A North West View

With only a week left until ballots mail out in Washington state, Protect Marriage Washington has started airing their first ad in what is doubtless to be a series of ads to run threw the election on Nov 6.  as the Seattle times says about this time in the election cycle  "for a ballot measure that isn't up on the air now is missing a big opportunity. Ballots mail out next week"  and it  appears  that even though they are late to the race compared to the  Approve   campaign  that has had ads running for months between Washington United for marriage and an ad run by Seattle Pride during the summer  Olympics   they seem to be  coming  out of the gate swinging using some of the same old  tactics  that have proven so  effective  in the past in scaring the public into voting their way.   although  this time they seem to have  thrown  in another tool to their  approach ...

This seems to be the sentiment that is more then popping out of the wood work as the debate heats up after the Governor signed the marriage equality bill, now with a Referendum still in the works(the league of women voters is contesting the AG's biased wording) and the Imitative poised to start soon too. (a judge just finished the legal wording for it) To see  these views I don't even have to look further then the opinion column of my local news paper and the comment section on said opinions, With those that oppose gay marriage not only insisting that gay marriage will lead to a slippery slope, that it's bad for the kids, and that it will destroy religion too.  Even more infuriatingly though they are also stating that gay relationships are not real ones at all, as if we are all acting and pretending when we are in a relationship so that we can secretly destroy m...

So I just got back from my trip to see the showing of A Right To Love: An American  Dream, I want to do a quick review, although one that dose not really give anything away about the film. That and I want to share about the trip as well and throw my own commentary in behind some current events that I have not had the time to write about ether because I was busy preparing to take my trip of I was on the trip.

Welcome my dear readers, it has been way to long since in have posted a blog entry, but in part this is a good sign in disguise, this is because in part I have been busy with work, but also because I have been busy finally getting my life back in order from my last bought of depression.  As part of that I have been working almost weekly with my physiatrist on discovering issues that I have, leaning ways for me to become more aware of the things that I think and start to examine why I think those things and to evaluate if those ways of thinking are helping me or hurting me.  I am just starting down what is clearly going to be a long and not necessarily easy path towards the goal of creating a more balanced and thus healthier me.  As part of that I have also been working on decluttering my life, going threw my stuff and clearing out the clutter that has accumulated in my room and all my little storage spots.  This has though taken up quite a chunk of my time, and my at...

So after rereading the last letter I posted for the umpteenth time, and also restudying the "proper" way to write Congressional representatives for the umpteenth time again as well, I finally decide that I was not quite happy with that letter, which I still had not mailed yet, and that instead it was time to start over again make another attempt at writing House Majority Leader John Boehner another letter.  Which I did, so after the jump is my letter to John Boehner version 2.0.

So I wrote a letter to House Majority Leader John Boehner, to express my experience of disappointment and frustration at the lack of marriage equality, and to call him to change his actions and instead support marriage equality. After the jump, it the letter in its uncut entirety 

This is a question that seems to me to be becoming and increasingly important part of the political landscape in the US, and it is a question that the answer should be clearly obvious to yet it seems that it is not nearly as clear to most as it seems to be to me.  To me it would seem if you where looking for a group that where standing on the grounds of what is morally right and what is morally wrong, for the most part you could not get further from the truth unless you teamed up with the devil himself.  For morality only seems to be used like one might use gold leaf to make a less the savory item seem to be far better then it actually is. 

Seeing as there is already so much written out there about the Obama administrations decision for the DOJ to stop def fending the Protect Marriage Act, I feel no relay need to write about it.  Instead I am going to write on another subject that is increasingly in the new more and more lately, and that is labor rights and the right to unionize and collectively bargain, a god given right that is increasingly under attack not only by corporations and their super wealthy leaders but by their own elected politicians them selves too, who are increasingly playing a part in doing everything they can do to bust up the unions as well as waging a war against the middle class in this country.

So for those of you that don't know and that would be all of you, I was trying to set up a coffee date with a charming guy that I had met online (names and descriptions left out to protect the innocent) well amongst simple conversation of what he was up to he mentioned he was at Walmart shopping.  Now is time for every one to look at me like a two headed alien, to which I simply said I have not set foot in one in years they have very anti union practices, and I'm a proud and supportive union member. (UFCW) apparently something that in his book was a totally wrong and very bad thing to be, as he proceeded to say that was not good because unions are bad, and he did not give a damn about them.  No giant insurmountable deal, not ideal but not a show stop I thought, as I basically said as long as you don't bash mine we are fine.  Again apparently not good as he did not like unions at all, he did not like hearing about them, nor when people liked t...

Some can already picture the day that you and your beloved sofa walk down the isle to commit your selves to each other for the rest of your life.  Well by some I mean candidate of Wisconsin lieutenant governor Rebecca kleefisch, who in a recent debate said that gay marriage in the state would lead to people marring inanimate objects like "this table or you know this chair" which even for the slippery slop crowed is a new level of crazy.  I mean now not only do at least some of these folks think that gay marriage will lead straight couples to commit adultery, turn our schools into gay wedding boot camps but that now it will lead to people taking a romantic fancy to their sofas and coffee tables and marring them.  

It was just about unanimous with all the justices except for Justice Clarance Thomas objecting to the courts decision to uphold Washington's public disclosure laws, and ruling that the signatures on the petitions for Ref 71 can be released.  They how ever are not being released at the moment because Protect Marriage Washington, the group that got R71 on the ballot back in 09 has a case to be heard in a lower court to get the release of the names prevented.  This is allowed as the case they brought before the supreme court was a challenge to conditionality of the States disclosure law that required disclosure of the names when requested, unless a court order prevented it. The court found, with Justice John Roberts Jr. writing the ruling, that Washington's disclosure law, which only effects disclosing names of those that singed, dose not violate the first amendment.  They of course left open as currently is the possibility for groups to seek action to prevent and sto...

After just finishing reading threw the 61 page transcript of the Supreme Court proceedings and I would say if you have the time that it is definitely not as dry as one would imagine it to be, however you do get the since that the press coverage is very on the ball when they say that the justices are not thrilled at all by the legal argument of Mr. James Bopp Jr the lawyer representing Protect Marriage Washington in this case.   It becomes quite clear that 7 of the justices well since they are also the only ones talking  are really not inclined to Mr Bopp's arguments with  Justice Anthony Scalia jumping him right off the bat hardly one sentence into his opening statement. Mr Bopp comes off as spending much of his time on the defensive trying to fend of constant grilling and interrogation from the justices as they poke and produce holes and gapes into his case, in the case of justice Scalia done quite often with over exuberance. 

The US Supreme Court is scheduled to start oral arguments on April 28th over the release of the names of  those that signed Referendum 71, which was the failed bid in 2009 to try to over turn WA new "every thing but marriage" domestic partnership laws at the time.   The case which concerns the release into public record, as prescribed by washington state discolor law, of 138,000 names of those who signed the potion in order to get it onto the ballot.  As noted washington state law requires that the names of those who sign potions be released into public record where they are free for any one to access, and this has been the law for the last 40 yeas since it was instituted threw a voter approved initiative itself.

Well Finally Obama has used some of the power of the office of president to make a concrete mover for LGBT equality (notably one that he could and really should have done with DADT) threw presidential order.  President Obama ordered that all hospitals that take medicare and medicaid must allow same-sex partners of patients to visit, and that patients have the power to chose a same-sex partner to make medical decisions for them should they become unable to.  This is significant in the fact that because it is attached to medicare medicaid it affects nearly every hospital in the country as nearly every one take them.  This order also has an effect for straight patients as it also allows them to declare a non direct relative or even close friend to make medical decisions for them if need be instead of next of kin the would normally be prescribed by law.  

It seems that ever increasingly that manufactured outrage is what fuels the political debate pushed squarely forwarded by the new Tea Party Movement and the ever growing political divide that seems to be seeping into ever level of politics.  This outrage very seldom seems to be based on any actual facts but instead ignore the facts all together and is based solely on propaganda manufactured senses of hysteria and threat.  This could be seen all threw the health care debate with the "not shovel read", "death panel" for grandma protest sign welding people, to the death threat, sending, racial slur, homophobic epitaphs shouting protester after the passage of the historic reform, but it can also quite often be seen on a local level.  Although usually more subdued even if not that much more rational when it comes to dealing with the real facts of issues.

The first piece of news is that the Supreme Court  has set April 28th as the day that it will start hearing arguments dealing with the release of the 130,000 petition signatures that got Referendum 71 on the Washington state ballot, which was the failed effort to overturn the states expanded "every thing but marriage" domestic partnership laws.  Depending on how the court rules this could have a large impact on open government laws not just in WA but threw out the country, as the goal of the anti gay rights group who has brought this case to the supreme court is to withhold the signature under the pretense that they are protected free speech. If ruled so it would me that in future initiatives you would not be able to see who signed and supported getting it put on the ballot and it opens up the slippery slop, that since the supreme court has found that campaign contributions are a form of free political speech (ala corporations are people and thus have a right to unlimite...

Well yesterday I summarized the "Manhattan Declaration" and picked apart passages to expose the hypocrisy of those that have signed. As well as taking the opportunity to highlight the moral corruptness of their goals and what they wish to achieve. Now today I have seen some speculation on the other intent behind that Declaration. The idea that it is not just a statement of political interest in commend, but in fact a solidifying and uniting in an effort to wrangle perceived political power away from more mainstream "mainline churches"