gentleman my ass...

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125

i would narrow it down a little further - christianity killed god! and the Fishers, Donohoes, Benedicts, Fallwells, Robertsons, etc have done the most murdering of god.

where is this coming from?

Fischer: God Didn't Stop CT School Shooting Because He's a Gentleman Who Doesn't Go Where He is Not Wanted

from RightWingWatch.org

blithering nonsense...

Scalia Is Just a Bigot By Michael Tomasky, Daily Beast via RSN

Michael Tomasky has something to say about Judge Scalia's too often pronounced pearls of wisdom. in the link above it's about lgbtq & marriage. Tomasky's blunt take on what Scalia says? 

"What blithering nonsense."

Scalia says in Lawrence: “Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned.”

WHAT CONSTITUTIONAL LAW? 

i apologize for yelling but there is NOTHING in the U.S. Constitution about marriage. THAT in itself should prove that DOMA is unconstitutional. it is beyond Congress' purview.

if it's not in the Constitution, it means that it's up to the states.

yes, overwhelmingly states have blocked it, but that leads to questions of the 4th, 9th, 10th, & 14th Amendments. wake up SCOTUS!

of course, then you get into the thing that marriage is not actually a 'right'; it is a contract. 

about 'contracts' the Constitution has something to say. 

Section 10 says, "No state shall...pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts...."

divorce is a dissolution of a contract in a court, and SCOTUS has dealt with it, though it refused to deal with communal property in a 1910 case & has never revisited it.

i'm not a lawyer nor legal expert, but my background does include constitutional history. all the way back to the first constitutional contract - the Magna Carta. yes, i said 'constitutional contract' because what is a constitution if not a contract? 

and don't get me started on history of 'marriage'!

i know. i'm over the top. but i'm sick of dealing with all of this.

i've gotten to a point in my life...

and it may have to do with age, where i am enraged by so much i see. 

it's different than the rage i felt when i was involved with anti-Vietnam or Civil Rights or other 'causes' youth gets fired up over. it may also have to do with the recent loss of one of the dearest & most important people in my life, but there is a distinct difference.

i am not just enraged. i am also disgusted, more cynical (if that is even possible for me), extremely sardonic, and feel like lashing out. the last is a huge change.

where is all this coming from?

i learned to control my temper when i was an adolescent as i realized that i, in fact every human, has the capacity to destroy someone physically and mentally. i attacked another kid because he kicked in the spokes of an all chrome-bicycle i had just received not 15 minutes before. they had to pull me off of him as i pounded his head into the pavement! i wasn't even aware i was doing it. that blew my pacifist cover, to say the least

then, if i am remembering correctly, in my senior Advanced English class in high school, Dr. E. gave us almost a year long personal project. we were to decide on a major focus on a topic that we would deal with through the use of literature. 

there were a lot of ideas brainstormed by the class and individually, but it wasn't until i read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin that something crystallized in my brain. though two very different books, and i realize i didn't completely understand Baldwin's book back then, i became fascinated by how one human being could treat or act badly toward another, given that we seemingly all have the same basic sense - humanity.

i phrased it into the topic: "Man's Inhumanity to Man". 

though not a significantly unique topic, i have been engulfed with this 'quest' almost my entire life in one way or another, but i'm not sure i am any closer to understanding it. instead, the rage...

so what is going to happen next?

i realize that i have not made any entries to this blog in a long time. i also decided that maybe this could be the place that could act as an outlet for my frustrations, thoughts, and musings. perhaps this has been the point of the blog all along - no matter what... eschew obfuscation

as i looked back over previous posts, they all seem to have the flavor of "do you believe that?' or maybe 'disbelief'

so, i think i'm going to give it another shot and see what happens...

quiet heroes...

there are people who make large differences in the world & who 'go quietly into the night' as they say without the recognition of the many people they have helped.

i know that there were people who make great strides with lgbtq issues and you hear about the Harvey Milk's and the Bayard Rustin's but there are the ones whose names not as well known who influenced major changes, often alone, but powerful changes never the less.

Dr. Richard Isay is one of these heroes. he fought to get the American Psychoanalytic Association to remove lgbtq off the list of psychiatric illnesses.

i knew there was someone who was responsible for this but i didn't know the person's name. Now i do.

i also now know that he did it with personal consequences to his own happiness & wellbeing and with great pushback from 'powers that be'.

here is the link to Dr. Isay's story & about his recent death due to cancer. he made the world better for a lot of people.

Dr. Richard Isay, Who Fought Illness Tag for Gays, Dies at 77