Whether you have been naughty or nice shouldnt matter before Thanksgiving

Preparation for Christmas has been moved back to Halloween and we're thinking about candy corn on the Fourth of July....the only reason we still celebrate Thanksgiving anymore is because food merchants want to get in their deals and steals throughout the holiday seasons too and the poultry industry wouldn't be the same if everyone just ate Chicken and told the Turkey to go screw off like it normally does in the wild. If it gets any worse improperly anthropomorphic animated Witches will be traveling around while straddling bottle rockets on Mother's Day delivering carnations to Church's flower sales with miniature bunnies siting on the other end to act as a tail fin.

We are allowing corporate greed and political correctness to bury our nation's history and broken promises but yet lofty dreams and bold ideals all at the same time by covering over part of the distinct position of this pseudo secular religious holiday. We see Thanksgiving as the beginning of a really expensive pipe dream that y'all will be paying off for six months or longer, rather than a moment to stop and give thanks for the year that has just passed, the harvest in our pantries and cellar storage, and the fact that for at least half the country we are gathered around with friends and/or family and taking a moment to share ourselves with each other, and perhaps a perfect stranger.

Like the story of the first Thanksgiving, that we were told growing up, when the Native people of this land shared the skills to survive in this new climate and circumstances, take a moment to remember this past year before you embark on the next journey in faith and peace. Also remember though to serve those whom do not have what you have been blessed with, by being the first to open your home and share it freely, as the Good News of Him who was, is, and will be, asked us to do, so that He may come and dine with you and your family today too.


There was suppose to be a post today...what happened?

The crack staff of F6 received word today that Father Fozy has been called away this Thanks Giving weekend on an issue of Apostolic proportion. All we could find was the prior pastoral commentary you all just read and then we received word as to where Father Fozy was called away towards, we never had no idea it was for this:

:: Breaking News ::
Santa's Workshop overtaken by drunk teen boy band
RIVER TRIO RODENTS
...live coverage coming soon....

Apparently the SeVille boys were a little depressed this Holiday Season with their second movie being pushed back three months (from March 2010 to Christmas this year) and album sales diminishing, but they were confident they would come in first place at the Mythical Creatures Annual Dinner & Karaoke Contest, and win the coveted Crown of Prosperity for another year. What they didn't know is Mr. Freeze's Assistant had spiked the eggnog at the table they all were sitting at to try to warm up everyone on a very chilly night at the North Pole....they are now holding the elves hostage.

Santa is okay, The Bishop from Turkey is on his personal yacht sailing around the Netherlands region, looking in on small children as they sleep. and is receiving reports from Fr. Fozy's staff who is making a SITREP from the scene hourly. To hear more live coverage call 260-312-2200 and listen to the report filed last night in the field by Father Fozy's staff Guardian Spirit, Weasel (Weasie) and Guardian Angel, Julian (Jules) Reign.

Happy Thanksgiving! everyone and to our men and women serving in the Military, HooRah! to you also.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The preceding news report and subsequent voice mail message are fictitious.
They are a continuation of a personal tradition to bring some bad comedy throughout the holiday season courtesy of my voice mail. I hope you all enjoy and check back for further installments in this year's series. No underage mythical or animated creatures were harmed or hammered nor were any copyright infringements intended in the making of this and subsequently following story lines.

Split Pea Soup: Entrepreneurial Spirit abounds at the Pontiac Mall this holiday season.

As most of my really close friends are aware I am in the process of moving from the north end of the City by Glenbrook Mall to the southwest side of town. Between the adventure of getting the house ready to move into (putting visquinne on the windows, getting utilities turned on), meeting my crazy neighbors, and getting to know the neighborhood I will now reside in, I found something really cool to tell you all about.

Three days ago I found myself in the throws of my stomach revolting against the idea of going another a hour without food, it was really warm that day so I had burned through my breakfast relatively quickly with everything going on, plus being hypoglycemic trying to stave off a protein deficiency and a sugar crash at the same time means only one option, milk product (milk has equal parts, protein and sugar, instant fix) and rest then food; cigarettes and nicotine and string cheese can only get you so far. So I went looking for a diner or cafe; I knew there had to be one somewhere. Somewhere down Pontiac Street there had to be a classic hole in the wall diner, some place with inexpensive, good quality, old soul style, food, (or as we use to call it, grubbins); the free market, my wallet, demanded nothing else. I wondered aimlessly across Pontiac looking for said restaurant, I wanted a real restaurant something with character and community fried into its pores.

After turning around one time to check back at the Pontiac Mall I happened across a sign at the very bottom that I didnt see the first time I passed thanks to a light pole and a bus blocking the sign from view at 30 mph. I park and walk in only to find a sign that said the cafe was only open from 11a-1p. Completely disheartened and my blood sugar levels close to crashing, I went into the convience store to grab a soda as a last ditch effort to give me a quick boost until I could find dinner, only to find out that the restaurant is open and the entrance is on the west-south-west (right of the main entrance) side of the building. I will be okay, yeah!

I went in and standing behind the service window of Mattie Mae's Cafe is a short and stocky middle age woman with a cheerful grin and a mild roar greeting me saying "how is you doing?" and "what will you have?" her name is Marnetta. Marnetta named the Cafe after her Aunt, there are several pictures of her in the Cafe. I would recommend that you try the signature Mattie Burger Combo which consist of a seasoned 1/4 lbs (after cooking) of meat cheese and the works including mayo, with a side of seasoned fries, and a can of Big K Soda (additional sodas are by the can at 50 cents each) for about 5.00. The other menu I can recommend is the Nachos both of these will fill anyone up easily. Mattie Mae's is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8a-7p and is located at the Pontiac Mall 1108 East Pontiac across from the Whitney Young Early Childhood Center.

The reason I am telling you all of this is because of what I found while I was there. At the service window on the counter they had a contest, for a dollar you got to guess how much candy was in this 2 pound container, if you won you got a free meal on the house. The donations from the game are going to put on a Thanksgiving dinner for the area homeless and hungry and the whole mall is participating and hosting the venture of service to those in need. So my request to each of you that read this blog is that if you like good food, and you want to spread the ideas of libertarian philosophy around, and support group of businesses that are reaching out to serve the community they are in, spend a dollar, take a guess, and then stay for dinner. At Mattie Mae's a family of four can still eat for less than a quarter of a buck (that is $25) in the Summit City and it doesnt have to be fast food.

Think about it and then do something about it!

Recent road collapse causes speculation on origin and prevention but also leads me to call out and question local broadcast stations

Monday evening the road collapsed on US Highway 27 northbound, south of State Boulevard, just before the Kroger Fueling Station. This incident caused major headaches as the road in question is a primary route through town and the lights are timed at 28-32 miles per hour to make traffic flow smoothly, typically a twenty minute trip one way. According to an interview given to Stephen Parker @ Around Fort Wayne by Rachel Blakeman, a former blogger, and current Public Information Officer for the City, they checked all possible causes and their working position now is that a water main break ten years ago caused the soil to move or become settled and therefore caused the road pavement to buckle under and take the City on a wonderfully (35 miles per hour, across a 12 inch dip in the road, on a curve, at night) fun ride. The City hopes to have the road repaired, at a cost of 26 thousand dollars (INC 23 September 2009), by Friday, weather permitting.

The only question left to ask now is: Does the City need to go back and check the sites of all other previous water main breaks to prevent this from happening yet again?

My Problem With Local Broadcast Media

This incident was responded to promptly so I wont critique the City on interdepartmental communication this time but I will critique the local broadcast media establishments for not broadcasting the traffic alert at the bottom and top of the hours as the incident unfolded and progressed. Most of the radio stations that I tuned into were on national syndication at the time with no one answering phones or able to announce the obstruction to traffic on the air. Maybe we need to take stock in what we want from local radio? I am not saying that national shows and prerecorded programs are a bad thing, but when there is no one present to put out the traffic advisory for such a major road closing, or receive up to date information from average citizens at the event's occurrence, we begin to see another issue at play. What does that say about the intention of these people we entrust with our airwaves?

That is right, our airwaves!
Publicly owned airwaves!

This isn't an issue of local only it is an issue of local at all. Most radio stations rely on the prepackaged or syndicated programs to fill time and just milk the advertising dollars from such programs. I miss the days of long term, local hired, Disc Jockeys (excuse me, Personalities) whom actually get involved in the Community they serve and do more than slut out the top 40 list every couple of hours, we need more indie and local music.

We need independent stations that aren't owned by conglomerates in the same market. We need to celebrate the arts and music but also receive our news and commentary from many different sources rather than allowing one or two stations to provide every comment or thought from a biased, small minded, position of assumed public trust. We need to start having public conversations again on air and actually invite the best people to the airwaves not just the ones who have the loudest mouths or the most clout in the industry or social landscape.

Allen County needs its own radio station that celebrates the people, arts and music, cultures, reports the news, and offers a balance of commentary on everything. My only question, Whom is willing to start providing and maintaining a truly free press for everyone to participate in? Are You?


F6 EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS POST IS CROSS POSTED ON THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF ALLEN COUNTY BLOG.

HEALTH CARE REFORM! The Squirrel Society is back and looking for some more nuts to tease, tag, and bag. Spread your cheeks wide open to speak out!!

I think both sides of this debate have been drinking too much KoolAide and need to quit bending over to the chemically flavoured coloured sugar rush of politics, and just do what is right for We The People in both practical care and further advancements within medical research and development. As a budding Participatory Economist and a Libertarian, this may seem to be a conflict of philosophies, however I disagree with both sides of the debate so far. I think that Health Care Reform is the perfect opportunity to move towards a new style of economics where money isn't the issue, but the affirmative answer to that historical question: "And we are our brothers keeper?" is the principle on which we stand!

Tomorrow @ 12 Noon concerned citizens across northeast Indiana can open their mouths, and the first 150 can even deep throat a Coney Dog, at the Allen County Courthouse on South Clinton at Main Street, to protest against national health care reform that is currently making its way through Congress. The hour long rally event is hosted by Americans 4 Prosperity and Patients United Now and will include commentary from highlighted speaker, Honorable David McIntosh, former US Representative from 1995-2001 in the 2nd District, who was succeeded by the Honorable Mike Pence in the sixth District, and is currently also working with Conservative Lobbying Groups against the Sonia Sotomayor nomination/appointment to The United States Supreme Court.

I believe that we can have a health system that both acknowledges personal and collective indemnity for basic health care yet at the same point assure a stable health care system that is not based on economic profit or to a very minimum more as a surplussed commodity of trade. Here are just some basic thoughts to start out:

1. Medical staff should be semi nationalized (LPN and below at min.) and all trained under a limited exchange pay system or for free. By not attaching such a cost to the education matrix persons in the medical field can be trained and monitored and advanced based on skills and desires to serve their fellow man not how much money they can accrue in a trust fund or slave to pay back for the next twenty years of their lives in college loans. The same regarding free education is true with teachers and other academics. All students should leave start college between 16-20 years old after six years at the age of 22-26 with at minimum a bachelors degree and possibly a Master Degree, and if able two - four years of apprenticeship and civil service under their belt.

2. By first eliminating the cost of education as a society we also trust that not far behind would be the serious reduction of and the amounts awarded because of malpractice or malfeasance to both a. an affordable standard and b. reasonable compensation, since the profit margin has been reduced drastically by the industry.

3. Basic care and wellness provisions would assure that everyone merits a basic standard of care. If you choose to be obese you will have to pay more into the system to deflect the cost of your added care but at the same pointe if you choose to work at maintaining a healthier life or donate time back to the work matrix the drain you added could be adjusted or removed from the matrix. If there are natural medical diagnosis like cancer or other ailments it would be covered under routine maintainability of life.

4. The matrices can be assigned locally and governed regionally with cross oversight by both a national council for final review and malpractice and a council of patrons served elected by each matrix's participants and professionals within each field of license to assure best practices management both locally and regionally.

5. Prescriptions and procedures are automatically covered no questions asked as the development cost is now covered by the matrix, this would greatly reduce the burden and profit margins simultaneously.

I began this post with a reminder of our own hopes and dreams for the future through where our current failures in leadership have and can follow towards by commentary of characters Captain Benjamin Sisko and Dr. Julian Bashir, whom while traveling back in time to AD 2024, expose us to the eventual fraud and dereliction of humanitarian services within indigent persons sanctuary districts, located in the abandon urban areas of major cities throughout this great Nation. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Past Tense, 8 Parts, c/o Project Infinity). I will leave this debate to y'all for now with these words from Jay Brannan in 26 Hour Day and ask you to consider the future you wish to leave behind for our children and our fellow Americans. The time for reform is now. The questions we must ask ourselves as a people now is, What will that reform look like ten or fifty years from now? How can we be sure that we will always take care of our fellow American?



WEBSITES AND RESOURCES ON HEALTH CARE ALTERNATIVES:
Northeast Indiana Chapter of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan which promotes public financed, privately delivered, aka single-payer, universal health plan at the state and national level.

OTHER COMMENTARIES ON HEALTH CARE REFORM:

ObamaCare Yay or Nay? The Truth About Canada!
by Steven Crowder 13 July 2009
[Website][YouTube][Twitter][H/t: Fort Wayne News]

OTHER STAR TREK COMMENTARIES ON HEALTH CARE

VOYAGER: Season 7 Episode 5, Critical Care: The Emergency Medical Hologram Doctor willingly challenges the health care practices that are apportioned based on an individuals social class at a hospital facility he is held hostage at by infecting the Hospital Administrator and changing his designation to a lower section.
(Original Date 01 November 2000, 5 parts c/o Chromalias7)

NEWS STORIES AND OTHER BLOGS REPORTING OF EVENTS AND COMMENTARIES:

Pre Event Promotion:
08 July Rally Around Free Health Care Choices
by John B. Kalb @ Fort Wayne Politics
08 July Rally against Obamacare tomorrow at Courthouse Square
by Stephen Parker @ Around Fort Wayne Blog
08 July Rally Against Obamacare Tomorrow At Courhouse Square
09 July Patients United Now Rally Against Obamacare Today!
via Dan Turkette's @ Fort Wayne News

Local Commentaries on Health Care Reform debate:
22 June That Horse Is Dead
by Leo Morris Opening @ Arguments The News Sentinel
02 July Health Care Debate
by Jeff Pruitt @ Fort Wayne Politics
07 July Democrats To The Rescue?
by Leo Morris @ Opening Arguments The News Sentinel
08 July Evan Bayh's Priorities
by Craig Skinner @ Reverent and Free

Post Event Reports and Commentaries:
09 July Fort Wayne Health Care Tea Party
by Scott Sarvay Indiana News Center
09 July Protesting Obamacare in Fort Wayne
by Morgan @ My Two Cents Worth
10 July Obamacare Rally photos and video
by Stephen Parker @ Around Fort Wayne Blog


FOLLOWUP COMMENTARY: There is a snag excerpt copy of this post on the Libertarian Party of Allen County's blog. To which I will repost comments on that post here also:
1. Kevin Knuth, former Chair of the Allen Co. Democrats asked, "Anyone else find the humor (that an) event that wants to stop changes to health care is serving coney dogs and potato chips?"
2. To which I your Editor responded, "It was actually the second thing I noticed in the 1 1/2 page press release. It really got my creative and sarastic juices flowing.
Nothing says health care reform like 150 people digesting over processed meat smothered in sauteed onions and fried meat, sometimes with cheese, and always with mustard. The protest/rally organizers could have at least served ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and rasins) as well and eaten them in protest against a well rounded meal.
What really sucks is I didnt get the message til last night otherwise I could have forwarded out to more homeless people and had all them get fed a decent lunch. But I have a feeling some already know about it."
3. Robert Enders, Chair of the Libertarian Party in reply stated, "I'm planning on going and I'm planning on having a hotdog too. People should be allowed to make their own healthcare and diet choices."

EDITOR: More links, information, and comments to come later.

OUR PRIDE! Our Independence? If Democrats want 2 find our votes in 2010 .... repeal DADT & DOMA now, or more QUEERS will become Greens & Libertarians!

*PLEASE NOTE THIS POST HAS A MAJOR DOMA & DADT UPDATE BELOW*

It is official! June was GLBT Pride Month!

It was declared first by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then sheepishly a few more hours after that by President Barack Hussein Obama. The Gay & Lesbian Community has finally received a boost toward equality because as of now thirteen states have considered and eight passed or decided to make marriage available to everyone. Nevada and Wisconsin are in the process of creating Domestic Partnerships and the approximately 18 thousand Same Sex Marriages in California performed during the 6 month window last year were also retained as valid. Ironically even Rhode Island is considering legislation to allow for Same Sex Divorce proceedings. But wait, before you hoist your lovers across the threshold, that initial euphoria has begun to ware off.

That hope was quashed recently by two drastic legal injunctions done by the Obama Justice Department in recent Supreme Court cases which, as some speculate, set our fight for equality back five to ten years, as well as negate legislative and judicial victories across the fifty states. This has brought the GLBT Community to honestly call into review all of the previous promises made and financial investment in not just political campaigns but also national queer lobbying organizations also. Soon after the threats of such boycotts, like the DNCs 10th Annual LGBT Leadership Council Dinner fundraiser in D.C. last week (which still raised 1 million dollars supposedly), the Obama Administration made several courtship moves to keep the GLBT Community from curtailing any future investments in his and others of his Party's campaigns, leading up to the 2010 federal mid term election cycle.

WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME WE WILL ALL FEEL GAY!

Previously on F6 we covered the story of Air Force Major Margaret Witt whose case in the Ninth Federal Circuit Court elevated homosexuals judicial scrutiny to a suspect classification, in need of greater legal protections, and raised the bar in 9 western states for Military discharges based on United States Code 10§654 to include that "the military can't automatically discharge all openly gay soldiers, but must prove in each case that dismissal would promote troop readiness or unit cohesion" in order to permit the constitutional discharge from Military service, based upon sexual orientation or association within a judicially protected minority group.

The Obama Administration refused to challenge the decision in the Witt case to the Supreme Court, which 1. allows the precedent while the case is brought back to lower courts to be retried; 2. allows for the Obama Administration and certain Lobby Groups to strategically delay a Judicial Review of DADT; 3. puts pressure on Congress to repeal DADT through HR1283 Military Readiness Enhancement Act.

However at the same time, "President Obama's Solicitor General, Elena Kagan," interjected in the 1st District case (formerly Cook v. Gates) of James Pietrangelo II whom along with 12 other plaintiffs originally challenged their separation from US Military under DADT, "filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging it not to hear Pietrangelo's appeal. But Kagan's brief said that the 1st Circuit "properly upheld" the statute." The 1st District ruled that: 1. DADT is an exercise of Congressional judgment in the area of military affairs and warranted enormous deference from the judicial branch; 2. laws based on animus Romer v. Evans (1996) couldnt be used against DADT because the policy, it said, was based on legitimate concerns, not animus. 3. the military should do more than prove homosexuality to warrant dismissal 4. ensuring national security outweighs arguments from 12 former military members who say their rights were ignored when they were dismissed for being gay. The Supreme Court declined to hear the Pietrangelo appeal on the 8th of June 2009. (Source: The Bay Area Reporter)

Rather than standing on the principles of equality now for our Troops, by not having the Witt case go before the Supreme Court, The Obama Administration also threw off the 1st District case from being reviewed, as this would have forced the Supreme Court not only to deliberate the role of scrutiny in the lower courts, but also deal at the same time with the lower courts interpretation of the Supreme Court's legal precedent in Lawrence v Texas (2003) which was cited in both the 1st District and 9th District case regarding the same issues under law. In other words, certain politicians in Congress and the Administration are both trying to make DADT a mid term election cycle victory and at the same time prevent the Courts from doing their job by using legal tactics which remove the exercise of scrutiny and review of these two distinct precedents, and possibly overturning DADT, before Democrats in Congress could claim it as a victory for equality coming up to the midterm elections cycle in 2010. In summary Gay and Lesbian Service Members are nothing more to the Democrats than bargaining chips in an upcoming election cycle and they are using every trick to keep us and them in line.

There is nothing "LEGITIMATE" about the arguments in support of DADT, and "CONCERNS" over UNIT COHESION or GENERAL ORDER and MORALE are simply defamatory! Every time someone utters the absolute fallacy that is the arguments for the restriction on integral and honest lives of Gay and Lesbian Service Members they disrespect the honour of all of our Service Members. The very nature of the arguments for exclusion in fact surmises that our men and women in uniform cant uphold themselves to the highest standards. That is a slap in the face to every person who has, does, and will, wear the uniform in service and sacrifice for our freedom and liberty!


There have also been three more recent public cases of career soldiers being affected by the illegal implementation of Dont Ask Dont Tell. On the 7th May 2009 (video above) we were introduced to 2nd Lt. Sandy Tsao of the US Army,who originally told her story in an exclusive open letter to the American public in Audrey Magazine (pic to right open in new tab to enlarge) this past spring of life under DADT and received a personal hand written note from Barack Obama in return.

We also received followup on the story of Arabic Linguist and Environmental Engineer now an Infantry Platoon Leader, Lt. Dan Choi, who came out on national television back in March to announce the founding of of Knights Out for GLBT Graduates of the US Military Academy @ West Point. Lt. Dan Choi served in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division for 15 months in 2006 and 2007, leading combat patrols through a region called the Triangle of Death and serving as a translator and language instructor and also helped rebuild schools and hospitals. In 2008, he left the Army and joined the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry of the New York National Guard, based in Manhattan. Lt. Choi will also be the first to be discharged out of New York (Source: Today In The Military). On the 19th of May we were also introduced to Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach (1st & 3rd videos below) an eighteen year veteran of the Air Force. who flew 88 combat missions with over 2100 flying hours and 1800 of those in combat. (Source: Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC News Politics News)

Even though he continued to patronize our struggle for equality, by signing a light list of rights for federal employees, allowing GLBT partners to use their married name on their US Passports, and throwing a party on Monday at the WHITEHOUSE on the 40th Anniversary of the STONEWALL RIOTS. He still refused to act as Commander In Chief, as 78 members of Congress have requested him, to also suspend by Executive Order the unconstitutional discrimination towards our men and women that serve in the United States Uniformed Services, from being able to do so openly, without fear, reprisal, or discharge, based upon whom they love and not the merit of their service and sacrifice. The Secretary of Homeland Security did just the same thing with another law in regard to Immigration and Naturalization policies regarding an early death otherwise known as the 'widows penalty' (Source: Dan Savage c/o SLOG).

However over the last week new information has come to light that the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, whom originally stated that DADT was "something to kick down the road for awhile (13 April 2009)", like a can of tuna in a game of street hockey, while traveling back from the US European Command Center in a recent statement Stars & Stripes, The Associated Press, and ABC News, all report that, under his direction, Pentagon lawyers and Administration officials are now looking at ways to add "flexible enforcement" to the existing law to accommodate when a Service Member is outed by a third party specifically citing a scenario of a jilted ex lover or someone with an axe to grind with the Service Member or their family, while the Congress takes its sweet ass time to repeal the 16 year old law, which it unconstitutionally created.

WE'RE GOING TO SEEK JUSTICE BUT WE CANT EVEN FIND MERCY!

The California Supreme Court in their ruling on the matters surrounding Proposition 8 in essence created three classes of people when it maintained the validity of the 18 thousand marriages performed during the six month window in 2008 when it was legal to do so. Besides the actions by the Obama Administration in the above cases of law you also have the Justice Department interjecting with another case brought by Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer out of San Francisco, California, in regards towards the validity of Proposition 8 in California, which directly challenges the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA based on several Constitutional grounds and previous Court precedent.

After having the case pulled from the State Courts to the Federal Court The Justice Department, according to John Aravosis of The AMERICA Blog, in order to maintain the defense of the current law's discrimination towards homosexuals they compare homosexuals to pedophiles, citing several previous domestic and foreign cases of heterosexual incest and adults marrying children, in their 54 page brief (pdf)to the Court.

Why did the Obama Administration file the brief if they are opposed to the law?

At first Justice Department Spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said that, "... until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the Administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system." After an outcry and official boycott of two DNC Fundraisers one in Boston (with picture to left c/o Wicked Gay Blog) and the 10th Annual LGBT Leadership Council Dinner in the District of Columbia began a week went by and Robert Gibbs, The WHITEHOUSE Press Secretary stated to Jake Tapper during his Daily Briefing on the 17th of June:

"Well, as you know, that the Justice Department is charged with upholding the law of the land, even though the President believes that that law should be repealed....Well, again, it's the President's Justice Department. And, again, we have the role of upholding the law of the land while the President has stated and will work with Congress to change that law."

Then during a panel discussion 10 days later President Obama's Staff "Secretary Lisa Brown, expressed personal reservations about some of the language in the Justice Department brief against same-sex marriage" by deflecting the conversation "It was an awful lot better that the brief that was written in the Bush administration," and trying to one up the Obama brief by comparing it back to the original Bush era version of the brief. (Source: Jake Tapper, Political Punch, ABC News)

That was not even an apology! That was an excuse, and a bad one at that!

After the DOJ brief in both the San Francisco DOMA case and the several DADT cases, the GLBTIQAS Democrats have finally had enough, and called the National Democratic Committee and certain elected officials to task for their pandering to and blatant disregard for our struggle for equality. The call went out across the blogoshpere and twitaverse and exploded center stage with the National Democratic Committee getting spanked across sidewalks and caught fudging the numbers to make it look like they raised up to and possibly exceeding 1 million dollars during the fundraisers, when most of the main players for the event backed out in protest of the political pandering and judicial slams against Our Community.

Why shouldn't our protests affect the lives and fortunes of politicians? One of the strong components of Libertarian thought and philosophy is that an open, transparent government is automatically drawn down and simplified because everyone is living by the same rules and laws that are passed on to by We The People. We have allowed our Congress to become a bloated self sustaining source of power for the certain 538 people, that We keep electing, who keep making the same promises and never deliver nor honour the oath of office that they take. The one thing we do have the ability to control is financial investment in political campaigns and the other is voting out the people whom just maintain the status quo in governance rather than doing what is right, defending the Constitution by protecting individual and minority rights from the tyranny of the majority rule and religious thoughts or opinions on civil issues.

OUR QUEER PRIDE! OUR COUNTRY'S INDEPENDENCE?

As I have stated many times before, specifically in F6's original format back in June of 2005, GLBT PRIDE is not just about being proud of who we are or forcing everyone to accept our flamboyant displays of independence. OUR PRIDE is outlined by individual sense of dignity and our collective value as created equal in the image of God/dess and viewed as such under the law of this land too. OUR PRIDE is defined as a group formed not necessarily based on heredity or biological connections, similar to that of a pride of lions. When we shout and holler back about OUR PRIDE, the rally cry doesn't mean we are a bunch of Dancing Queens but that We ARE Family!

E Pluribus Unum, Out Of Many One, is also why OUR PRIDE is very much attached to our Country's Independence, and why we can also say We The People with the greatest of honour and demand at the same time that self evident truth declared so many years ago "That All Men Are Created Equal" be applied to us also. That is what also caused our Founders during that first Continental Congress to not just Declare Independence from the tyranny of an oppressive King and a clueless Parliament that refused to hear our forebearers redress of grievances. That is what makes the United States of America by definition a Republic and not a Democracy. That is what prevents the majority from eliminating the rights of the minority.

America, please pay attention to your own words:
Have We forgotten to swear to one another our lives, fortunes, and sacred honour?
Have We traded each for the sake of ego, greed, and power rather than brotherhood?
How long will We stop declaring our independence and let these truths be denied us?


WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND THE SIMULTANEOUS REPEAL OF DADT & DOMA

In all reality both pieces of legislation DADT & DOMA are tied at the hip they revolve around the same issues of law and the same religious prejudices within Civil Society, but they also revolve around similar issues within the Constitution too.

1. The Declaration of Independence
A. The DOI has the force of law today as it is included in the United States Code at the beginning under Organic Laws of the United States of America. As the Constitution falls within that same category, The DOI, if not equal to, is at least subordinate to, and applicable in, interpretation of, the Constitution by the Courts and implementation of law by Congress and enforcement of law by the Executive Branch.B. We either hold all 5 truths self evident or none. Either "all men are created equal" or they're not. Make up your mind America, which do We The People hold dear? You cannt declare Life and Liberty without the Pursuit of Happiness. Yet Religious nut jobs thinks that they can deny equality to 1 of every 6 to 10 by law.

2. The Constitution Of The United States of America
A. Obviously 1st is the Full Faith & Credit Clause of Article 4 section 1:
... shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
B. Article 6 paragraph 3 (specify last clause)
... no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust.....
C. Amendment 14 (1868)
section 1 All persons born or naturalized...subject to the jurisdiction...are citizens of the United States....
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Marriage and Military Service an Office of or part of the Public Trust?

I would argue that they are. When clergy perform the marriage ritual they evoke two authorities to solemnize the act of Sacred Union, that of Deity and the State: "By the power invested in me by the State of Indiana and (insert affiliation) I now declare you (plural) to be partners in life" As I stated here a month ago, originally Civil Unions were intentionally done to strip religious test out of marriage in this Country, by the Puritans. Some how between the Civil War and Reconstruction through World War II and Korea religious test found their way back into the public ambiguity of normal regulation, to preventing interracial marriages from happening, until 1967 when Mildred and Richard Loving took on the State of Virginia at the Supreme Court.
The United States legally established tax code which recognizes married partners as a joined legal entity, or juristic person, which is also dually licensed by the State, and established to promote Public Trust. The Partners whom having entered into such arrangements by swearing an oath of allegiance, thereby become Officers of a Public Trust, whom at a minimum receive benefits and special privileges for that status. What is the first thing that happens when one enlists in the United States Military? They swear an oath or affirm to Defend the Constitution! That also means that both married partners and military personnel gay or straight are Officers holding the Public Trust, and therefore immune from any religious test and that includes any moral and religious objections towards homosexuality in Civil Marriages and Military Services!This is not just an issue of equality but the relationship and proximity between our Men, our Money, and our Mouths!We The People still swore to each other our lives, fortunes, and sacred honour; but can we honestly say "We hold these truths to be self evident:", when we deny them to one out of six of our fellow Americans? The reason why Congress is STONEWALLING on DADT and DOMA is simple: ego, greed, and power. Lets remove them from office, starting in 2010!

But the conversation can not stop there. When DADT is repealed DOMA will fall right behind it because about most* of the Military (*CORRECTION: 1.2 million, of which, 42% are E-4s & 5s and 75% are E-3 through E-6 ranks respectfully) is made up of Enlisted men and women.The minute DADT is repealed or found unconstitutional, DOMA will have to go right along with it because you are going to see a lot of really hot men and women in uniform walk their lovers down the aisles, get married, and then turn around and apply for off base housing, which locally ranges between $678-1180 per month and is overseas approximately $2 thousand dollars a month in increased income, multiplied by an estimated 65 thousand soldiers at a minimum. Military housing whether off base or on base is down right horrible. Out of the 134 thousand housing units 43% are substandard and approximately 25% are 7 years over their viability or years of service standard. Not forgetting to mention the spouses and children' health benefits and counseling and education services and all the other expenses from living on or off a Military base can include. Let's also not forget to mention the cost to reenlist at least 30 percent of the 12,000 that have already been discharged under Dont Ask Dont Tell back into service and an additional 20-45 percent of those that previously didn't sign back on when their original contract ended, and approximately 40 percent of them will be married by now, therefore requiring off base or non barracks housing. (Source: DODs DUnderSec's Report on Military Housing)

I HAVE FOUR MORE QUESTIONS FOR YOU AMERICA:

Are We The People willing to put our money where our mouth and motives are, not in politicians hands? Are We The People willing to allow the men and women whom fight for our freedom be free to love?
Are We The People willing to let them live together with whom they choose and raise their children?Are We The People willing to deny them the very sacrifice they offered us freely, personal liberty?

F6 LINKS & RESOURCES

Normally there would be a full battery of links, resources, and recommendations for the readers and other works cited either stated and/or recapped here from throughout the post, However due to both the length and the detail of both this post and the amount and individual text of the works cited, I felt it necessary to create a separate post on F6's LINKS PAGE for this post alone. Please refer to it for some pretty cool finds over the last month that it has taken me to write this post out, please. Thank you for your consideration.

F6 EDITORIAL POLICY STATEMENTS F6 has several resources and commentaries regarding GAYS IN THE MILITARY. As an issue of editorial policy, F6 will challenge any assertion that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is either Constitutional or proper policy in our great country, the land of the free and the home of the brave, especially in a place where all men are created equal!

F6's EDITOR UPDATE: 08 JULY 09 US Representative PATRICK MURPHY of Pennsylvania, a retired Army Captain, and West Point Professor, has taken pointe on HR1283, The Military Readiness Enhancement Act which will cause the repeal of Dont Ask Dont Tell by Congress. Please also note that Representative Murphy, four days after this post was originally published, specifically used (7:15 mark) my direct arguments above, that the Oath of Office that both Members of Congress and the Military both swear and affirm are equal and therefore our Troops have status as an Officer of or part of the Public Trust and therefore are free from any religious test or bias to hold such positions. Thank you Congress Member Murphy for picking up the ball for the final run across the field! (MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show via News Politics News)

F6's EDITOR FOLLOWUP: John P. Mortimer, Esq., a retired civil rights attorney, has a wonderful post that I was just referred to by RobMuch on You Tube, which also outlines similar ideas and develops deeper the arguments against The Defense Of Marriage Act, details stringently President Obama's hypocrisy and political pandering when dealing with the Gay and Lesbian Community's struggle for equality, and why he wants to keep DOMA out of the Court's proper place of review. I'm glad that he also chose to speak out about the disenfranchisement we have and are suffering at the whims of a religious bias in a secular nation.

F6 This post has been modified and revised in both content and format as certain multimedia was no longer unavailable from its original source it has been removed to allow the free flow of ideas and perceptions even if they are at this pointe historical and could be perceived by some to be archaic. Thank you for your continued patronage. (rvsd by editor 08Oct12)...

TTD in D Fort? This Week: Tues-Sat: Canal Days in New Haven; Thurs: Family Fun Night @Friemann Sq.; Fri-Sun: SUMMERFEST; & Germanfest next week @HWP

Whom Doesn't Love The Follies Of Youth?

It Is Summertime In The Hoosier State! One of the first ways to tell when summer has set into full swing besides the smell of campfires and barbecue in the late night hours is all the hot young men running around shirtless in either board and khaki shorts or their underwear or other various states of nudity. The other way to tell is when grown men embrace their inner child and create a slip and slide in the middle of a dorm hallway, or a ravine, or in the middle of a particularly undisclosed *cough* City park....

Canal Days in New Haven: Shortened but better?

The tough economic times (*see below) that we are in have also affected the small town festivals we all love for that hometown flavour that sometimes gets lost in the big city. New Haven and Adams Township is hosting Canal Days this week @ Shnelker Park on Broadway (aka Trier or Landin Road in Fort Wayne). Proceed on Lincoln Highway East (or the straight road after the O'Daniel Ford Dealer on US930) and go 1 block south on Broadway to get to the Park. The festivities begin 6 p.m. Tuesday, 4 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, and Noon on Saturday, closing @ 11 p.m. each night.

UPDATE: The NEWS SENTINEL posted an article on the issues surrounding festival funding on Thursday.
Please look below this post for relevant excerpts and commentary or go to the above link for the article.

In Fort Wayne we mark the beginning of summer with a jam concert and plenty of face painting to go around and of course alcohol out the ass. This is also the time of year when all the non profits and political hacks try to get their message out to the larger community, and increase their outreach heavily. F6 would like you to remember to drink responsibly and to have a designated driver when coming to events in Fort Wayne and recommend the Yellow Taxi Cab Company phone: 260-422-1010 for your non sobriety relief and assistance. The adage is true, You came to Allen County on vacation! Will you leave on probation? Be Sober, Be Safe!

Unlike last year when the Downtown Improvement District hosted Friemann Family Fun Night this years celebration kicking off to summer is just one night on this first Thursday the 4th instead of the whole month *tears*; however this means, that a whole lot of free fun is packed into three hours for kids of all ages, including: a Mario Kart Contest to win a Nintendo DSI c/o McVan's Video Game Traders (visit website for more details) and a young Hoosier celebrity Marnee August along with the traditional balloon launch and arts and crafts.

SUMMERFEST 2009: Celebrate Summer & Say Bye-bye Hunger!

During this first weekend in June Heartland Communities, Inc along with many others have come together to present SUMMERFEST 2009 on June 5th through the 7th @ Head Waters Park where over 40 original music acts, along with other talented performers and artists as well as a varied slate of vendors, education opportunities, and activities for all ages, will be coming together to begin "Kicking-off Summer and Alleviating Hunger in 09 "! The cost for all three days, is 18 dollars; and for one day admission, 8 dollars; with a 3 dollar discount on either with the donation of a non perishable food item which will be donated to the Community Harvest Food Bank.

We also have some free events and opportunities set up throughout the event for those whom cant afford admission; plus, there are still many ways to VOLUNTEER for SUMMERFEST and earn a free wristband! SUMMERFEST [Music Website] and [Main Website] will include a skate tournament and Punk Rock concert on Friday June 5th, 2009 followed by live music by many of the local Ft. Wayne favorites of all genres of music on a stage inside the West pavilion on Saturday June 6th, 2009 and ending with an a flag football game with participants being the performers and an acoustic concert on Sunday June 7th, 2009. Right click on image and open in a new tab to view the full band schedule for SUMMERFEST.

No, of course it wouldn't be Fort Wayne without Germanfest.....

The week long festival begins @ 11 a.m. Sunday the 7th of June, 2009 with German language Mass presided over by Fr. Chuck Herman @ Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Church on DeWald Street followed by a brat dinner with "German style refreshments".

Grab your steins and learn to slap your jowels when asking your friends whats for dinner. Of course what is for dinner varies from vendor or the particular event during the week long festival but the main attraction has and will always be bratwurst and sauerkraut. Oh yeah ...I almost forgot.... and cold draft beer! There are many events going on during the week long festivities, you can plan your schedule accordingly by visiting the Germanfest Event Calendar.

The beer tent is open 10:30a.m. Wednesday and goes until midnight and opens the next three days @ 11 a.m. until midnight on Thursday and 1:00a.m. Friday and Saturday nights. Admission and meal prices vary based on the events and locations, please check ahead to plan accordingly.

FESTIVAL FUNDING: Interesting Facts To Consider

New Haven Canal Days
1. Turnout expected to be @ 25 thousand, same as last year.
2. They are not competing with GermanFest at the same time.
3. Budget for this year total 8 thousand dollars, a shortfall of 15 thousand dollars
4. Budget for last year just for entertainment 6 thousand dollars (drastic)
5. Went from 8 food vendors to 5 and major attractions/events limited or discontinued.

Three Rivers Festival
1. Currently has 52 sponsors which is only a minor deficit from last year.
2. They are approximately 34 thousand dollars short in making their budget.
3. Introducing first ever Remote Control Vehicle Racing Competition.

Source: Rain doesn't dampen Canal Days by Gina Potthoff News Sentinel 04 June 2009

SUMMERFEST 2009:

All donations are tax deductible. If you wish to donate time, money, or products, which can be either auctioned off or given away you may contact Alex or Grace personally to make arrangements for any level of sponsorship or assistance you or your company wishes to provide:
Alex MacDonald SUMMERFEST Founder
phone: 260-710-2061 email: Alexmacdonald24@hotmail.com or
Grace Strahm Heartland Communities Vice President
phone: 260-422-3853 email: musiclovestarspeace@yahoo.com

Thank you to the following (to be filled in later) for advertising and covering this event.

DISCLOSURE: The EDITOR OF F6 serves on the Board of Stewards of Heartland Communities, Inc.

F6 EDITOR'S STATEMENT: We In The Gay Community Need To Put The Brakes On Prop 8! By Lifting Up The Symbol Of Our Suffering, We Will Be Made Whole!

The decision came down from on high, and copied the actions of Hitler in 1935.
"Everything is fine!" they cry, for those who tried; but for the rest, all is denied.

One of the things that we as GLBTIQAS Americans can do to show our solidarity with the Californian members of our PRIDE is to no longer allow intolerance to hide behind our patience! I am asking everyone who reads this blog to place two blue dots vertical to one another on their left brake light to form the outline of the number 8. Every time you stop your car or slow down to change directions people will see the sign of our suffering (Number 21:4-9) and know that you are driving for equality and one day we will be able to love, our children will be free, and our families made whole!

I would also ask those whom are in States where the blue light dots are illegal or highly regulated to find some other form of a metallic or reflective but transparent number 8 sticker (typically at your local Truck Stop or Travelers Center or Hardware Store) and place it on your left brake lamp lens so that you may participate in this silent but visible protest as well. Please remember that in either case (the blue dots or the number sticker), you don't want to obstruct the use of your brake lamps, you want the light to reflect around through the holes in the middle to brighten up the number 8 so that people will see it clearly as you cut them off in traffic. Let us bring awareness of the full effects of intolerance running around this to the Country in the name of patriotism, rather than what it is - religious bias, that doesn't belong in Civil Unions in the first place.

The following collaboration video by Matthew Brown is a response to the Religious Right Wing nuts.
However I must warn you that the speech and some footage could be considered Not Safe For Work.


PHOTO CREDIT
[GAY KISS PARADISE] c/o [BEST GAY BLOGS]

YOU TUBE VIDEOS
[DEREK ANTHONY] [MATTHEW BROWN]

PUT THE BRAKES ON PROP 8!
The poem is still in process of being written. However the first two lines reference to the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 Germany. Jews married to Germans could stay married but no new marriages between the two people groups were permitted after that.
Hat/tip: James Heller-Jackson @geekjames for the reminder and verification of similar thought process.
::POEM AND CAMPAIGN::
PUT THE BRAKES ON PROP 8! is the intellectual property of MRev. Kenneth White, Jnr.
It may be used freely with privilege reserved if credit for the text and idea is returned justly.

REFERENCE: The last F6 post regarding abortion and gay rights as toward the end it explains civil unions and gay marriage in a historical legal and religious context of colonial America and is well worth the refresher.

NUMBERS 21:4-9: Lift Up The Suffering Symbol, Look Upon It, And Be Made Whole!
NEW AMERICAN BIBLE c/o The United States Conference Of Roman Catholic Bishops

All The Arguements Regarding Abortion & Gay Rights Revolve Around The Same Issues & Leaves Us With One Query: What Qualifies As "Fair Minded" Speech?

Over the last several weeks abortion and gay rights have been at the forefront of the American discourse and political angst. It culminated last week, with both President Barack Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame and the Donald Trump press conference over the controversial statements and actions by the Miss America runner up Carrie Prejean of California.

This is now followed by the announcement at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific on Tuesday the 26th by the California Supreme Courts decision regarding Prop 8 and the status of the 18 thousand marriages previously performed in California during the five and a half months it was legal to do so. Since that pointe in history Same Sex Marriage is now legalized or strengthened in even more states Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, District of Columbia, and the Coquille Indian Tribe (which is a sovereign Native Nation located inside the State of Oregon), in fact already three States are talking about Gay Divorce Laws though they don't allow us to wed.

The BILERICO Project has the full text of the speech by President Obama to the University of Notre Dame graduating class of 2009. He rightly pointed out in his speech, "...we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature." I would recommend everyone to read it in full text. To answer his call we could start with some basic questions, like the ones at the bottom of this post below; but I would like to first redress the issue that is normally ignored by law or written off by civil society as chauvinistic, the equal rights of the fathers and men in general.

The Equal Rights Of The Fathers!

One of the biggest issues is the failure of our Federal and State laws to recognize the fact that the donor of sperm contributes not just half of the chromosomal or genetic glop which penetrates the mothers internal game of Chutes & Ladders but succeeds in determining the gender of the child(ren) also, based on which way his pieces are put into play. This lack of legal standing in parental relationships presents a larger problem legally then everyone realizes.

The other aspect that is currently overlooked by the current laws is the psychological damage to fathers whom were forced to allow termination with no legal redress to their own portion of flesh and blood currently gestating inside another persons womb. It takes at least two people for a life to be created, sometimes three or more, and that means that each person from the individual biological parents as well as the surrogate or the future adoptive parents or the new boyfriend all should have some legal standing to determine the best course of action for the future human, not just the person who is gestating the fertilized embryo.

Even today there are cases in multiple jurisdictions regarding which parent has legal standing in situations regarding same sex marriages or multiple partner relationships or previous relationships with persons whom contributed to the fertilization and gestation and rearing of children, which then causes eminence heartache to both the children and to the parents involved and is usually resolved with one or more parents being forced to walk away with no contact with the children they created and/or helped raise from infancy and beyond.

Our parenting laws need to updated on a Federal level not just the State level because now it is an issue of both equal access and legal recognition of all parents, gay and straight, single or married, involved in the formation of our next generations. They all need to have a percentage based legal standing; otherwise you will have to deal with another legal conundrum if we do not assigning legal status to the parent but to the child, at that point, the law will define the child as a sentient being with its own ability to determine its course in life even in the womb at a certain pointe, which potentially could be cited to overturn Roe v. Wade or other abortion provisions indirectly rather than making a principled stand on the issues involved.

Don't misunderstand, I am against abortion completely! I believe as a Libertarian abortion is a violation of the principled and self evident truths established by our nations founding, regardless of any personal religious views or thoughts. Even in the remotest possibility of rape, abortion is at a minimum destruction of evidence and second as a Pastor, an elimination of the one thing that could turn the heart and both judge and redeem the perpetrator of the crime. No child should be held responsible for the crimes of their parent and that is what abortion does. However, to quote Joan Crawford's character in the 1980s movie Mommie Dearest, "No More Wire Hangers Ever!", I am glad that it is permitted under law at the same time only because of the health of the mother, compared to non clinical procedures which predated the Roe v. Wade decision, back in the early seventies. Ironically, I am also one of the first who can say with great ease that abortion is murder because I have witnessed the results second hand and have been placed in the pastoral position of being with someone during the procedure. For my own sanity, what is left of it, the woman miscarried six hours before the procedure was to happen fortunately.

::::BREAKING NEWS OUT OF UTAH::::
Man Charged With Beating Pregnant Teenager

A man in Utah was charged Friday with attempted homicide in the beating of a pregnant teenager who police say asked for the pummeling in an effort to abort her six-month-old fetus.
Deputy Uintah County Attorney Mark Thomas said he filed the felony charge against Arron N. Harrison, 21, who was arrested Thursday and jailed in lieu of $10,000 bail.
Prosecutors are still weighing possible charges against the 17-year-old girl, who is also in custody. Authorities haven't disclosed her name.
"I haven't decided who's more at fault," Mark Watkins, police chief of Naples, 130 miles east of Salt Lake City, told The Associated Press. "She was just as cold as the assailant - we're not going to treat her as a victim."
Thomas said Harrison is expected to appear in court Tuesday and faces one to 15 years in prison if convicted. Harrison pummeled the girl's abdomen in an effort to cause a miscarriage, Watkins said."Her intention was, in fact, to abort the child - to terminate the pregnancy," he said.
The fetus survived, but doctors won't know for certain what injuries it may have sustained until it is born. The girl spent a day in a hospital before her arrest and is being held at a juvenile detention center, Watkins said.
Thomas said the beating took place late Tuesday, and that the girl initially told her family she had been mugged by an unknown assailant. The family called police, who got the girl to speak truthfully about what happened, Watkins said. He said Harrison was an acquaintance of the girl and is not the father of the child.
Neither Thomas nor Watkins knew if either of the two had a lawyer.

(Source: CBS NEWS & AP, 22 May 2009)

The problems hold the answers to the resolution of both abortion and lack of equality in this Country.

The problem now is we have a highly unregulated private industry, which has broken laws in the past, providing the service to line their own pocketbooks and promote a decision that should not be made outside of a hospital, nor without medical ethics review by a panel of doctors, after consulting every social service alternative including adoption and stable homes for both the fathers and the mothers, single or married. Any action be it religious or civil in nature must recognize all parents involved and stop this vicious cycle of repression of emotions and sexuality, and the denial of a fathers right to know his children, otherwise nothing will change and in this day and age the overall situations that our children find themselves will only get worse. We need to diametrically change the way we view the nature of the family in this day and age and allow for alternative family structures that work, like multiple partner relationships and State sponsored group housing scenarios to give our young people the ability to be both successful in life and become great parents with the safety of the children always at the forefront of the discussion, and the rights of all parents not far behind it.

Libertarians regard the individual as Sovereign up until the pointe that they affect someone else's sovereignty and we are generally against anything that addresses a collective group as a special class because we believe that "all are created equal" and therefore to separate individual people by race or by class is in essence unconstitutional. How then do the issues of gay rights intertwine with abortion rights? The same arguments involved in the religious teaching against abortion and premarital sex are the same as the argument and predisposition towards the gay rights issues at a religious level which unfortunately both spill over into civil and political discourse regularly.

Hate Crimes vs. Abortion Clinics

However the nature of Hate Crimes protest of legal protection of sexual minority classes and Abortion Clinic protests and more specifically bombing threats are in fact the same issue. On one hand you have an individual or organization attacking a facility for religious purposes or bias to promote a political agenda and on the other hand you have someone attacking individuals for political/civil reasons or bias to promote a religious agenda in a Country that separates the two ideologies.

In both of these circumstances the attack is not just on one facility or persons but on the collective industry or community that they associate with as a whole. In actuality two crimes were committed simultaneously, once against the facility/individuals and once against the industry/community.

The current Hate Crimes legislation, in my opinion while flawed and in need of a serious modification, is necessary for both the individuals security and the collective groups liberties to be respected under the law of the land regardless of biases or agendas. This concern over flaws in the current field of legislation is given credence by recent actions in the European Union and elsewhere that if not addressed in the beginning it can only lead to a slippery slope with further erosion of free personal thought and the first amendment protections regarding freedom of association/assembly issues regarding principles and beliefs when hiring decisions arise within companies and organizations, be they religious or secular, gay or straight.

Love and Marriage Love and Marriage Go Together Like A Horse A Carriage
This I Tell You Brother You Cant Have One Without The Other....

But you can have it without government interference if we followed the Libertarian Philosophy which acknowledges individual sovereignty and we also believe that,
"Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships."
Anyone who claims that marriage is a historically civil or religious institution between a man and a woman only is not only ignorant of history but also invalid according to the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

This commercial interruption is provided by Visit Montreal with complete humor as its intention.


Larry Kramer an Author and Playwright asserts in a recent column @ The Huffington Post, that the very beginning foundations of our country consisted of grouped and partnered male households, as women in the first colony of Jamestown were scarce at the earliest and definitely still under represented even into the next century to come, by quoting excerpts of text from Sexual Revolution in Early America, by Richard Godbeer:

...Jamestown was initially an all-male settlement...in subsequent years...male colonists outnumbered women by roughly six to one in the 1620's and four to one in later decades....
Settlers in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake often paired off to form all-male households, living and working together. ...it would be truly remarkable if all the male-only partnerships lacked a sexual ingredient....

In his own book The American People, Kramer denotes that: "...not only were male-only partnerships quite in evidence, but services were often conducted to join the partners "under God," and that, of equal interest, was their adoption of Indian children to raise as their own." He finally exclaims, "I hope it will not be too much longer before scholars will be able to deal with the fact that Jamestown was in fact not only America's first colony but its first homosexual community."

I would be negligent in my duties as a fair and balanced commentator to also pointe out that Richard Godbeer later modified his stance in the work The Overflowing Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic to accept the popular culture concept of bromance rather than a undying passion that resounds of an intimacy similar to that with a woman between two or more men, even though in one account alone you see two 27 year old males in the throws of passion exude not just a brotherly bond, but that of an underlying lover:

"Tormented when apart, greedy for more when together....determined we should never part again.... I will give myself up to you, I will go wherever you go and one shall not go without the other. I love you very much. Yours for ever--and ever and ever."

For those who don't know gay and religious lingo the second phrase is a specific desire to be joined spiritually and sexually; which if that covenant bonding were carried out, would involve someone "giving up" their virginity to the other persons, that night without any doubt. I would also be negligent in my duties if I did not stipulate to the fact that Larry Kramer is a controversial author in past historical dramas unfolding as well and so therefore should be reviewed with a wide lens and thorough review by anyone using his works. All that covers the historical aspect of civil society now let us look at the actual laws of the land and practice of the State to regulate marriage based on religious codex and theology.

Austin Cline wrote a wonderful piece back in March of 2006 regarding Civil versus Religious Marriage while reviewing the book Divided by God: America's Church State Problem by Noah Feldman whom explains that the difference between a civil right and the religious rite is truly the cause of angst in America.

Common Law and the Puritans is the origin of the problem and the solution at the same time:

...The source of the problem was that the roots of American law - including marriage law - lay in England, where church and state were united, not separate. Not until 1753 had marriage...been taken away from the religious courts (but) civil marriage was not fully available there until 1836....

The basic legal theory of marriage in England until then was that individual men and women had the legal capacity to marry each other by a simple act of consent, but the church must solemnize the marriage, and the state was entitled to insist on the church performing this role before it would recognize the union as binding....

...getting married without a priest’s blessing came to America with the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony....Massachusetts Puritans in 1646 passed a law making it a crime for anyone other than a magistrate to bring persons together in marriage.... To prohibit clergy from officiating at marriages was a radical move, but the Massachusetts Puritans were radical people, religious experimentalists living in a quasi-theocratic community at the frontier of the known World....

We know who to blame for the intertwining of civil rights and religious rites to marriage. How do we fix it?

In the minds of those who first introduced civil marriage to America, then, it was possible to bifurcate (aka, forked, see below) the formalities of marriage between consenting adults from the judgments of heaven. The legal requirement that a marriage be solemnized before an authorized person, whether government official or minister, simply reflected the practical requirement that the government keep records of who was married to whom, especially for purposes of establishing descent and property ownership.... The state demanded a monopoly on the authority to solemnize marriages in order to ensure that the legal protections of marriage applied - not because the state claimed to have any special authority in matters spiritual.

Austin Cline goes on to argue diligently that the the Civil Union is only in its prohibitions a direct copy to a predominant form of Christian dogmatic stances, and he notes that, religious officials are specifically authorized by elected leaders only to act as the legal agent of the State, not the State acting as the agent of religious organizations.

"What the state cannot do, however, is require couples to seek religious authorization for their marriages. This doesn’t just include direct authorization, like getting the blessings of a priest, but it also includes indirect authorizations, like limiting marriages to only those sorts of couples which religious authorities deem appropriate."

In essence the civil restriction on same sex marriage based on religious bias is not only unconstitutional it was never intended to be there in the first place. Not only was it not suppose to be there but religious authorities were never intended by our founding fathers to have any say regarding whom entered into a civil union. They knew if that were allowed people could be restricted based on both interfaith and interracial protocols which we finally put an end to in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act and other similar laws and policy statements.

So What Does Qualify As "Fair Minded" Speech Concerning Questions On Abortion?

Is abortion murder of a baby or removal of a fetus?
If it is a baby, then when does life begin?
When does the embryo transition from a fetus to a baby?
If it is removal of a fetus, then why do we file murder charges against criminals whom commit crimes which cause the mother a miscarriage? Wouldn't that be a conflict of legal status of the fertilized embryo?
If the birth mother and biological mother are different whom has the right to or not terminate the pregnancy?

And just out of curiosity, What Qualifies As "Fair Minded" Speech Regarding Gay Rights And Equality?

F6 LINKS & RESOURCES

Pro Fatherhood Sites (somewhat conservative)
The National Center For Men
Priests For Life National

Planned Parenthood
Live Action Films: Indiana Scandals: [Website] [You Tube]
Planned Parenthood [Website]
Previous Post on F6 [20 September 2008]

National Libertarian Party & Organizations
[Party Platform] [Libertarians 4 Life]

Dave Does Montreal
Global Travel Industry News [Article]

You Tube Commentaries
James Duke Mason: [Obama/NotreDame] [Trump/Prejean]

Recommended Reading
1. Sexual Revolution in Early America by Richard Godbeer
2. The Overflowing Friendship: Love Between Men
and the Creation of the American Republic by Richard Godbeer
3. The American People by Larry Kramer
4. Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem by Noah Feldman

For Your Information
BIFURCATE: Forked, to fork, to split between; Usage: A fork in the river or road