Simple fairness tells us that we should all be able to choose whom to spend our life with, who gets to visit us in the hospital, who are our beneficiaries. No matter what our own opinions about those partnerships, we—the recipients of the American birthright—are duty-bound to protect the liberty of all who fall within the influence of our vote.

The commitee will hold a hearing about the bill tomorrow (Friday) at 1:30 PDT, so please take a moment and contact them immediately.

As has already been seen in Massachusetts, this will empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise. It will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores; the current push in Massachusetts is to recognize and legalize all transgender rights (An individual in Massachusetts can now change their drivers license to the gender they believe themselves to be, regardless of actual gender, which means that confused men and women are now legally entering one another’s bathrooms and locker rooms. What kind of a safety issue is this for our children?). Furthermore, while the bill legalizes civil unions, it will be used in the courts to show discrimination and will ultimately lead to court mandated same-sex marriages.

To help defeat this bill, please call your state representative and state senator and ask that they support traditional marriage and vote against the civil unions bill. If you are unsure who your legislators are, please see the link at the end of this email. [emphasis added]

Note the overt appeal to fear and subtle appeal to disgust. This is the typical modus operandi of the leaders of authoritarian followers. The message offers no evidence of compassion or an effort to understand his fellow human beings, something I would expect from true followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

This message also belies the idea that Mormon leaders don’t tell their followers how to vote. It also comes closer to expressing the true desires of most LDS people: no equal rights for people in same-sex relationships. I doubt that the bishop’s leaders will be publicly pleased at his actions.

One more piece of evidence that the fears and squicks of many of the LDS people stand in the way of social justice. These less than honorable gut reactions should not be allowed to masquerade as the moral high ground.

(via Dancing With Crazy)

When will free market ideologues learn that business needs a well run, well funded government in order to thrive?

46. Thomas S. Monson

Charges: If Satan were real, and had a severely chapped anus from a fortnight of angry, unlubricated gay sex with an evil moon-dragon, we imagine it’d look a lot like Monson’s disturbingly weathered face. As supreme cretin of one of this country’s most ridiculous religions (just a nose behind Scientology), the Latter Day Saint did a divine job sanctioning and funding the “Yes on Prop 8” initiative to deny gays the right to be unhappily married. The Mormon faith is based on the existence and translation of magic, golden plates no one has ever seen except the charlatan who claimed they existed, kind of like the evidence that gay weddings threaten “traditional” marriage, which, to Mormons, is defined as between a man and a woman, and a woman, and a woman.

Exhibit A: “Choose your love, Love your choice.”

Sentence: Photographed at the Salt Lake City Marriot with an evil moon-dragon named Lance.

For the record, I think that might be a tad harsh on ol’ Tommy Monson. He can take some consolation in the fact that he’s only somewhat more loathsome than our beloved President Obama (#50) and less loathsome than You (#43):

43. You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

Sentence: Invaded and occupied by Canada; all military units busy overseas without enough fuel to get back.

(via kottke.org)

(For those of you not blessed to live in my state, you might be interested anyway because one of them is the majority leader.)