirements. In my world view the wealthy weren’t evil, they were incentive. Inherent in my view was that even the wealthy could and sometimes did fall, just as clever people (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs) rose.

My belief was that no-one in this great nation should have a child go hungry, and everyone should be contributing. I thought that even the lower bounds of society could and should contribute and be compensated for their contributions. I’d happily feed the homeless guy who’s picking up trash on a city street. (In fact I still do that today. Someone in need who has pride enough to be concerned about where we all live will get a meal, or two, and / or a ride from me.)

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This was a simple concept, and for me, very easy to incorporate into my world view.

Then it started to get mean. My fellow Justice warriors weren’t all that interested in balance. They seemed only interested in retribution.  After all, what you may consider “Just” the people on the receiving end of your “Just Cause” may view as a loss of their rights and freedoms. Many of the Social Justice warriors, then and now, were more than willing to impose their will on others without mercy, because after all, Social Justice was “RIGHT”.

I began to have serious problems with Social Justice when I saw that the same “Sins” the Social Justice crowd railed against, being perpetuated by the SJ crowd. The only difference was that the “SJ Warriors” had picked new targets, and that made it all okay.

Today, in the name of Social Justice we’ll shame people, we’ll fire them, we’ll destroy their careers at the drop of a hat, and even if the reasons for “Punishing” someone turn out to be unfounded, our society never looks back and never even tries to repair the damage.

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Some Social Justice pundits seem to have the opinion, “They (The target du jour) deserved what they got. If not this time, then for all the times they got away with it.”

Remember the La Cross team in North Carolina? How about the Fraternity that was closed due to false gang rape allegations?

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Which leads to the current madness of removing confederate monuments. There are two contenders for the “Most insane / inane” award.  The leader in this category is the push in Memphis to dig up Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s grave. A close second is Al Sharpton and the NAACP demanding that Stone Mountain monument in Georgia be sandblasted from the side of the mountain. I ask myself how the hell is any of this behavior different from ISIS blowing up Palmyra, or The Taliban blowing up the reclining Buddha’s? The short answer is there’s not one whit of difference.

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The Bible says something like;  “If thine eye offends thee, Pluck it out.”

That passage says nothing about gouging something YOU find offensive, out of the side of a mountain. It says nothing about gouging everyone else’s eyes out, and in truth isn’t saying pluck out your own eye either.  It’s saying take responsibility for yourself and don’t look at something if it offends you.

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True social justice would be making these monuments about teaching. Teaching that these monuments are built to honor people deserving of respect because they stood up for what they believed in. Then explain why they were wrong, and the horrible losses on both sides of a conflict that should have been avoided. Let these monuments serve their intended function, to remind us that deep divisions within our nation lead to very sad, dark places.

I’d take up the social justice banner again if the movement was about doing things better but these days, Social Justice is about cracking an offensive egg with the 20LB sledgehammer of punishment.

Go ahead, argue with me! I’ve got DIRT on all of you; what I don’t have I’ll make up!

That’s how we do things these days isn’t it?

OK now we have marriage…

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Now that same sex marriage is legal in all 50 states.

It’s time for the “GAY COMMUNITY” to meld with the rest of the communities at hand.

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The HRC and GLAAD need to go away, donating their funding to the ACLU.

It’s time for the gay world to act like everyone else.

Blend into suburbia, buy houses, get your white picket fences and live happily ever after. I hope the divorce rate isn’t as high in the gay world as it is in the straight world. But people being people I suspect that therate will be the same if not higher.

Oh sure, there are still a few issues to take care of. 

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There is still discrimination in housing, and employment in some places. That however, is an issue that the ACLU needs to champion.

The point is, the time of gay specific organizations has passed. I hope that the gay community doesn’t follow the NAACP path. It’s already far too common for gay folks to scream discrimination.

I’m hoping that instead of maintaining  a separateness, the gay community joins the larger community of America, I have faith that the majority of gay folks will do just that.

However being a realist and knowing that “Victimhood” is very profitable, I’m not holding my breath that GLAAD or the HRC are going away anytime soon.