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)...

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

Why does the Government really want 2 change the name of the Swine Flu? & Other stories surrounding the outbreak of unkosher politics and canned Spam!

So why did the United States Government change the designation of the swine flu to H1N1? Because the Pork Industry was loosing business. Nope! It was because they are afraid of when We The People realized that indeed pigs did in fact fly and what we allowed our Government to get away with in our name.

With new scandals breaking almost every 60 hours if not shorter on both sides of the Congressional isle, and out of the White House, and even in local politics, one would begin to wonder if there is in fact an actual reset button somewhere in the Constitution or one of the other founding documents.

Fortunately there is but it involves the very sensitive topics of congressional apportionment which I covered on a previous post (14th ip, look for the Ford Truck and continue reading) as well as secession on this other post I wrote on the Libertarian Party of Allen County blog. As for now, just watch out for flying barrels of spam (deep fried pork product) coming from both sides of Congress and the White House, and then consider voting for third party (Libertarian or Green, especially) candidates in 2010 when Congress (every House seat and a third of the Senate) comes up for reelection.

ONE HUNDRED DAYS AMERICA!

How do you measure a man? Elton John and Clay Aiken (videos) sing about it in the form of conditional (eg: if this then that) questions or statements that more references the spirituality of the masses rather than providing an answer. But based on the criteria in their songs, how does it make sense to measure a President by his first 100 days in office? The format only started seventy plus years ago under Franklin D. Roosevelt whom managed to get Congress to pass 15 pieces of "New Deal" legislation in the 14 week time frame, and since then the press has usurped that mile stone and just over analyzed it for all other Presidents after him. So aside from trying to assign a grade point average of 81% percent or 60% depending on which poll numbers you read, or more accurately, hear on cable television news we need to take an honest look at what the Administration has and hasn't done.

From a GLBT perspective, especially with recent activity on the White House's website under Civil Rights/Liberties policy statements regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell (Links: Joe My God: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, in order from oldest to newest) amongst other issues, proves that the Administration is performing less then satisfactorily when it comes to keeping promises to Gay and Lesbian Americans and its continuing willingness to minimize the struggle of GLBT Americans in their public policy statements and decisions. Fortunately the offense was modified in the end to both return the original language but also blend it in with the revisions.

This is the seventh time that I can count where the Administration has blatantly put its foot in its mouth regarding GLBT issues and tried to stop choking on it only to leave a trail of drool and dismay from the cover up. There will probably be another press release to brush over the trail of tears and explain it away to the public this week.

Talking about putting ones foot in ones mouth, then leads us to Congress whom also had an eventful week during the 100 Days festivities. The Senate was forced by the outbreak of the Swine Flu to finally confirm Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services, regardless of previous Republican objections due to her record on abortion issues. Meanwhile the House of Representatives, decided to take on the *Hate Crimes Bill, which passed 249-175. This resulted in another outcry against bigotry from and calls for the resignation of North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx who took to the floor of the House and called the consideration of a 10 year old murder of 19 year old Matthew Shepard as a hate crime, "a hoax", with Matthew's mother Judy present in the lobby area above.



Besides being misinformed and insensitive no amount of apology will do Ms. Foxx until you acknowledge that what happened to Matthew was, and what happens to thousands of GLBT persons annually is, a hate crime; and that gays and lesbians deserve equality under the Constitution and Declaration; and personally apologize to both Judy Shepard and publicly to the Queer Community, from the floor of the House under oath with the penalty of perjury applicable, then we can begin to forgive you for your absolute misrepresentation of the facts of record and the insensitive nature by which they were put forth from the floor of OUR Congress.

This also leads me to one other question of ethics and concern. You Ms. Foxx are not allowed to excuse your actions based solely on bad information, We The People elect our Representatives to serve as our voice not just their own bias that ignores the proven facts of history and official record. To insist that your bad information was a result of an incomplete Google Search, is to say that you failed in due diligence of your job duties to find all the information, and instead followed talking pointes which were neither collaborated or researched with any depth. Ms. Foxx it is time to be a woman of character that you claim to be and either apologize from the floor of the House under oath or resign from office based on your incompetence to perform the full duties of the office to which you were elected.



The above video is from O Virginia written by folk artist Lee Waters (links below), which is available in full performance quality download via 7Digital for one dollar, with all money going to the Matthew Shepard Foundation in the name of Virginia Foxx, as part of the growing online petition to censure or oust Ms. Foxx regarding these homophobic and insensitive comments.

I would love to see the look on Ms. Foxx's face when she hears the song for the first time. I also wonder, How much politics in Washington would change if members of Congress had to swear under oath before they spoke from the floor under penalty of perjury? What are your thoughts of how to improve our government?

Top Photo: Dominique Garny in Wedding Trough (1974, Belgium) [IMDB]
3rd Photo: Bad Behaviour Publishing Company [Website]
4th Photo: Virginia Foxx c/o Stephen Rader, Chicago
LEE WATERS: [Website][YouTube]
Matthew Shepard Foundation [Website]
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill aka Local Law Enforcement Protection Act H.R. 1913

Obamanation Part III: Hail 2D Beef 4 its economic value & all those we paid off along D way. 2 slaughter D economy & leave huge debts 4 R kids 2 pay!

The clip below is from What You Ought To Know Show earlier this month produced by The Brothers Winn: [Website] [YouTube].

In F6's constant effort to be fair and balanced, in all of its reporting and provide full commentary to complete stories, this post is going to update the stories previously covered in this post & this post two weeks ago in order to bring them to conclusion.

Gregg retains Senate seat disses Commerce nomination

Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire still wants to be Obama's Water boy even after withdrawing his name from consideration as Commerce Secretary. After "being invited" (read: seeking after) to become the new Commerce Secretary, after Govenor Bill Richardson withdrew due to a scandal over the issue of bond issues in his home State of New Mexico, Gregg accepted the offer and within a week choose to reverse that acceptance when it was revealed that the White House and Democrats in Congress removed the Census from the control of the Commerce Secretary, after the nomination had occurred.

Other Senator Gregg Links:
[The Young Turks] [Hoosier Pundit] [Towle Road]

Additionally, Senator Gregg recessed himself from the vote on the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, citing a potential conflict of interest, which I have to give him credit for that, because it's the most ethical action coming out of Washington for a long time.

2nd stimulus bill passed w/o pay caps for CEOs

The AERRA which passed the Senate, with three Republicans voting for the trillion dollar addition to the national debt. The House and Senate versions were reconciled in Conference Committee, then at the last minute (read: at four in the morning with no one aware) it was found to be lacking the CEO pay restrictions that were first introduced by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri and then plagiarized by Obama and Geithner a week later.

CEO Pay Caps proven to be false rhetoric and pandering to force vote aka trial balloon.

Besides the CEO Compensation restrictions introduced by Senator McCaskill as an Amendment to AERRA 5 days prior to the Policy Announcement by Obama and Geithner to much fan fare, being reduced to dust during the Conference Committee between the House and the Senate, when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, introduced his new Policy a week ago it was also void of pay caps and compensation restrictions. He stated that, the Companies would not participate in the stimulus program with the restrictions in play, specifically the cap that would have matched the CEO pay to that of the President or slightly higher.

This is clear and simply put the CEO Pay Cap was a test balloon that popped and political firestorm for no good reason. The Democrats floated a bill amendment that they knew would distract other conservatives from something else hidden in the bill or going on in the world. But the question remains, What were the Democrats or Obama trying to seclude or cover up from the current legislation and or social political events going on around the world that they had to start a forest fire of empty promises and pseudo accountability?

As most people are aware now because of the process that took place with this legislation, once a Bill passed both Houses of Congress they must be reconciled to each other in Conference Committee and then brought back for a final vote. In the very last move made by Congress before the President signed the "stimulus package" into law, they went back and included some of the compensation restrictions, without the cap on CEO base pay. (video, TYT)

Tim Geithner is definitely January's nominee for the 2009 Hunk Of Flesh Award.

I have more to say about the Geithner issues as a whole that should be left to one last additional post to this series. Needless to say but definitely illustrate Mr. Geithner showed himself to be lacking in his ability to both govern and publicly speak.However I don't want to drag it out that much and am frankly tired of covering these numskulls anyway.

The American people are tired of being strung along!
Set up a plan, put it out there into the marketplace, and let us talk about it. Please quit trying to pander to Wall Street and the Unions and lets get the job done. That wont happen as long as anything is done in secret or by trial balloons. I had more faith in you sir.
[Photo: Hope Male Art @ Towle Road==>]

Additionally Congress gets a nomination for HOFA in February because they failed to give the Citizens let alone the 530 plus members of Congress five days to read the final bil. No they got 6 hours notice to read and vote on an 1100 page bill before it went to a vote. The Congress, specifically the Democrats in the House, are doing it again also with the Omnibus Spending Authorization this week as well. Call or write the Congress and tell Speaker Pelosi to put it online for at least 48 hours for the entire world to see, like she promised too even if it falls 72 hours short of the original goal. Certain Republicans in Congress also get a nod for the February HOFA for voting against the AERRA and then attempting to take credit for the money coming back into their respective districts, that is hypocrisy 101.

A SMALL NOTE FROM F6's EDITOR:
My apologies for missing Wednesday and running late on Saturday; the reason is simply that, my injury received from a carjacking several years back, which I have written about previously, has been acting up severely with all the weather changes and general stress of my life. The other reason for the delay in posting is that since this is a social and political commentary not an direct news source, I have the liberty of waiting until all the ducks have quacked to comment on news, events, or culture. This provides me the liberty to have the full picture to work with, rather than flying off half cocked and end up loosing my....credibility in the process. Thanks for your understanding and patience.

What is the difference between Barack and Jesus?
Jesus was a carpenter, He could build a Cabinet.