Saturday, December 20, 2008

Kenneth Starr Wants to Travel Back in Time and Hate Gays.


The sponsors of Proposition 8 are asking the California Supreme Court to nullify the existing marriages of Gays and Lesbians. Kenneth Starr wants to ensure that the ballot initiative (the one that large swathes of Californians failed to vote down) that currently outlaws Gay marriage in California reaches back in time searching for pesky married Gays much in the way the Terminator searched for Sarah Connor…

"Proposition 8's brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions," according to a brief filed by Kenneth Starr.
This is not all that different from what happened back in June with the Supreme Court gun ruling in Washington. Social Conservatives and NeoCons have repeatedly defined legal issues narrowly when it allows them more latitude for abuse (John Yoo’s interesting redefinitions of torture after the 9/11 attacks) or more broadly when it allows them more latitude for abuse, as in this case.
Someone needs to publicly explain to Kenneth Starr that brevity is not clarity, especially when the speaker or writer in question is trying to get away with something… as Kenneth Starr and his backers are trying to. While he already knows that brevity is not clarity in law; he needs to know that the people know it. Clarity is clarity and so it will remain, no matter how many aspiring fascists attempt to shout otherwise. Again we have a situation where a proposed ban or regulation is defined so broadly as to open the door for applications that are entirely unconstitutional.

If Kenneth Starr and the Mormons want to “Save Marriage” they should concentrate on outlawing the biggest threat to matrimony: divorce lawyers.

Kenneth Starr is the former so-called “independent” counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton. I find it incredible how often I have to point out that being an ideologue who is dead-set-against a particular party or against entire groups of people are not qualifications for being independent; either politically, or functionally as an investigator working on behalf of the people. Kenneth Starr spent roughly forty million dollars of our money while he investigated and harangued a sitting President. I wonder whose money he’s spending now, and how much more he plans to waste taking away tax paying people’s rights just because they happen to be Gay tax paying people.
Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office is submitting a brief to the court that maintains that the Gay marriage ban may not be applied retroactively to existing unions between Gays and Lesbians. It’s not enough, and it doesn’t have the enormous backing of religious special interest groups for commercials and other marketing efforts to mobilize support.
Fundamentalists and others who claim that Gay marriage is a “Stop Gap” issue have always entertained me. But this isn’t funny anymore. Just as the late Jerry Falwell, the alive-and-still-crazy Pat Robertson and others have argued that allowing Gays to marry is the first step toward a world where a man can marry his dog etc., I say to Californians, New Yorkers and everyone in between that this is indeed a battle ground issue after all: Kenneth Starr and the co sponsors of Proposition 8 are trying to tell you what rights you are allowed according to THEIR beliefs. They are currently banning Gay marriage, -so what’s next?

Outlawing intercourse between an unwed man and woman?

Outlawing oral sex?

Outlawing living together?

Outlawing making out in public?

Not so cool is it, America?

Kenneth Starr is just the occasional public face of a vast group of people in America who want to define the pursuit of happiness and its limits according to their own beliefs. We cannot legislate based on individual tastes unless we don't care about assualting those basic concepts of liberty we believe are important enough to die for... or so we say.

This is only happening because Gays and Lesbians are a minority in this country and it’s happening for that reason alone. One of the many reasons our Republic exists is to protect the unpopular few from an out-of-control plurality. Right now it’s not working.
Kenneth Starr and his Mormon backed co sponsors are pushing this proposal in California because they can. I don’t see them pursuing it in other states like Vermont.

The Mormons in Utah went after California with millions in media spending because they saw a population that could be mobilized against itself. They went after California because they saw a weakness, a lack of cohesion on the issue, a potential majority that could smash undefined and unarticulated support for Gay marriage. They went after California because they could make the many stamp out the civil rights of the few by fomenting latent fear and loathing.

Just look at that picture of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger back in 1984 in the role that made him an international superstar… looks kinda Gay doesn’t it?

You want to tell him he can’t marry whoever he wants to?

Go ahead.

I dare you.

-SJ

No comments: