Law and Order Versus the Pulpit Bullies.

Words are needed to heal wounds. In the aftermath of the glow of victory from the gay community and liberals across America, a lot of Christians feel that their faith and beliefs were trampled by the Supreme Court in yesterday’s ruling in favor of universal and equal marriage in America. (Some will even claim they are being persecuted, but that is an argument for another time.)

You have every right to feel however you want.  But allow me to give you some rationale and logic to help dissuade your fits of anger and fear.

First: this case was never about religion.

Never was. Never has been. The pundits and noise makers on the right-wing of the Republican party made that pitch to work you up…to get your pastors in the pulpit to work you up…to get under your skin.

This case and its trials have always been about the rule of law. From day one.

The law in this case, is the United States Constitution and specifically its 14^th Amendment. Let me quote you the applicable passage here:

                       

            “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.”

This is referred to as the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution.  It means if you make a law favoring and protecting a class of people — let’s say, Catholics, then the Baptist get the same protection. And so do the Methodists and the Presbyterians and even the Mormons and the atheists — for that matter, so too would the Islamic members of our society. Every member of society is protected equally under the law. Every member.

It a nutshell, the 14^th Amendment says what is good under the law for the goose is also good for the gander. Equal. Protection by the law. By the constitution.

Why is it part of our law of the land? Too keep one group of people from bullying or overpowering another group because they can either, by vote or by abusive power, place their will over a subjugated class. It is YOUR protection that the law is as much for you as for your neighbor. It is there for white people. For black people. For Asians. For Hispanics. For Jews and Gentiles and even for Dallas Cowboys…(we think).

And it is there for gay and lesbian members of our country, too.

The parties fighting the lawsuit on behalf of gay and lesbian couples believed that their liberty had been usurped by states that refused to recognize their right to get married.

Now whether you believe in gay marriage or not, that is not the issue here. It may boil your blood and turn your stomach, but in America, those people have the same rights as you and me. It is in black and white. It is guaranteed in our Constitution.  And in this case, in this matter, that usurps scripture.

Sorry. That’s how it works.

Second:  This in no way diminishes your marriage.

It does not affect your family values.  It does not degrade either the act of or the institution of marriage. No one is going to force you to marry a gay person. No one is coming to take your religious beliefs away. No one is challenging your faith. And if you fear that it does challenge your faith, you need to reexamine your belief system.

However, in this case, marriage was and is being looked at as a legal tool of the state.  Truly nothing more.

People get married for love, true; but also, there are huge financial, tax and legal ramifications to being wed. Trusts. Wills. End of life directives.  Powers of Attorney. Tax issues. Home purchasing. The list goes on and on.

And the plaintiffs in this case said their ability to be rewarded and benefit from those things that are endowed to married couples were kept from them by the state(s) who refused to offer, condone or accept their marriages or opportunity to marry.

All they were asking for was the right to have a piece of paper just like you that tells the world, “Look we are a legal entity — a couple.” That does not take away from your union one iota no matter what First Baptist or Rome say.

No matter what your preacher or priest will rant about on Sunday, no matter what the governors of the very conservative states will say on TV or the one hundred thousand Republican candidates for President will shout out, the truth is, your marriage is your business.  Its sanctity is in your hands. No one else’s.

But as of today, so is the sanctity of the gay couples. It is in their hands. Not the government’s. Not the states’. They have to fight the fight and endure the battles and ups and downs of married life now like the rest of us. And they’ll do fine. Some will divorce. But many, many more will not. And they will love each other not unlike how you love your spouse. In fact, their victory actually strengthens your own liberty. As President Obama said, “(the ruling) affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts: When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free.”

But through it all, it will not affect your marriage or your vows in any way. And believe me, that is exactly how the gay community wants it. What is your business is yours. What is their business is theirs.

Some of the gay and lesbians couples have suffered far more and for far longer than you have ever suffered for your marriage. And that builds unique and special bonds. So don’t try and tell me it is not true love they have. They may understand love and devotion far more than straight couples ever will.

Which leads me to point number three. There is a theological side to the issue of getting married. It runs deep and has all kinds of historical caveats. And right now it is yelling at the top of its lungs that this is all wrong — not God’s will.  Forbidden in the Word of the Lord.

In the past the scriptures allowed polygamy. Man stopped that.  Marrying a child wasn’t frowned on until mankind stopped it. The bible sure didn’t say anything about stopping it. Taking a slave for a bride was fine, too. Again man brought that to an end. In fact, scripture turned a blind eye to slavery all together. It took struggle and strife to end that dark practice.  And many clergy led the fight to stop slavery, even if their scriptures didn’t.

Sometimes you have to look past the scriptures to find inspiration for life. Sometimes ‘the way’ is not printed in the old or new testaments.  Sometimes it comes from other sources — sources deep within our hearts.

The Bible never said slavery was wrong. But we knew it was. Even though many claimed biblical rights to own slaves. The point here is that theology is not law. Law is law. And the ultimate law in our land is the Constitution. It is not a theological idea or notion or edict found on a page from the Bible or a Koran — it is not preached from some pulpit nor does it come handed down in a Papal decree. It exists in the Constitution.

And because of the Constitution, now gay people can wed. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.”

Now that may well go against your religion and church doctrine. I’m oaky with that. So long as you do not use that as a hindrance within and under state law to disallow people, not like yourself, to get married. Then you have violated the 14^th Amendment of Federal Law. You will have broken the law of the land.

What you believe in your faith is your business.  Keep it that way. I will respect you for that. That way we will all get along a lot better.

You see, this was never about religion. It was always about equality… equal justice…always about the law.

One for freedom and liberty

I have to make a confession right up front.  For years, I was against the notion of gay marriage.  Not the union of gay couples. I have always supported that. But the use of the word marriage bothered me.

Then I had a friend who was denied access to his partner at Baylor Hospital because the hospital did not recognize the couples "marriage." Leave it to a Baptist institution to change my mind.

Marriage, beside the bond in love two people share, is also a major legal document within our society. It affects wills, trusts, bank accounts, insurance policies, taxes, home purchases and yes, even visits to a hospital.

Marriage is about a union — a legal union recognized by the state.

Today the Supreme Court got it right.

Today they said that if you could issue licenses to couples of different sex, then you could not discriminate against couples of the same sex. It is based on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — called the equal protection clause.  Allow me to quote it here for you in case you went to a Texas school and studying the constitution was denied to you in your education.

“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.”

It is black and white. Everybody gets treated the same in America. Baptist, Methodists, atheists and even gay and lesbians. Can't discriminate against them. Any of them.

I believe our governor and state attorney general will try. God knows they are just crazy enough to fight this. But the rest of the world knows the truth. What is good for the goose is also now legally good for the gander.

That is how the constitution works.  So don't quote me your bible passages.  Don’t kneel in front of me in pious prayer. Don’t paste pictures of Billy Graham bemoaning the fact that America has just gone to the Devil.

No we haven’t.

We have just corrected a wrong in our society.  And the same type of people opposing this are also the ones whose kinfolk opposed the freeing of slaves.

If you want freedoms — freedom of religion and freedom of speech and whatever else you hold dear, you have to make sure the other guy gets those freedoms as well. 

For a final and personal note to Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton: "...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property..."  any state, gentlemen. That means Texas, too.

Bye-bye Mr. Mike.

I know Mayor Rawlings is going to hate this because will place copious amounts of egg on his face, but the Dallas School Superintendent, Mike Miles is leaving, even though the mayor has given him his unending support.  (Some people like lost causes.)

And it is about time. It is time for Miles to go. Period.

I have said it in this column before and i will say it again. He was never in tune with the Dallas schools and never understood the scope of the problem facing an urban school district.  He was overmatched from day one.

But he could raise political capital when he needed it.  And lots of it.  Unfortunately his administration mis- appropriated real capital and that was his undoing. That, and he screwed with very popular schools and their principals who were doing good jobs.  Why?  To be vindictive.

Mike Miles was a little man with a huge ego.

Dallas needs just the opposite to run our schools.  We need a giant with an ego that is sensitive enough to listen.

Good-bye Mike. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

On another note, but one that has to do with leadership, Kudos to President Obama for speaking out so openly about racism in America.

And here is a strange kudo coming from me...to Ted Cruz for not returning his money from the Concerned Conservative Citizens (the extreme right wing racist organization) but instead donating that money to the families of victims on south Carolina. Good play, Ted. 

Fool's Gold.

I have been following articles about Governor Gregg Abbott of Texas wanting over a billion dollars in gold returned to the State of Texas, so that he and his demented minions can start their own treasury.

Has someone put something in the water in Austin?  Are the members of the state GOP taking LSD nighty to see how crazy they can get? Or is absolute power corrupting absolutely, as Machiavelli suggested?

I think the answer is the latter. The power party in Austin has become intoxicated with its Tea Party fundamentals and the success it has had in passing most of them into law in the Lone Star State. They have become high on their victories and no longer display common sense.  After all, if you can put guns on college campuses, close down women's health centers, pass laws to protect pastors who are not endangered, and thumb your nose at federal law, what's keeping you from creating your own monetary system?

Abbott is just crazy enough of a zealot to try.  He thinks his knowledge of the law places him above it. The whole GOP does.  (Example:  our Attorney General is a FELON; a self-admitted felon at that.  But he would have to stand trial for his actions in his home country— Colin County — and the local prosecutor {also a Tea Partier} is a friend and will not follow up on the charges, even though the AG himself said, "Yeah I did it.") Talk about a disregard for law and order. Now that same AG is telling the University of Texas that they must allow a rouge board member access to all admissions paperwork because he said so...The felon says do it, so you better...he is above the law.

See the state of dysfunction the state of Texas has become.

And now, the GOP wants "its" gold back from the United States Treasury so that it can start its own, gold back treasury. Forbidden in the constitution.

But hey, why should these dimwits let a law stand in their way. And where did they get a claim that the gold in reserve in the Federal Treasury belongs to Texas in the first place? I know the GOP is trying to totally re-write the history books in Texas, but come on — this is ridiculous. Gold from the original Republic of Texas and from the Confederate State of Texas that was placed into the Federal Reserve after the Civil War does not belong to the state of Texas. It belongs to the United States of America. Call it the down payment for getting to sit at the big table of fifty states.

And no, you can't have it back.

And no, you can't print your own money or establish your own banking credit system.

And no your logic does not hold up.

What is the next damn crazy idea that is going to come out of right-wing talk radio and filter its way to the state capitol and to the governor's mansion?  Remuneration for lost slaves? I probably shouldn't have written that, for somewhere, some Tea Party idiot is reading those words and saying. "Yeah. That’s it. We want to be paid for our slaves or give them back to us."

God help Texas. And if you can't...just wash away the rift raff you've got trying to govern us.  Thanks.

It is time the shooting stop, or we all take aim at the NRA.

In Texas, our state legislators want to put guns in the hands of everybody. All the time. their employers,  the NRA have deemed it so.

In schools.  In churches.  In bars. In banks. In grocery stores. Open carry everywhere. On university campuses, for God’s sake.  Put a freakin’ gun in the hands of young men whose hormones are raging... Put a gun on your hip, dude, you’re in Texas.

Then today’s headlines.  “Nine lives lost in biker shootout in Waco.” Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to lose a minute’s sleep over a bunch of bad-ass bikers taking each other out or the police taking them out during a gun fight.  But I am concerned about the callousness of our society that the gun has become the Almighty.  The gun is Supreme Being in the Lone Star State. And open carry means any fool (on a bike or not) can carry his death machine around with him or her, and use it at any time.

This foolishness has to come to a halt. The second amendment didn’t mean for this armed lawlessness to go on. It was aimed at supplying a “well-regulated militia” with the means to protect itself from insurgents and wild natives. It was not meant for every Tom, Dick and Harriet to have a side arm strapped to their butt looking for a fight.

Get over it. It is time for the Wild West Days to come to a screeching halt.

I am not a fan of the bikers. Never have been. They live by a code all their own. but their shootout occurred in a public place where any number of civilians could have been shot and killed.

Yesterday it was nine bikers.  But earlier it was school children and teachers in Sandy Hook. And moviegoers in Colorado. And college students crouched in a classroom in Virginia. When will it end?  Who has the guts to stand up to the NRA and tell them, “Enough.”

Obviously our politicians don’t. They are too well paid by the gun lobby. Maybe it is time guns are turned on the NRA.

Texas has been invaded!!!

Forget the Army's exercises across a half dozen southwestern states— my state, Texas, has already been invaded.  We now have an entire state full of crazy, right wing idiots.

Some see collusion with the Obama White House and the Military in the Jade Helms 15 exercises. They predict that we will be overthrown as a state and rendered captives of ISIS. (You can’t make this stuff up…they actually say nutty stuff like this.) Others know for sure that contrails from jets passing overhead are laced with mind numbing gasses that the CIA is using to control our brains. (Obviously in their cases it must be working.)  Others are sure that Obama is coming for their guns.  (In fact, recently on one of their radio call-in shows. one listener said that his guns have already been confiscated. I wonder who ripped him off?)

Some of these numbskulls think that Obama is not going to leave office.  A few have suggested he is secretly running for a third term.  He is going to undermine the constitution and run again. I heard Rick Perry say he thought that was crazy nonsense.  He couldn’t believe fellow Texans even thought like this. (We all know Rick is the only living soul you can't get out of office once he's there.)

A few of these radicalized thinkers believe in a trilateral commission that, along with the UN, is going to overthrown America.  Why would they want to?  And if that's not weird enough, some of these halfwits want a woman to carry to full term and already dead or dying fetus in her womb.  Why?  Because it is God's will the fetus died. She should respect it by carrying it full term — forget that it could cause sepsis and kill her.  Her life isn't important. In fact, most of the Bible beating born-againers believe that a woman's role is so subservient to a man's that he should be able to cast her vote in elections for her. Surely she is not capable of such deep thought as to who should rule us.  And even suggest a woman be elected to the Presidency and they go into apoplexy about a woman’s role is beneath the man and no man should serve a woman nor take orders from her. (They quote the Jewish Book of Fairy Tales about this, forgetting Golda Meir in Israel had a pretty successful and long run running God’s people’s land.) Forget about equal pay. No way. Hell, some even believe a rapist should have parental rights in the case of a pregnancy. That the rapists should have a say whether or not a woman receives an abortion due to his felonious act.

They want to end welfare.  End social security. (They have no idea where social security comes from, but then again, most of them can't read.) They are by far and away against intellectual discourse and higher education. To them the only good thing a college is for is the football in the fall. And scientific reasoning is out of the question with these mental morons.

The world is 6,000 years old and that's it period. Forget about carbon dating (which they say is a sham) and geological strata dating. Noah's ark had men, women, children, lions and tigers and dinosaurs on it for forty days and nights.  Really?

Yes, these are the people who invaded Texas and now sit on our education board in Texas. They sit on our medical boards, our school boards, our legislative branches, our judiciary and, as most of you know, they represent us in the halls of Congress and the United States Senate.

It amazes me that a state, which just a few years ago had a progressive governor and had Texas schools in the top 10 in public education, now has these creatures, these belly crawlers, running Austin and speaking for us in Washington.  God help us.

The invasion happened.  I personally blame the republican Yankees who moved here into our suburbs from places like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Their numbers grew and grew until they infested the entire Lone Star State. Now, we even have a Canadian U.S. Senator.  Or is he Cuban?

As with most impoverished third-world countries, the village priest or medicine man is the guy who holds juju over the people. He is the thought leader and spokesperson for the tribe. Same is true here in Texas.  TV Evangelist and preachers are the embodiment of this movement. Preaching their hate-filled gospel from pulpits denouncing every minority that doesn't look like them, talk like them, or worship like them as "commnitst" (stet). “Queers need to be kilt and sent to hell,” said one Gospel beating, love thy neighbor as thyself, TV mouthpiece for the Loving God almighty.

There is only one way to get rid of them.

At the polls.

That is the pesticide that will rid us of this swarm of vermin creating such a foul and pungent odor in our state. And it is the only way in which we will get rid of the pests.

But it most be applied over and over and over.  At the local level. At the state level and at the national level.
So please do not worry about the United States Army, Navy or Marines coming to take over Texas.  You’ve already lost your state to invaders from another dimension…time travelers…that have us returning to the 1950s.

Vote.

Let's clear the air about the EPA.

It is being reported that Untied States representative from Colin County, Texas, Sam Johnson, is introducing legislation that would defund the EPA.

Let's think about that for a moment.

Dallas and Houston have just been ranked in the top ten cities in America with the worst air.  That’s right worst.  Ozone and particulates horribly high.  And the reporting was done by the American Lung Association, not the EPA.

The EPA's job is to police our air and water to see to it that it is clean and fit for human consumption. And now as we are outgrowing the state's resources for self-policing and the EPA is stepping up its programs to clean Texas air and water, politicians from the right are calling foul.. (They may not be calling foul too loudly, for their breath is getting short...)

Let see a show of hands...all for clean air and clean water...that would be like at least 80%...(In Texas there are enough nut jobs that 20% would vote against their own self interest.)

So it stands to reason that instead of trying to get rid of the EPA, politicians on both sides of the aisle should be asking, what can we do to make our environment better and more livable?  Of course BIG OIL and BIG Electricity don’t want regulation. Neither does the coal industry or manufacturing.  Everybody wants someone else to watch out for what they pump into our environment. Heaven forbid they actually take responsibility of their own actions.

Getting rid of the EPA is a very bad idea.  Defunding it as Rep Johnson wants to do is equally asinine. And it shows he is a political coward.  Don’t like the EPA. Just shut it down completely.  Oh you can't, you say.  Too many people would get upset with you. So instead, sneak around the ledger pages of an appropriations bill and gut the ability of a governmental division that is in charge of making sure we don't choke on our own air or puke our guts out on filthy water.

The representative from Colin County is just another in a long line of right wing numbskulls trying to get the Kock Brothers and their political hacks what they want — little to no regulation and almost no responsibility.

And you people in Colin County elected this fool...I hope you choke on his hot air.