Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Today is a good day. The Faith and Freedom Network is savaging Tim Eyman, the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment went down in flames, and, most importantly, have you ever had a zit right on the lip of your nose that swells up and sends blinding referred pain all the way up into your forehead and down through your teeth, the kind that makes the air around you and even light itself hurt? I've had one of those for three days. It finally popped, and I feel so much better. So today is a good - nay, today is a great day.

Sadly, none of that was metaphorical. It was mostly painful and very, very nasty. Still, at least it's over, though like the lingering redness left behind, today's bad news lingers: Alabama voted overwhelmingly to ban marriage rights (81% to 19%) in its state constitution, and Pennsylvania's anti-marriage effort moved forward though its state House, to the Pennsylvania Senate. If only there was such a thing as Clearasil for bigotry and stupidity.

I'm not going to bother including all the pre-amendment-vote action items and crap, they're done, the spork has been stuck, and we take half a step ahead and live to fight another day. There'll probably be another around of these before the pointless, useless, and stupid House of Representatives vote on the amendment comes up next month, but for the time being, it just doesn't matter. For now, we have some wins.

Now, here's today's news.

Two mounties getting married causes crankiness amoungst some of the Canadian theoconservatives - but honestly, if the best the Post can do is a Canadian Heritage Party wonk, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel;

James Dobson to appear on Hannity and Combs to express his outrage about the anti-marriage amendment's failure;

Alabama passes anti-gay anti-marriage-rights amendment; Judge Roy "10 Commandments" Moore lost the Republican primary; also some other news notes all in this one article;

Pennsylvania anti-marriage amendment passes the state House, now goes to the state Senate;

Focus on the Family condemns Harvard stem-cell research efforts;

I'm including this one mostly because you can expect it to become a cause célèbre: evangelical student submitted a non-religious draft of her short valedictorian speech beforehand, then delivered a short religious sermon instead; she got in trouble; Focus on the Family and Liberty Council are, of course, outraged; this is mostly a neenerneenerfest, but look for it in their propaganda later;

FotF commentary on the MPA loss; "We Lost, But We Have Not Quit";

FotF's article reporting on Washington State's new ban on internet gambling; honestly, I can't imagine how this passed, but Focus on the Family's certainly happy about it;

I'm including this one because it's a great example of Focus on the Family manipulating numbers; they attack ABC's anchor for saying Americans are "split" on the anti-marriage amendment. They then quote not the amendment's support numbers (50% yes) but a different question in the same poll about whether only straight couples should be allowed to marry (58% yes - which, I'll note, still isn't two-thirds); but they identify it in such a way as to imply it's amendment support, which it simply isn't;

FotF's story on the "InnerChange Freedom Initiative" mentioned in the previous CWU; that's the programme that five states pay to convert prisoners to fundamentalist Christianity;

FotF continues to push their "ex-gay" bullshit;

Concerned Women for America celebrate passage of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which now goes to President Bush for a signature;

CWA's Alabama branch is urging supporters to pack a public hearing over a screw-up over an RU-486 prescription; the medical centre did fuck up, very clearly, but it's also clear that CWA wants to pack the process for political reasons;

CWA: America needs a one-line un-misinterpretable anti-marriage amendment;

CWA story on Alabama's anti-marriage amendment passing;

CWA's Wendy Wright testifies against a Michigan proposal to keep Plan B (emergency contraception) prescription-only even if it goes over the counter nationally;

Family Research Council condemns Senate failure to pass the Federal anti-marriage amendment; promises new "political action entity that will focus on removing the obstacles to the passage and ratification of the Marriage Protection Amendment"; please, god, let this be a fundamentalist political party; CWA's been very, very obliquely hinting at one recently;

FRC very happy about the "Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act," looks forward to lots and lots of fines;

AFA/Agape Press on the failure of the anti-marriage amendment; quotes CWA, promises it'll be back;

Utah school newspaper in trouble for violating Utah's ban on "promoting homosexuality" by urging formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance club; a socialcon legal action group wants the school investigated; best of all, one of the anti-gay complainants is filing because the school offered to let them write an anti-GSA op-ed; they want the school officials gone after for allowing "illegal and harmful information to be published"; the AFA's on their side, of course;

AFA says it's really bad that gay people are getting to be involved in decisions about gay issues at the UN;

Anti-marriage group accuses Florida police of "unprofessional" and "bizarre" behaviour, and trying to stop them from collecting signatures;

AFA reports that a second Resolutions Committee member has expressed support for a public school "exit strategy";

Christian Science Monitor article describing GBLT rights as against religious liberty;

Institute for Canadian Values launches into Garth Turner, the Toronto Tory who has no love for the Canadian theocons; they really hate this guy; as usual, they're claiming persecution whenever someone really calls them out;

Canada Family Action Coalition ACTION ITEM to contact and lobby MPs to reverse C-38; they plan to be working on this all summer in anticipation of this fall's promised revote on marriage rights;

CFAC: Australian PM Howard to override the Australian Capital Territory's new civil unions law, calls it "a plain attempt to equate civil unions with marriage";

CFAC reports on student complaints about an anti-gay professor's commentary on that professor's personal website; I disagree with Canadian speech laws and feel this guy has every right to be a complete dickweed on his own dime;

Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM, following Canada Family Action Coalition's version, to lobby MPs, write letters, and so on, all to reverse marriage rights in Canada;

Focus on the Family Canada news article on the autumn marriage revote; this is a big article with a bunch of links and quotes from groups like REAL Women of Canada and the Canada Family Action Coalition;

defendMARRIAGE vows to overturn marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, no matter how long it takes; planning pastor-based network of religious activists, following American example; includes letters in both English and French;

Faith and Freedom Network make dark accusations about Tim Eyman, blaming him for the failure of their anti-gay amendment's signature drive; honestly, to me, it looked like they were in the driver's seat, not Tim, and they failed on their own, thanks;

Seattle P-I story: "Eyman stumbles with gay-rights challenge"; includes the unique feature of former state GOP head Christ Vance slamming his former best bud; Eyman may be finished after this;

The Olympian is the only newspaper to talk about the three consecutive Referendum Sunday efforts to make the signature target, and how that fell short; also the only paper to talk about the fundamentalist leaders surrounding Eyman as he delivered signatures; Faith and Freedom Network's Gary Randall pledges to try again, possibly with a 2007 initiative;

Seattle Times version of the story includes more attacks by Randall on Eyman; here, Randall is talking about an initiative to the legislature, which would require a bit over 200,000 signatures before next January, plus 30% more to make up for bad/duplicate/etc. signatures; if that fails, a 2007 voter initiative;

AP has another Randall quote: overturning GBLT rights will "be much harder now";

Coalition forms to fight "abstinence-only" education as harmful and stupid;

Anglican Archbishop Peter Jenson: queers, and in particular married queers, are all going to Hell.

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