On the Topic of Gay Marriage

This is a subject I have been reticent to address. And in light of the already overabundant, feverish yammering heard in regard to this topic, what is one more faint voice in the din going to change? With that said, however, I am going to proceed down that slippery slope and confront the issue of Gay Marriage.

Aside from the exceedingly obvious fact that pandering politicians who would probably stand little chance of being elected otherwise are using this hot-button issue to distract from genuine issues of concern, this government exists to enforce laws equally and fairly, without regard to the unique characteristics of its citizens, and to go about the business of managing civic infrastructure and security. Laws should not be created which address the specifics of any one group or faction of individuals. Blacks, whites, gays, heteros, Indians, Mexicans, Baptist or Hindu - all these and more should all be treated as equals by the government. This includes omitting racial, religious, or sexuality specific language from our laws, and most certainly, from the Constitution - whether its intention is to benefit or hinder any sect. Every law should be written concisely to address all citizens equally and fairly.

I truly believe that most decent people are more concerned with having comfortable lives, affordable health care and schools for their children, healthy food and water, properly maintained roads, safety in their own homes, and knowing where that $90,000 in bribe money came from than which two people may live together.

Marriage is traditionally a religious ceremony, while the civil union underlying marriage is of governmental concern. Thus, these dichotomies have become intertwined due to their common coincidence. The government should not pass laws specifically addressing the legality of which two individuals choose to spend their lives together, as long as all other legal requirements have been satisfied. If a specific religion has an objection to gay marriage, then it is up to that religion to dissuade its members from participating. No religion has the right to enforce its particular belief system upon the judiciary of this country.

I had a neighbor in Florida who loved pink flamingos - I thought they were tacky and wanted them removed from her lawn. Her house was yellow - I hate yellow houses. But it is not my right to dictate what she may place on her lawn nor what color she paints her home. I can either accept it, ignore it, or move. Nor is it my concern who she chooses to associate with. I opted to overlook her decor, and as it turns out she was a very nice person, albeit one with unusual tastes.

I was reared in a society that tends to be fearful of anything different. While I may have personally dismissed a modicum of these petty views, many of my peers did not. I can remember as late as 1987, whites in Forsyth County, Georgia were still beating and lynching blacks, and this behavior persists to this day in some communities. I can say without reservation that, collectively, whites have caused far more harm to me than blacks. Does that mean I should hate all whites? While I may harbor some lingering reservations along those lines, said prejudice would certainly result in an odd predicament considering the fact that I am straight, male, and white.

Passing new laws will not change anything. Gays will still exist, they will still live together, they will still have sex with one another. They cannot be exorcised from society with the stroke of a pen. You might as well acclimate to their presence, for no matter how you might wish otherwise, they are and have always been.

I cannot deny the underpinnings of bias which are present in my psyche - I feel uncomfortable seeing two same-sex partners kissing in public. But I am probably more disturbed by the proliferation of Phone-Porn and Girls Gone Wild advertisements on my television screen. And I certainly don't want to see children subjected to any kind of propaganda which attempts to distort their developing views - on any topic. But I have known many women, and a few men, who were gay. Most were perfectly pleasant, responsible people. They had the same hopes and dreams that everyone does. They simply prefer a different lifestyle. There is some evidence that genetics plays a part in their choice, although I tend to believe it is more psychological in nature. Either way, it is a consensual act between legal adults that harms no uninvolved parties - and certainly does not effect the performance of the government or the security of this nation.

I have, however, found anti-gay groups to be disagreeable, hate mongering media-whores looking for their moment in the sun. And by their actions, they are encouraging response and confrontation with gay rights groups which are then brought forth in defense. In essence, the anti-gay fascists are causing the very pro-gay demonstrations they deride. It is a self-feeding cycle of intolerant zeal that distracts from genuine issues of importance to us all. The failure of one group to exert its domination over another breeds ever increasing amounts of hostility and fear.

And I, for one, have had enough of both of these emotions.

Love Letters From Iran

Have you ever stepped into a sticky wad of bubble gum that has been baking in the southern Alabama summer sun for a few hours? Then you will understand when I say that no matter how you scrape at the stuff you can't get it off your shoe, and every step you subsequently take is tainted by its presence. That is how I feel about my life. Many years ago, I managed to step firmly into such a wad of goo - otherwise known as the judicial and political system of a backwards southern state. It seems some two-bit attorney and his bevy of asocial children had a number of dark secrets to hide, and that they were ultimately to be protected at my expense. But after perpetuating this initial fraud, the acts of collusion spread from the local court system, to law firms, to judicial circuits, to employers, to law schools, to the State Bar, and ultimately the upper reaches of government. The list of connections between these players reads like a who's who of Dixieland.

I was sitting in front of my computer one night, typing in the source code for a spreadsheet program, and the next morning was tossed into a nightmare world of criminal acts of arson, collusion, fraud, witness tampering, witness intimidation, interference with courts and employers, and apparently, an interstate conspiracy to commit homicide - the list goes on and on. Added to this mix were the conjecture, finger pointing, backhanded innuendo and outright threats which emanated from complete strangers. Suddenly under scrutiny by people I had never met for reasons which would not become known until years after the fact. Events which have negatively effected my life ever since - like that gum stuck to my shoe. Seems the good folks that wrote the Constitution apparently failed to send a copy Down South.

Consider the incredulity of watching this lawyer on television state that the law could not support two sets of rules when it concerned a high school football player, while simultaneously engaging in an outrageous, immoral smear campaign and double-standard cover-up of his own. Arrogant, self-absorbed wealth and power are apparently also rich in hypocricy. When meddling in other's lives, and claiming that it is in the best interests of those involved - they mean their own interests, not yours.

Even after moving to another state their bizarre interest in my life, and a desire to protect their unseemly reputations, apparently continued - to the point that people across the country were more familiar with the inside-story than I. Firemen across the nation, wives of national insurance company managers, the US Navy, newspapers, librarians in the midwest, cops, and even politicians in Wisconsin for cripes sake. All because I caught the eye of some stupid woman while trying to eke out a meager living, and allowed her pathetic pleas for intervention to influence my survival. Imagine my consternation when the names behind this web of deceit were ultimately discovered.

There are three curses of increasing severity, reputedly of Chinese origin, which go something like this:

May you live in interesting times.
May you attract the attention of the powerful.
May you find what you seek.

And to paraphrase my least favorite president, I hit the trifecta.

What does this have to do with anything, you might ask? In a world littered with the broken bodies and souls caused by war, pestilence, and poverty - why should I be exempt from worldly suffering? That is a question you will first have to get my eerily silent, yet repugnant, denouncers to answer.

But aside from explaining my unrelenting revulsion and mistrust of southern politicos, it is representative of the behavior being exhibited by the current administration - which, incidentally, was ushered in by several of the names on my aforementioned list.

The approach being adopted by the Bush Administration towards Iran is exactly the same arrogant, scrutinize and manipulate while refusing to communicate sort of attitude that resulted in the outrageous story mentioned above. Mudslinging and vehement refusals to negotiate while concurrently attempting to cover one's own ass - instead of honorably addressing a situation before it escalates out of control. This strategy, however, proved to be flawed then - as they subsequently scattered into dark recesses like the cockroaches they are - and I would expect it to be just as flawed now when dealing with Iran. This approach is guaranteed to escalate hostilities - which the current cabal of zealots and warmongering xenophobes seem to desire.

But the point and ultimate irony of this whole comparison is that during my entire ordeal, the only person involved who exhibited the slightest trace of up-front, honorable behavior was an Iranian.

It is time to scrape the gum off of the shoes of the Middle East and SW Asia and deal with its people in an upright fashion for a change. And while you're at it...

One Man's View on Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

As our population density increases, thus living and working in closer proximity to one another, the threat of pandemic diseases is an earnest consequence which should not be trivialized. Nature abhors a void or imbalance, and will exploit any weakness in a given ecosystem in order to restore and maintain that balance which, incidentally, tends to prefer diversity over monoculture.

Tomes of information are available concerning biology's ongoing attempts at restoring its own ideals of a natural order. But the population in general depends on experts to present a concise, summarized truth. But as with most grey issues, the intellectuals cannot reach a consensus - which results in a wait, watch and see attitude. Distilling available information into a comprehensible thirty second sound-byte of fact is impossible. That we are in the unique position of never having been witness to an unfolding natural biological threat, with modern technology at our disposal to study the mechanisms involved, leaves informed speculation as the only answer presently available. When we absolutely know for sure, it could well prove too late to resolve the issue in the best interests of mankind.

Similarly, time and time again, man has attempted to introduce foreign species to control other foreign species, which were introduced to control yet another foreign species, whether released by accident or intention - ad nauseum. Our track record of predicting the interactions between newly introduced organisms into a given ecosystem is exceedingly poor.

Casting all religious convictions aside, the earth and the life upon it has developed in the manner that it has due to many centuries (and I'm being accommodating here) of interaction. It is the way that it is because that is its natural state - the equilibrium that it prefers. If you choose to believe that the hand of God designed the earth and all things upon it, then so be it. But with these factors in mind, what is it that makes man so arrogant as to believe that our flagrant disruption of the natural order is going to be looked upon favorably by either evolution or an omnipotent designer?

We continue to pillage huge swaths of land for cities which are devoid of natural diversity. We pump millions of gallons of water from the local lakes and rivers, only to return large portions of said water laden with chemicals, hormones and pharmaceuticals. And while these amounts may seem trace, the effects on man, fish, and wildlife - both cumulative and instantaneous - are not fully understood at this time. We are tampering with the very lifeblood of our planet - and it will eventually fight back. For wherever one species becomes oppressively dominant, nature provides relief in the form of competition.

Within this scenario, consider the case of Avian Influenza.
This is a table depicting documented cases:

Country	2003		2004		2005		2006		Total
	C	D	C	D	C	D	C	D	Cases	Deaths
Azerbaijan	0	0	0	0	0	0	8	5	8	5
Cambodia	0	0	0	0	4	4	2	2	6	6
China	0	0	0	0	8	5	10	7	18	12
Djibouti	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
Egypt	0	0	0	0	0	0	14	6	14	6
Indonesia	0	0	0	0	17	11	25	22	42	33
Iraq	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	2	2
Thailand	0	0	17	12	5	2	0	0	22	14
Turkey	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	4	12	4
Viet Nam	3	3	29	20	61	19	0	0	93	42
Total	3	3	46	32	95	41	74	48	218	124

The numbers would imply that AI poses little threat to man - in fact, driving to the corner store is more dangerous at this point in time. However, this infection almost always results in the death of half its victims within seven days, and has been shown to spread in clusters of activity worldwide. All confirmed cases in each cluster can be directly linked to close and prolonged exposure to a sick patient during a phase of severe illness. The warning signs of viral adaptation are discernible. This particular virus seems to prefer the deep tissues of human lungs, rather than the sinuses, which makes transmission more difficult. Although human-to-human transmission is the most likely conduit in these cases, all mechanisms for spreading the virus are being considered at this time.

Considering that both migrating and static birds populations are common carriers of this and many other influenza viruses, and that their carcasses and dropping are a primary influence in the spread of infection, this is seemingly a problem which could evade control very quickly. Although wild birds seem to have developed a resistance to the disease and typically function as carriers only, domestic birds such as chickens have not - meaning that due to the high-density methods used by Agri-Corporations, entire poultry industries could be wiped out almost overnight.

And should this or any other virus adapt, as they are want to do, the consequences will be dire indeed. No human will have immunity should an H5N1-like pandemic virus emerge. We have placed ourselves into artificial monocultures that are ripe for the development and spread of human specific strains of bacteria and viruses which will always attempt to restore the balance of nature. While man remains as remarkably pretentious as ever, we exist merely as callow, meddling children in the workshop of life.

For More Information: World Health Organization

Earthquake in Indonesia Kills 3000 - 1800 Injured

As if the tsunami of 2004 wasn't bad enough, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck near the ancient city of Yogyakarta this Saturday at 5:54 a.m (Java local time) Thousands fled into the streets, many fearful of another devestating tsunami.

United States Geological Survey
National Earthquake Information Center
Magnitude 6.3 - JAVA, INDONESIA

Yahoo News
Quake kills at least 3,000 in Indonesia

Those Wacky Personal Ads

OK - I'll admit it. Since as far back as 1980, I've dated a few women met through newspaper and online ads. Some turned out to be long term friends - one or two quickly alchemized into teeth grating altercations - results which probably don't vary much in comparison to your average street encounter. But although age and general wear and tear have pretty much led to abandonment of the dating scene, I still watch the chaotic goings on in the singles world - perhaps as a vicarious reminder of misplaced youth. And perhaps it doesn't help that a friend has been badgering me about her ongoing parade of online romances.

So, due to a lack of more engaging entertainment, I occasionally peruse the singles ads at a popular online site. Don't really know why, as I have no intention of replying to even the most compelling of ads, so it must be due to a morbid curiosity concerning the interpersonal relations of others. My original foray into this dark nether world of Stranger vs. Stranger began with a small ad placed in Atlanta's Creative Loafing. I was 21, owned a home, had a regular job, did volunteer work, and kept busy with a variety in interests, but had no luck whatsoever in meeting appropriate single women. My first encounter resulted in a decades long friendship, while subsequent encounters varied wildly. But even the worst of the online engagements was preferable to the matchmaking attempts of friends whose intervention generally resulted in assaults by knife-wielding meth addicts and drunken troublemakers and their dysfunctional families.

With this in mind, I feel the need to comment on this modern presentation of potential mates as being tantamount to browsing a Lee Valley catalog for a new power tool. Page after page of souls searching for that perfect companion. A brief sales pitch, a few photos, and a price - yes, there is always a price. For although I can Blog at numerous sites till my fingers bleed, sell old cars and household goods on Craig's List, and post messages world wide in thousands of Usenet groups - all for free - that personal ad is going to cost you anywhere from $30 - $350 a month.

Yes, boys and girls, Cyber-Pimping is Big Business. And that sleazy Neil Clark Warren Co. and his emotional blackmail tactics elicit nothing but severe nausea and disgust - non-stop big-buck television ads which parade their alledgedly satisfied customers onto the glowing screens of lonely, desperate singles across America. You're not lonely or desperate? That's OK - the carefully crafted psychological propoganda insures that the weak willed or insecure will succumb to their hollow brand of electronic matchmaking and associated line of self-help relationship books - all for a tidy sum.

But those ads! Each unique - a tiny looking glass into the private lives of a vast cross section of our civilization. Some earnest, some hilarious, some sad, and some just plain scary. But the gist of this musing are the photographs. The content of these submitted photos runs the gamut - faces, bodies, houses, flower and vegetable gardens, boats, land, cars, pets, hobbies, and even a few provocative shots that leave little to the imagination. Now while I can surely appreciate the forthright nature of this gesture, and can certainly see how this might save one from the shock of discovering that third navel at a most inopportune moment, it leaves me with the vacuous feeling that our society is devoid of all elements of romance and mystery - that nothing is immune from being packaged and sold to the highest bidder.

My parting observations are that I miss the desired age group by at least 3 years, and that the negligee pictures are too small.

Have a great long weekend!

Lay and Skilling Convicted in Enron Collapse

Associated Press

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.

What more is there to say- Good Riddance! But alas, a shallow victory for the thousands of employees and shareholders who were scammed out of their life's savings.

Full Story Here

Organic Produce Wars

Just goes to show, I'm not the only one with too much idle time on my hands. While I harbor more than a healthy suspicion of big Agri-Biz, believe than monoculture leads to more disease and pest problems, and that small farms are a necessary wisdom for National Security reasons, this is too odd to pass up:

Grocery Store Wars

And the next time you go grocery shopping, take the time to notice where the products you buy are grown. You might just be shocked and appalled to find that your 64 oz. bottle of Apple Juice was actually grown and bottled in China. As the salvaging of discarded US technology products has resulted in innumerable pollutants being dumped onto the ground and into the rivers and streams of China, buying edible products which were grown by Chinese Agri-Biz is a definite no-no in my book. Cripes, can we do anything competitively in this country?

And if, like most people, you consume meat products (and even if you don't), check out:

The Meatrix

Enjoy!

Speaker of the House of RepresentativesDennis Hastert under investigation by the FBI?

I trow thee doth protest too much...

As if the past two months of indictments weren't convincing enough evidence that this crumbling legacy of corruption known as the modern day Republican party is utterly imploding, we have this speculative developing story from ABC News:
Hastert "In the Mix" of Congressional Bribery Investigation.
And today, ABC's report on Hastert and the Abramoff Scandal

Hastert has been an outspoken critic of the FBI since its raid on the office of Democrat William Jefferson of Louisiana. While it seems to be perfectly permissible to spy on the citizenry, these folks seem to think they deserve a second set of laws tailored just for them. When reflecting on the implication of containers containing $90,000 in cold cash found stashed in a freezer, reputedly consisting at least partially of marked bills which connect to an FBI sting operation, these guys as a whole are masters of bald-faced hypocrisy.

Yup, they're doing one hell of a job - on BOTH sides of the fence.

Watch this clip of CNN's The Cafferty Files as he rants about the double standards of public office vs. private citizens.

It does seem (for the moment) that this problem is somewhat bipartisan and that, as throughout the eon of humanity and its various ruling bodies, avarice is truly the beating heart of our modern day democracy. Until our methods of campaign and election are challenged and corrected, the growing abuses of money and power will continue unabated. Special interests are purchasing every aspect of our lives in the pursuit of ever increasing profit. The framers of the Constitution, while adept at predicting human nature, were not cognizant of the power to be wielded by modern communications or the ease by which they would be perveted. The merging and removal of distinctions between Journalism, Advertising and Propaganda is a worrisome blending to behold.

And now would seem that the reticent press has suddenly developed teeth. Perhaps the justified goading of the press by Colbert is to blame. ;-)

Naaah... They just $mell blood in the water$.

The Case For Global Warming

Only a fool claims that a thing is impossible. Accordingly, legitimate scientists worldwide could be wrong in their conclusions about Global Warming. However, I am fairly convinced that this is a genuinely perilous phenomenon. I have watched as annuals in our transitional USDA Zone 7 garden have become perennial or self-seeding. Tubers and corms which once demanded digging in the fall now do not require such treatment. I have kept reef aquariums and other animals for decades and am painfully aware of how easy it is to influence an ecosystem with not only trace amounts of a wide variety of compounds but with subtle temperature changes. I have witnessed the ocean changes attributed to El Nino/La Nina years and kept an eye on tropical coral reef conditions (via published reports, unfortunately). The general consensus is that global warming is real, and not the alarmist cries of a bevy of hand-wringing liberals. At minimum, as stewards of the only planet we presently have at our disposal, we should proceed with the utmost caution lest we destroy our way of life.

In that vein, and although I generally avoid fluff media such as this, Al Gore appeared on the Today Show to discuss his new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth".

And the Fair and Balanced version: Exxon-Backed Pundit Compares Gore To Nazi Propagandist

Tom DeLay Turns to Stephen Colbert for Support

I swear, these people just can't seem to get their facts straight.
I am beginning to think that the total lack of empathy these folks exhibit affects their ability to comprehend obvious satire. And you would also think that after the grilling the Republicans received at the White House Correspondents Dinner, they would have figured out by now that Colbert is NOT a blowhard right-wing pundit - he just plays one on TV. The leading item on the Defend Tom Delay Web Site is Colbert's interview with Robert Greenwald, who produced the movie, "The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress". For those who have somehow managed to miss the Colbert Report on the Comedy Channel, Colbert plays the part of a flag waving, O'Reilly-esque, faux ultra-conservative political pundit.

Although this looks legit on the surface, I am checking further to make certain this site is not a sophisticated fake. They have certainly done their best to saturate the popular web-search engines with drivel from this pathetic site, and there exists a secure page (HTTPS) for those who might be stupid enough to make a donation to his legal fund. HA, HA, HA - Fat Chance! A cursory examination of the domain registration reveals this:

Administrative Contact:
Defend Tom DeLay p44r98kk2kf@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: DEFENDDELAY.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780

If I were Colbert, I would cut short that two-week hiatus/vacation and pump this lunacy for all it's worth. Truthiness lives on...

More here:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/24/delay-colbert/

The Use of Depleted Uranium as a Weapon

This is not a new story, but one which has gotten very little coverage in the US press. Could part of the outrage aimed against the US and its involvement in the Middle-East be fueled partly by the use of depleted uranium in military projectiles?

Depleted Uranium (DU) is the by-product of the refinement process (or enrichment) of naturally occurring Uranium, whereby trace amounts of U-234/U-235 are removed for weapons and fuel use - leaving U-238 as the primary waste product, along with non-naturally occuring U-236 which is a direct result of the enrichment process. DU is 1.7 times denser than lead and is very effective in penetrating armored objects such as tanks and fortifications. When a DU shell strikes a target at sufficient velocity, it literally melts through thick metal plating while expanding into a burning vapor which then cools and is left behind as dust.

DU is primarily an Alpha-particle emitter which has a half-life of 4.56 billion years. It is generally accepted that Alpha and Beta radiation may be blocked by as little as a sheet of paper. However, because of their pyrophoric nature, when DU munitions strike they transform into aerosol particles ranging in size from granular to less than 1 microns. This DU dust easily becomes wind-borne and travels great distances, and is readily re-suspended into the air and deposited into the water and soil, thereby becoming inhaled and ingested by living creatures - including humans. While much of ingested DU is excreted from the body, the small amounts which remain can be a constant source of low-level radiation that damages cell structures - and when the damage occurs within reproductive organs it results in genetic mutations which are passed on from generation to generation. Additionally, when cells are stimulated to repair the damage done by previous radiation strikes, they become hypersensitive to further radiation strikes for 8-10 hours.

For example, a single 2.5 micron (~0.0001 inch) DU particle contains approximately 210 billion atoms. The total combination of U-23x emissions is about 37.6 Alpha particles per annum. It seems logical to conclude that ingesting small amounts of this dust could result in permanent damage to living organisms. Conservatively, concentrated amounts of this dust remain radioactive and a proven health hazard for millions of years, as opposed to the sparse, natural concentrations which oxidize and bind more readily with elements in the environment.

The use of depleted uranium in weapons is considered illegal according to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, although reports vary wildly on the actual severity of the threat. Although the IAEA currently dimisses the health threat of DU, I have watched as the long term effects of Uranium tailings on the indigenous Indian population of the US have been revealed. Additionally, a 1966 study found that Uranium tailings used in the construction of homes, schools, and other buildings in and around Grand Junction, Colorado, constituted a health hazard. The nuclear industry's track record on this issue is most certainly suspect, at best.

Although I am not fully convinced of the authenticity of several players involved, and am obviously not a nukular scientist, this subject deserves serious consideration.

An excellent flash animation related to DU is located here:
Poisonous Legacy

No Link Between Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer

This is an odd bit which, quite frankly, I find surprising.

No Link Between Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer

People who smoke marijuana - even heavy, long-term marijuana users - do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 23rd.

I would be interested in seeing more research on this controversial subject, as well as a study of the veracity of marijuana as a gateway drug, as is commonly claimed. My opinion is that the effects of alcohol, which is both popular and legal, represent a greater danger to society than marijuana, which is popular but illegal. My observations have also led me to the conclusion that alcohol is as much (and probably more so) a gateway drug leading to cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine use than is marijuana. Additionally, violent behavior is much more prominent among heavy alcohol users and is a leading factor contributing to domestic altercations. However, due to the illegality of these drugs, distribution channels are shared, thereby linking these two types of drugs to a common source. Just something to consider the next time you pop the top on a cold beer...

For those who might have raised an eyebrow at this point, allow me to explain that my sister was a bartender, and I've observed the behavior of the patrons of many a night club around Atlanta. Admittedly, this was 20 years ago, but I doubt things have changed...

From the No Spin Zone (ROTFLMAO)Bill O'Reilly Wants to Make Nice with the Dixie Chicks?

I was never a big fan of the Dixie Chicks until now, but you have to admire a group of women who have turned their tortured past into a selling point - with their middle finger prominently extended in the faces of their detractors. Listen to "Not Ready to Make Nice".

Story Details here:
The Dixie Chicks and Bill O'Reilly

Unbelievable! Zealot Baptists Picket Marine Funerals

After reading this article:
Group Attacks Anti-Gay Protesters At Marine's Funeral

And this entry from their home town:
Protesters disrupt Soldier’s funeral in Seaford, Delaware

I have to say that I firmly believe the religious zealots have absolutely gone over the top. Had I served with one of these Marines, I would have drug Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church Hate Group out to the woodshed for an good old-fashioned beating - Hell, I feel like driving up to Delaware and doing it anyway. Is there no depth to which these people will not descend? This is not Christian behavior, and is utterly disrespectful to the families and friends of servicemen who died defending these media-whore whackos' rights to behave in such a reprehensible manner. A truly sad example of how power-mad TV evangelists are leading an embarrassing crop of mass-think, knee-jerk xenophobes into utter chaos. There is absolutely no Good in this, regardless of your views concerning homosexuality.