Disqus - Friends of jefftabaco

Re: Lessons from King & Spalding

Thom Watson — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:21:07 -0000

Now that VA AG Cuccinelli and the NRA have dropped King and Spalding, what we need to do is get the lists of all of the NRA's and the Commonwealth of Virginia's retained law firms and check to see if any of them have ever dropped a case or a client. If so, then we ask the NRA and Virginia why they haven't dropped those firms as well, and expose the blatant homophobia that motivates their current decision to fire only K&S.

We also need to find out if Cuccinelli's firm, Cuccinelli and Day, ever dropped a client during the time that Cuccinelli was affiliated with them.

Re: Would New York Voters Really Reject Gay Marriage? - International Business Times

Thom Watson — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:38:05 -0000

If we have legislatures in order to pass laws on behalf of the people, why do we ever have referenda? Conversely, if we believe that "the people should vote" why do we have legislatures, why not just put every issue up for referendum? One of the reasons we shouldn't have public votes on certain issues, such as marriage equality, is that the majority clearly doesn't always vote to protect the rights of the minorities. Note that after Congress ruled in 1967 that interracial marriage was a constitutional right, because the people of Virginia wished to keep it illegal, for several years majorities in a number of states continued to insist that it should be illegal. Just earlier this year we saw a poll in one southern state with a majority result STILL saying, in 2011, that interracial marriages should be prohibited.

To commenter MaryWaterton, the fact that 31 states have banned marriage equality says only that a majority of people between 2004 and 2008 in a number of states wanted to ban it. First, see my point above: majorities shouldn't get to rule on the rights of minorities, as more often than not they'll vote against them. But second, the polls have shown significant shifts since 2008 in favor of marriage equality, and continue to show especially that younger voters support marriage equality by huge majorities. A vote held today to ban marriage equality would not have the same support it did back when these bans passed, and as older intolerant homophobic voters continue to die off to be replaced by the tolerant younger generation who love their gay family members and friends, and who know they are just as deserving of equal rights as they are, the numbers will increasingly shift toward the clear manorities the Quinnipiac and other polls already show.

Re: A nonreligious argument for traditional marriage

Thom Watson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:06:25 -0000

By your own reasoning, then, the fact that more and more same-sex couples are having and raising children (from 2010 census figures, about 25% of such couples are doing so) -- through adoption, surrogacy, artificial insemination, from previous marriages -- is reason enough that all same-sex couples should be permitted access to civil marriage.

Re: The Informer - Patrick Range McDonald - Did TOMS' Blake Mycoskie Really Not Know About Anti-Gay Focus on the Family?

Thom Watson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:10:46 -0000

Do you think such a statement makes it sound like you're taking some kind of moral high ground? Rather, it's absolutely meaningless and hollow. Were the KKK to say they'll start giving out free shoes to children if TOMS and Mycoskie speak at one of their events, you'd agree that the good outweighs the evil and that TOMS should do so?

Re: The Informer - Patrick Range McDonald - Did TOMS' Blake Mycoskie Really Not Know About Anti-Gay Focus on the Family?

Thom Watson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:20:50 -0000

Mycoskie was warned about FotF and their anti-gay anti-woman positions more than two weeks before he spoke at their event, by commenters on his personal blog. He continued to respond to other comments on the same post that praised him or his products before and after the comments that warned him, yet he never responded to the commenters asking him about his connection to FotF. He had to have read those comments, since he responded to others on the same post before and after. His apology is insincere, weasel-worded (he can't bring himself to say "gay" or "lesbian" and offers no specifics to back up his and his company's professed "belief" in "equal human rights"), and completely disingenuous in its attempt to claim ignorance.

Re: The Informer - Patrick Range McDonald - Did TOMS' Blake Mycoskie Really Not Know About Anti-Gay Focus on the Family?

Thom Watson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:24:20 -0000

He was specifically warned about the organization and its mission more than two weeks before his talk, by commenters to his personal blog. He continued to respond to comments that praised him, but ignored the contents seeking to let him know about FotF's anti-gay positions, and seeking clarification on why he would associate with him. His statement that he didn't know is completely disingenuous at best, and a deliberate lie at worst, and his backtracking now and trying to claim ignorance is making him look even worse to me.

Re: TOMS Wearers vs. Right Wing Christian Missionaries - National - The Atlantic Wire

Thom Watson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:30:37 -0000

"Focus on the Family, on the other hand, only wanted to provide
fashionable canvas shoes for those in need. And even if they hate gays
and science, shouldn't they be able to do some good, too?"

Yes, I recognize the snark in the statement, but it seems nonetheless to be your position that doing a good deed outweighs any evil the organization doing the good otherwise promulgates. Would you be as sanguine were the organization at which Mycoskie had spoken and which was giving away the products in his name were, say, the KKK?

Re: The Informer - Patrick Range McDonald - Did TOMS' Blake Mycoskie Really Not Know About Anti-Gay Focus on the Family?

Thom Watson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:01:57 -0000

OK, so you do have your own personal limits as to with whom TOMS and Mycoskie should associate. I just go further than you do: in my opinion, the kind of hate FotF pushes results in the kind of bullying that causes gay kids to kill themselves. Hate is hate. Evil is evil.

Re: Tipping point for LGBT equality

Thom Watson — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:08:15 -0000

Ell: You cannot say you are "all for equal rights, for everyone" and then say that you are not for equal marriage rights. The two statements are self-contradictory. Time and again, study after study and court after court has found that civil unions and marriage inherently are unequal. You are entitled to your belief, but please at least acknowledge that by holding it you are not in fact for "equal rights, for everyone."

And not all parents deem the lives of gay men and lesbians "revolting." And just what is that "lifestyle," by the way? My partner and I have lifestyles that are absolutely undistinguishable from those of our straight siblings, friends, neighbors and colleagues. Why don't the opinions of people who do not find us revolting count, too?

Repent America: Lots of things are considered sins to those who believe in religion and gods, but our government fortunately doesn't make laws against such things solely on the basis of religious belief. It was expressly set up not to do so, in fact. And what percentage of the population would we need to be, in your opinion, before we would deserve equality? If your god does exist, I welcome his or her judgement, but I suspect you'll find that it might not be on those trying to find equality in America, but on those who would withhold it out of a deliberate misreading of holy texts and a terrible misunderstanding of what "God is love" really means.

Re: Rejecting goodness | The Salt Lake Tribune

Thom Watson — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:55:29 -0000

I'd also note that adoption by same-sex parents is not tied to same-sex marriage; already such adoption is legal in nearly all U.S. states, and same-sex parents have been raising their own biological and adopted kids for years, long before marriage equality was even seriously being discussed. Whether or not same-sex couples are allowed to marry will not change that fact. So the rhetoric on one side that same-sex marriage should be banned because kids need a mom and a dad just makes no logical sense whatsoever; the two issues are already legally irretrievably separate. Banning same-sex marriage does not and will not stop same-sex couples from having kids through surrogacy, adoption or raising kids from previous heterosexual encounters.

In fact, 2010 census figures suggest that in nearly every state between 1/5 and 1/4 of households headed by same-sex couples are raising children already. Preventing same-sex couples from marrying, then, has no impact whatsoever on the number of kids being raised by their biological father and mother, even if we were to grant that the latter case is preferable (and a significant amount of research in fact suggests that the sex of the parents makes no difference in the quality of the care and support given, or the outcomes for the children); all it does is hurt the kids that already are being raised and that will continue to be raised in those same-sex-headed households.

Re: In Gay Relationships, Who Pops The Question? - Date Report - Dating Blog | HowAboutWe

Thom Watson — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:50:45 -0000

My partner and I decided that just as our relationship doesn't turn on traditional gender-prescribed roles, neither would our proposal (though, for the record, we're not yet legally married, as we currently live under the Prop 8 regime in California; we have a domestic partnership and while waiting for marriage equality to return to California went ahead with a commitment ceremony two years ago). We discussed together whether marriage is something we both want (it is) and we decided to do our proposal jointly, over a romantic Valentine's Day dinner. In effect, we each simultaneously proposed to the other, over a toast.

Personally, I'm extremely uncomfortable in this day and age with how many opposite-gender couples still seem to prefer traditional gender-prescribed roles in terms of who asks whom out, who pays for the date, who proposes, who takes whose name, etc., but to each his or her own. It's just not something that I would want even if I were straight, so it's certainly not something I wanted to perpetuate in my own same-sex relationship where there's absolutely no need or pressure to do so.

Re: While Dubbed Apolitical, All Eyes on Perry at 'The Response' - Politics - The Atlantic Wire

Thom Watson — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 15:04:47 -0000

"some of the groups involved in it have been accused of being extreme."

Why does the New York Times, which said only that "liberal critics" had accused the American Family Association of being a hate group, and now the Atlantic Wire/National Journal use such wishy-washy terminology, when addressing these groups' words and actions? Would it not be correct and appropriate to more specifically mention, for example, that "the Southern Poverty Law Center has named several of these groups as antigay hate groups"?

It's not an ideal analogy, because your readers all know that the KKK is legitimately held to be a hate group, but assume they had no more knowledge of the KKK's racist actions and words than the vast majority do of the homophobic (and sexist and anti-Muslim, etc.) actions and words of the AFA, FRC, etc. In that case, if the KKK were sponsoring a prayer rally, would you state only that "some accuse the group of being extreme" or would you be more likely to spell out who considers them extreme, and why?

Re: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/209453/20110906/prop-8-california-california-prop-8-gay-marriage-california-same-sex-marriage-california.htm

Thom Watson — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:42:32 -0000

One important clarification: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court for an opinion on standing; whatever the California Supreme Court decides on the basis of today's arguments, however, is not binding on the 9th Circuit, which is a federal court. The California Supreme Court acknowledged that they have a much more liberal interpretation of standing than might the federal courts, so the decision resulting from today's case will only inform the 9th Circuit's ultimate ruling; in the federal courts, to have standing you have to show a particularized harm. California's courts do not require that; so it is possible that the California Supreme Court could rule that if the case were being heard in state court, they would find that the Prop 8 proponents have standing, while the 9th Circuit could still rule that for federal purposes -- and under the stricter federal bases for determining standing -- they nonetheless do not have standing.

Re: The Defense of Marriage Act and States' Rights

Thom Watson — Thu, 31 May 2012 16:20:50 -0000

Lots of sloppy reporting today on the First Circuit ruling, including this piece. It is not the case that "A federal appeals court has declared the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional." Rather, the federal appeals court has declared a single part of DOMA, Section 3, unconstitutional, the only question that was before it. This addresses only the federal government's recognition of marriages where they are legal in a given state, but does nothing to address recognition of marriage across state boundaries or in states that have laws or constitutional amendments forbidding same-sex couples from marrying.

It's an historic and vitally important ruling, but let's not overstate what it does, please.

Re: Comments

Thom Watson — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:26:46 -0000

I got two of those Bachmann emails today, one from the email I use for NOM and the other from the email I use for Eugene Delgaudio's Public Advocate of the US. I've also gotten emails from Paul Rand and from Rick Perry using the Delgaudio address. The sharing among these politicians and these anti-gay hate groups is despicable.

Re: Video: Star of various state marriage ads calls equality 'cultural sinkhole of which there really is no return' - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:52:51 -0000

He's
now claiming, in a comment on his own video, that he's "suffered the slings that Christ endured on the
way to Calvary." Wow. Just wow. His lies, hyperbole and homophobia
actually pale in comparison to his Messiah complex.

Re: Letter from the editor: Despite regret, free speech must remain protected

Thom Watson — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:08:13 -0000

"The Book of Mormon" didn't say it's funny to threaten to kill your Mormon kids. Nor is "The Book of Mormon" set in a country where Mormon kids are bullied to death, where Mormons are tied to fences and left to die or routinely shot or beaten, or thrown out and disowned by their own parents.

Re: Letter from the editor: Despite regret, free speech must remain protected

Thom Watson — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:14:39 -0000

Just because one has a legal right to do something doesn't mean it's right to do it, nor does it excuse your own lapses in and/or lack of conscience and empathy. I fear you still don't get how or why your editorial decision was wrong, why the cartoonist was the wrong one to pay the price for your mistake, nor do you still really take responsibility, instead trying to blame a terrible error of editorial judgement on rushed deadlines. I guess you assume it's better to admit incompetence rather than misjudgement based on your own inability to recognize the humanity of gay people.

Re: Maryland Marriage Alliance selling swag; hopes wanton inequality is hot for fall - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:24:52 -0000

Since they've been figuratively wearing their hateful hearts on their sleeves for some time now, I'm not surprised they're now literally doing so.

Re: Video: MN For Marriage's Autumn Leva say gay man's marriage is no less valid (*but she'll ban it anyway) - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:10:39 -0000

This was disappointing. Minnesotans United for All Families needs to put better-prepared spokespeople forth. Kate is certainly sincere, but her positions were garbled and incomplete, omitting a range of important pro-marriage equality arguments for which she was given ample openings, while simultaneously allowing the anti-equality organization's spokeswoman's arguments to go largely unchallenged. I hope this show doesn't have a huge viewership, because it was an embarrassingly poor showing for the equality side.

Re: David Parker responds to G-A-Y: 'I stand behind all my positions/comments - except one' - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:32:47 -0000

How /convenient/ that he has a personal definition of homosexuality that /only/ includes sexual acts, and specifically /excludes/ "intense love for the same gender" -- his is certainly not an accepted definition of homosexuality in the social science or medical communities, /nor/ even in common usage -- because it allows him to set up a straw man that he can then knock down at his leisure. It allows him to ignore the fact that many people know themselves to be gay even if they've never yet had sex, or are not currently having sex, or do not wish to have sex, or are physically incapable of having sex. The existence of such people would turn his (illogical and absurd on so many other levels as well) argument on its ear, so of course, he just defines them away as being something that's "not homosexuality," so he can continue to push his own definition of homosexuality as being an "addiction." If that's the case, then heterosexuality is also nothing more or less than the same kind of addiction, since the same "urges and temptations" to engage in sexual acts that he believes make people to be "drawn into" homosexuality would cause people who engage in opposite-sex sex to be "drawn into" heterosexuality. His argument is vapid, intellectually dishonest, and nothing but a logical fallacy at best.

Re: Audio: 15 clips of 4-state marriage star David Parker proving his true agenda (*hint: he sees homosexuality as a disease) - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:36:25 -0000

How /convenient/ that you have a personal definition of homosexuality that /only/ includes sexual acts, and specifically /excludes/ "intense love for the same gender" -- yours is certainly not an accepted definition of homosexuality in the social science or medical communities, /nor/ even in common usage -- because it allows you to set up a straw man that you can then knock down at your leisure. It allows you to ignore the fact that many people know themselves to be gay even if they've never yet had sex, or are not currently having sex, or do not wish to have sex, or are physically incapable of having sex. The existence of such people would turn your (illogical and absurd on so many other levels as well) argument on its ear, so of course, you just define them away as being something that's "not homosexuality," so you can continue to push your own definition of homosexuality as being an "addiction." If that's the case, then heterosexuality is also nothing more or less than the same kind of addiction, since the same "urges and temptations" to engage in sexual acts that you believe make people to be "drawn into" homosexuality would cause people who engage in opposite-sex sex to be "drawn into" heterosexuality. Your argument is vapid, intellectually dishonest, and nothing but a logical fallacy at best.

Re: Bob Emrich highlights Protect Marriage Maine's straw man (/woman) arguments - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:42:19 -0000

So they think it's okay for two stuffed dolls to marry, but not loving same-sex couples. And they accuse us of being the slippery slope?

Re: Joe. My. God.: Archdiocese Of Washington DC Posts Web Ad Against Maryland Marriage

Thom Watson — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:04:27 -0000

1) This isn't actually illegal. 501(c)(3) organizations may not endorse specific candidates, or direct people to vote for or against a particular person or party, but they are permitted a lot of leeway for political issues, particularly ballot measures. As long as it is not a significant part of their resources -- time or money -- they may initiate ballot measures, write ballot measures, advocate for or against ballot measures, tell people how to vote on a ballot measure.

2) Even where they do violate IRS guidelines, the IRS has admitted that it has largely put investigating them on hold. However, one should still go ahead and lodge a complaint with the IRS whenever a church clearly is violating IRS guidelines (i.e., actively endorsing a specific candidate or party), or if they appear to be devoting a significant amount of money to endorsing a position on a ballot initiative.

Re: Video: D.C. Archdiocese exalts individually chosen faith belief above shared public policy - Good As You:: Gay and Lesbian Activism With a Sense of Humor

Thom Watson — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:16:55 -0000

Though personally I agree that churches should be subject to taxes:

1) What the Archdiocese is doing here isn't actually illegal under current IRS regulations. 501(c)(3) organizations may not endorse specific candidates, or direct people to vote for or against a particular person or party, but they are permitted a lot of leeway for political issues, particularly ballot measures. As long as it is not a significant part of their resources -- time or money -- they may initiate ballot measures, write ballot measures, advocate for or against ballot measures, and even tell people how to vote on a ballot measure.