Today, Belgium; Tomorrow, Vatican City

Belgian police authorities have raided Catholic Church offices to look for evidence of sexual crimes. BBC News:

"At the home of Archbishop Danneels in Mechelen, just north of Brussels, police did not question the cleric but took away his computer, according to his spokesman, Hans Geybels.Mr. Geybels said police had also asked the archbishop to accompany them to the cathedral in Mechelen because they had heard that there might be files there.

He said the officers were tapping on boards and looking for hidden spaces but, as far as he was aware, they had not found anything.

He said Cardinal Danneels was co-operating fully: "The cardinal believes justice must run its normal course. He has nothing against that.""

(Sarcastically) Well, it's nice to see the Pope is on the case, too:

"Pope Benedict XVI says the clerical child abuse scandal shows that the greatest threat to Catholicism comes from "sin within" the Church."

Let me translate that for you: The gay kids we emotionally suppress in adolescence by telling them their innate, predisposed gayness is inherently evil are endangering the gravy train by joining the priesthood and acting out on their tendencies with minors. The Pope sees this as sin.

I see the Pope as a twisted bastard in denial.

I'll let Andrew Sullivan (a gay Catholic) belt that one out of the park:

"(I)magine you are a young gay Catholic teen coming into his sexuality and utterly convinced that it's vile and evil. What do you do? I can tell you from my own experience. You bury it. But of course, you can't bury it. So you objectify sex; and masturbate. You cannot have sexual or even emotional contact with a teenage girl, because it is simply impossible, and you certainly cannot have sex with another teenage boy or you will burn in hell for ever ... so you have sex with images in your own head. Your sex life becomes completely solitary. It can be empowered by pornography or simply teenage imagination. Some shard of beauty, some aspect of sensuality, some vision of desire will keep you sexually energized for days.

Now suppose your powers of suppression and attachment to religious authority are also strong - perhaps stronger because you feel so adrift you need something solid to cling onto in your psyche. And you know you cannot marry a woman. But you want to have status and cover as a single man. If this is the 1950s and 1960s, it's into the Church you go. You think it will cure you. In fact, it only makes you sicker because your denial is buttressed by their collective denial. And the whole thing becomes one big and deepening spiral of lies and corruption.

Many of these tormented men have arrested sexual and emotional development. They have never had a sexual or intimate relationship with any other human being. Sex for them is an abstraction, a sin, not an interaction with an equal. And their sexuality has been frozen at the first real moment of internal terror: their early teens. So they tend to be attracted still to those who are in their own stage of development: teenage boys. And in their new positions, they are given total access to these kids who revere them for their power.

So they use these children to express themselves sexually. They barely see these children as young and vulnerable human beings, incapable of true consent. Because they have never had a real sexual relationship, have never had to deal with the core issue of human equality and dignity in sex, they don't see the children as victims. Like the tortured gay man, Michael Jackson, they see them as friends. They are even gifted at interacting with them in non-sexual ways. One theme you find in many of these stories is that until these screwed up priests' abuse and molestation is revealed, they often have a great reputation as pastors. As emotionally developed as your average fourteen year old wanting to be loved, they sublimate a lot of their lives into clerical service. But they also act out sexually all the time."

And the cycle continues.

I don't give an explosive runny shit about Ratzinger's promises or finger-pointing, or even his apologies. I'll take him, or any pope, seriously when they declare homosexuality what it is--a naturally occurring, harmless minority in sexual preference. Unless it's repressed and turned into self-loathing...and directed outward at others.

Like Catholic Church high executives.

I don't know if Ratzinger's a closet case and I don't care. The Church is clearly incapable of internal reform at this point, because other than abortion, the only topic on which Catholic dogma rests is sex, specifically gay sex. If they admit they're wrong about that, their credibility really goes out the window. So what's left is to see secular authorities teach them that they are still accountable under the law.

Oh, and speaking of Laws, I wonder how well Cardinal Bernard Law is sleeping these days. I'd love to see him or Cardinal George of Chicago or ANYONE above the rank of monsignor do a perp walk.

Remember this, priesthood: molesting kids isn't a sin, it's a crime.

Gay Marriage Split Decision

By now you've probably heard that gay civil unions passed in Washington State, but gay marriage failed in Maine. The fact that this is even an issue that needs to be put to a vote is shameful and depressing. The haters can bitch and moan about activist judges all they want, but the fact is, most of the time the courts are ahead of the curve when it comes to civil rights and doing the right thing. And Iowa's Supreme Court makes me prouder all the time.

Here's what you're going to see as a result of this: You're going to see an extension of what's happening in corporate America. Companies that do not have gay-friendly employment policies are slowly losing their talent pool of gay people (and those who support basic rights on principle) to those corporations which do. In the same way, those corporations which are not in gay-friendly states are going to start taking gay rights into consideration when they are being recruited to a particular area of the country. It won't be a deal-breaker, by any means, but it will be a factor. And I could see it being a matter of politics, too, with companies leaning on politicians to get civil marriage--at a minimum--passed to as to provide them with a better environment in which to recruit better employees and therefore improve their competitive advantage.

Or we'll just wait for the haters to die out and the next generation to vote in the rights gay people deserve.

Either way, we can't rely on politicians to do the right thing. I'm looking at you, Mr. Obama.

I'm also looking at you, Catholics (you knew this was coming, right?). Your church helped defeat gay marriage in Maine again. Your church is on the outside of the right thing looking in. You are continuing to support an organization that doesn't give a damn about human rights, and whose closeted gay hierarchy is projecting its self-loathing on everyone else, just like closeted politicians in America. I'm tired of it, you have no excuse to which I will listen. You need to decide that your church is in the wrong and leave it.
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Later: Sullivan has a letter a gay Catholic wrote to his priest (who's apparently still in the closet but not to the parishioner). It's beautiful in its eloquent, steely barbs:

Hatred fueled by the resources of hundreds of thousands of parishes will be the central reason why the Church will eventually wither and die. I can no longer bear the stench of the rotting body and hierarchical ignorance. I can no longer embrace what has become a menace and money machine to support evil. We are all tainted by what happened in Maine. We are all lesser citizens because our brothers and sisters are lesser citizens.

The Catholic Church donated over half a million dollars to the anti-gay vote. When are these fecken twerps going to get it through their mitres that they're ranting about a subject their own parishioners aren't even that concerned about?

Republican Hypocrisy (Or, Dog Bites Man)

A dear friend of mine once got very offended by an Andrew Sullivan comment that discrimination against gays was a part of the official Republican Party platform. That friend clearly doesn't have a leg on which to stand (yes, I'm a grammar snob, deal with it). The hypocrisy is spelled out in plain language on the official GOP website:

Individual rights – and the responsibilities that go with them – are the foundation of a free society. From the time of Lincoln, equality of individuals has been a cornerstone of the Republican Party. Our commitment to equal opportunity extends from landmark school-choice legislation for the students of Washington D.C. to historic appointments at the highest levels of government. We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, and we will strongly enforce anti-discrimination statutes.

Except when it comes to queers:

Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.

Oh, so it's for the children, is it? Bullshit. What they really mean is, the gays are coming for your children to co-opt them into a sinful lifestyle, and we can't let that happen. All of which is simply code words designed to stir the batshit crazies faithful into voting for them again.

So I'm sorry, but yes, bigotry towards gay people is an official position of the Republican Party. And if you think not allowing gay people to get married like the rest of us isn't discriminatory, sit down with a few queers and try that line out on them.

And I don't care whatever other arguments you care to make about denying gay marriage, I can counter them all. It boils down to the question, do you have a heart or don't you?

PS: That "traditional marriage" bullshit? That's code for the Christianists who believe that "male and female, He created them." Never mind that the bible mentions no fewer than eight acceptable forms of marriage. And has another passage that disagrees with marriage altogether. And that Jesus never mentions any damned thing about marriage/sexuality at all, the whole time hanging out on a fishing boat with 12 bearded, long-haired dudes...

PPS: What party was in power when DOMA was passed? And who shoved Don't Ask Don't Tell down Clinton's throat (pardon the visual). And no, the Democrats don't get a free pass, because they colluded. But it was the R's who brought it about.

PPPS: Open letter to Democrats: You're just as bad because of your cowardice and indifference to correcting the injustices you helped perpetrate.

Iowa Gay Marriage--Good News, Bad News

From the Des Moines Register. Good news:

The overwhelming majority of Iowans - 92 percent - say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.

Sixty-three percent say candidates' stands on other issues will be more important in making their decisions in the 2010 elections."

Bad News:

Forty-one percent say they would vote for a ban, and 40 percent say they would vote to continue gay marriage. The rest either would not vote or say they are not sure.

The most intensity about the issue shows up among opponents. The percentage of Iowans who say they strongly oppose gay marriage (35 percent) is nearly double the percentage who say they strongly favor it (18 percent).

Promising news:

"It's really none of my business what other people do in their lives," said Curt Goodell, 38, a Johnston resident.

He identifies himself as a Republican but said he worries his party will try to make marriage a key issue in coming elections. "I don't have any judgment toward people who want to get married: gays, straight or whatever," Goodell said.

John Smith, 50, a Republican from Clarinda, opposes gay marriage because of religious reasons, but he supports civil unions.

"I'm going to nursing school now, and part of the nursing code is to be nonjudgmental," Smith said. "In hospitals, if a same-sex partner couldn't visit or get information about their partner's health? I just think that's wrong."

The best news: It's not going to a vote for at least two more years, if ever. And while most people will vote on a candidate based on other issues, this one isn't unimportant, either. Let's target some of the haters and get them out of office--the process has to have two consecutive votes of the legislature before it goes to the people for a Constitutional Amendment. Cut it off at the pass.

Via Sullivan.

Andrew Sullivan Calls On Bush To Acknowledge Torture

One of the saddest, most depressing, and most poignant facts of my life right now is that I have friends who still don't acknowledge that the torture of prisoners under American interrogators was ordered at the very top of the US government. The best friend that I have ever had doesn't seem to grasp the concept that just because Bush was outraged when the Abu Ghraib photos hit the press, that doesn't mean he wasn't behind the orders that produced them. It's maddening...we're not accusing Bush of being behind 9/11, or of Obama not being a citizen...the Senate Armed Services Committee and the International Red Cross have found that this was a systematic list of procedures and techniques to be used as routine interrogation techniques. NOT for any "ticking bomb" scenarios like on 24. And Bush knew about it, and acknowledged it in public. And yet, I still can't get him to see it.

It could be worse, though. One of my relatives shouted me down when I so much as used the word torture in conversation by demanding to know, "WERE YOU THERE?!?!?!" Answer: no, I wasn't. You weren't there at Pearl Harbor, or Gettysburg, or Golgatha, either, for that matter. The basic facts remain: American investigators tortured prisoners.

And a finer dissemination of the facts and a laying-out of the evidence than Andrew Sullivan's "Dear President Bush" you will not find on this Earth. It deserves to be held up to a level of near-reverence as any writing by Thomas Paine. He lays it all out for Bush, the entire torture timeline, and then cuts to the chase:

"The model is Ronald Reagan, who denied he had ever traded arms for hostages in Iran but eventually realized that that was indeed the consequence of the actions he took, the men he appointed, and the policy he pursued. Reagan’s speech to the nation on this matter was, in my view, his greatest, because it revealed humility and integrity. “First, let me say,” he told us in 1987,

"I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I’m still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior … A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

"If you read the Red Cross report and the Senate Armed Services Committee report, I believe you will reach a similar conclusion about your own record on prisoner treatment. You may not have intended to torture people, but you did; you may have wanted to protect the country within the law, but that admirable desire too easily slid into your approval of actions that are indefensible, illegal, and deeply damaging to America’s reputation and honor. You were let down, as Reagan was. He took responsibility. You need to as well."

Read the whole thing, end to end. Then go back and do it a second time. Even more.

Those of you who have scorned us for questioning the war in Iraq, denounced us as "with the terrorists," questioning our patriotism and even our sanity, have no excuses any more. You are in league with those who approved of the worst mistreatment of human beings as is possible to inflict. Killing some of these people would have been merciful by comparison. The fact that they were terrorists and baby-killers doesn't matter--we are America, and we are supposed to be better than this. We can stand firm in the knowledge that our patriotism is the true version: a patriotism and love of our country strong enough and fearless enough that we will criticize our country when it is wrong and call for its leaders to do the right thing.

I hope Bush does it someday. If for no other--purely vindictive reason--I want to see the rug ripped out from under Cheney.

U2's Tribute to Iranian Rights

Via Sullivan:

Jimmy Carter Calls BS on Gender Discrimination

And he cuts right to the chase:

"The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

Preach on. Read the whole thing.

Via Skepchick.

Obama on Gay Rights

New website out there with a worthy petition at the bottom:

http://www.obamasplanforgayrights.com

Here's a hint: It's satire.

Via Sullivan.

Skepchick Goes Green

Skepchick has followed suit with my suggstion...

"We don’t delve too much into politics here, but this is a serious issue that touches on many issues that require hardcore critical thinking: government fraud (the election was called in favor of the incumbent before the votes could even begin to be counted), censorship (the government is blocking gmail and other services and requiring people to use proxies), and the spread of misinformation (as it appears the government is flooding Twitter with fake news stories).

You can follow the news on Twitter using the hashtag #IranElection and see the photos from the scene on Flickr. Here’s a CyberWar guide from BoingBoing."

Thanks, ladies.

Green--It's The New Black!

The Daily Dish has changed is basic header colors to green to show solidarity with the citizens of Iran who are protesting the despicable election fraud perpetuated by that slimeball AhmadiNejad. (Side note: Could even Central Casting come up with a sleezier-looking villain? The bad guys in Delta Force looked more respectable.) Since my blog is somewhat simpler in layout and already uses the color green in some areas, I've changed what text and borders I can in support. Please do the same.

You can also show your support by changing your Facebook and MySpace pictures to this...

Sullivan: Nuanced Coverage of Abortion Rights

Andrew Sullivan has been running a series of his reader's anecdotes on abortion following the murder of Dr. George Tiller Sunday. Go here for a search list of the articles. They're all well worth reading. This lady, forced to have a late-term abortion because of a genetic defect in her baby, makes possibly the best point:

"I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I have concluded that a decision to undergo abortion or continue a pregnancy is often made instinctively, with a nearly primal conviction that it is the right thing to do under the circumstances. Trying to impose a rigid moral framework based on an extreme notion of equality of personhood doesn't even begin to speak to the complexities of what most people experience when trying to decide this question for themselves."

The Best Take on George Tiller's Murder

Dr. George Tiller, the prominent Kansas doctor who was one of three American doctors to perform late-term abortions, was murdered yesterday after decades of terrorist tactics by the scum on the right. Erica Barnett of The Stranger has the best take on Slog:

"On one side, we have those who attempt to protect women's access to abortion by supporting pro-choice judges and elected officials; on the other, we have those who use violence and the threat of violence to intimidate women and abortion providers. Tell me, where is the common ground between those two groups?

So no, President Obama, those who believe in a woman's right to choose should not "open our hearts and minds to those who may not think like we do." Because "common ground," in this case, is code for ceding away our rights— women's rights—in the interest of calming a storm we didn't create. And because you don't negotiate with terrorists—whether they're threatening doctors or taking hostages."

Donate to Planned Parenthood in Dr. Tiller's memory.

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Update: Sully on Olbermann tonight:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jesus' General on Mormons

There's a number of chains in this time line I'm skipping, but these two are completely relevant:

• 2009 - California Supreme Court rules in favor of love segregation.
• 1852 - At the request of Gov. Brigham Young, the Territorial Legislature passes a bill legalizing slavery in Utah Territory, thereby establishing slavery outside of the South and foreshadowing future Mormon exercises in God-ordained persecution of minority populations.

Andrew Sullivan on Torture

Apparently Pat Boone, who as we all know is the foremost expert on political ethics and foreign policy in this country, has yet another stupid screed saying--in essence--that the "terrorists" had it coming, and that he, Boone, had it worse growing up because his mother used a belt:

"May I tell you that my own mama inflicted more actual physical pain on me and my brother Nick – raising welts on our butts with a sewing machine belt when we got really out of line – than any of the techniques, including "waterboarding," that detainees of the U.S. military have endured. Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed endured it supposedly 183 times, experiencing no lasting damage, but divulging information that has saved thousands of American lives. How can you compare his gasping feeling of drowning with the actual torture John McCain suffered in North Vietnam, breaking his bones and impairing him permanently? "

Andrew Sullivan turns his arguments to roadkill:

Some facts: John McCain disagrees with Boone that waterboarding isn't torture. And McCain broke his bones before captivity. The torture McCain suffered was the Vietnamese refusing to offer medical treatment for his injuries - something George W. Bush directly wanted to do with respect to the wounds of Abu Zubaydah. McCain was beaten repeatedly, also routine for prisoners under George W. Bush. McCain was also subject to solitary confinement - check - and roped stress positions. The stress positions Bush authorized were mainly not ropes, although prisoners were stretched from shackles preventing them from resting. President Bush refrained in his speech backing McCain's nomination in 2008 from describing McCain's treatment as "torture." He couldn't. He used the term "beatings and isolation". If he had used the term "torture", he would have been conceding that he believes the US committed torture under his command.

I do not know the details of Boone's childhood. But my best guess is that he was not stripped naked by strangers, thrown into a dark and cold cell for weeks, shackled so he could never rest, kept awake by insistent deafening noise, doused in water to induce hypothermia, told no one would ever see him again, and strapped to a waterboard and near-drowned scores of times."

Pat Boone is starting to look like chum in the water, and he doesn't have a bigger boat.

Jesse Ventura Wants to Waterboard Dick Cheney

I'd buy tickets to see this:

Jesse Ventura: I would prosecute every person who was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it, I would prosecute the people that ordered it, because torture is against the law."

Larry King: You were a Navy S.E.A.L.

Jesse Ventura: Yes, and I was waterboarded [in training] so I know... It is torture...I'll put it to you this way: You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

Via Sullivan.

Torture Timeline

I don't always care for DailyKos, but this is an excellent summary.

Via Sullivan.

U.S. Soldier: Suicide Over Torture

Tragic:

"Alyssa Peterson was one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq. A cover-up, naturally, followed.

Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge.""

Read: She killed herself because she had been sent back to take part in torture. And she couldn't take it. And the military lied about it to hide its shameful behavior.

Prosecute, Mr. Holder, Prosecute!

Via Sullivan.

Shep Smith on Torture

Bless this man. It's about time someone from Fox cut through the crap.



Via Sullivan

Prosecute Torture Officials

So says a man who trained SEALS in how to resist torture techniques like waterboarding. And he makes a good point:

"This is about more than one tactic, waterboarding, that has gotten the lion's share of attention. As a general rule, interrogations without clearly defined legal limits are brutal. Particularly when they have an imperative to get information out of a captive immediately. Wearing prisoners out to the point of mental breakdown; forcing confessions through sleep deprivation; inflicting pain by standing for days on end (not minutes like in SERE); beating them against flexing walls until concussion; applying humiliation slaps (two at a time), and repeating these methods over and over."

He also makes this point:

"If America wants to win the war against al-Qaeda, we have to start anew. The Obama administration will have to forget about the pressure they are getting from Bush administration officials and Republicans to hide all further releases of torture memos they themselves defended for years.

Then, Alberto Gonzales, Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury - who, as Bush administration legal officials, have documented their own complicity to explicitly authorize crimes - will have to be calmly prosecuted, based on the evidence, with all the due process rights to which they are entitled. Who knows, they may well be acquitted.

The sooner the better, as al-Qaeda will recruit hundreds if not thousands more young men to fight, kill and gladly die once they absorb the depth of hypocrisy America stooped to over the last eight years.

Either we investigate our past errors and clean up our ship or we "look forward" and give al-Qaeda a singular propaganda victory that will kill Americans for years to come."

Via Ed Brayton.

Think you can reason with a homophobe?

Try this little screed over on Newsvine...

"After holding back and just reading the comments I feel that I must post yet again. Say what you will but homosexuals are not even human. They are diseased, degenerate creatures who mock humans. The goal that they will freely admit to is to erase any trace of decency or humanity from the planet until we are all wallowing in filth and disease like them. If you are religous at all you recognize that this is the work of satan and that they have no souls, just lust for each other. Someone mentioned that it was Lamda who filed the suit, not Nambla. What is the difference, perversion is perversion, and if you don't think that the ACLU won't soon be filing on behalf of pedos then you are the one being foolish. The ACLU exists for purpose only, to destroy America. Hopefully one day there will be a test to determine if the fetus is gay. Then you could abort it since it is not human. Only the then will we wipe this scourge from the world. Until then we will have to do it one at a time."

Today's little ugly ray of sunshine compliments of some fuck-tard calling himself Dragonman (and what God thinks of this Holy Joe taking on one of the totem animals of Satan, I wonder).

And in case you think he's just a homophobe, here's a followup:

"Of course not only whites will be allowed to live. Someone needs to do the labour. As far as the comparison to Hitler goes, thank you. But remember it the victors who write history. The allies won so they wrote that Hitler was evil. Not true, he was a man who believed in the humanity of mankind and strove to defeat the forces of slime that would drag it down, hey, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. "

I'm not even going to respond to his bullshit: I'm going to put out an open call to Christians to oppose and decry this crap wherever you find it. And turn these people in to the authorities...the 1st Amendment doesn't cover implied threats against individuals like this.
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Update: as much as I'd like to make good on that last sentence, the law actually only protects implicit threats against specific individuals.