In My Bed? Damn! Supreme Court Agrees!

Supreme Court throws out lawsuit against Westboro Church. In an 8-1 vote with Justice Alito dissenting.You can read the decision here.

(Originally posted in 2006)


 Since I discovered my gayness at the tender age of 5, waking up in bed with a man would be surprising. If that man happens to be the Reverend Fred Phelps, then it becomes grounds for suicide...maybe a bath, then suicide or maybe a shower, a cleansing walk through fire then suicide.

For those of you who don't know the allegedly righteous reverend, Phelps is the guy who leads the Westboro Church of Topeka, Kansas and conducts protests at the funerals of soldiers who have died during the Iraq military action. Phelps believes that the good men and women who died for this country are being punished because they fought to defend a homeland that condones homosexuality.

Phelps thinks everyone who doesn't believe as he does is going to hell and that includes most of us Americans. So he and his family, since that's what makes up his congregation, travels the country protesting at funerals. He's been doing it for a lot of years at gay funerals, but nobody took notice until he crossed the line with the American military. If you want to read exactly what it is that Phelps is saying go to http://www.godhatesamerica.com/ , where you will find that he not only attacks America, but Coretta Scott King, Reggie White, and The Pope in language so vile that I won't repeat it here.

Earlier this week Congress passed a bill banning Phelps protests at cemeteries. The "Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act" has been sent to White House and Dubya has already indicated that he will sign it into law. The measure, like much of what Congress does, seems good until you fully examine it. The law only pertains to 122 national cemeteries. It doesn't say a thing about all of the other cemeteries in this country. Nor does it keep him from protesting at funerals. He just has to stay 300 feet away.

Phelps has free reign almost everywhere else as long as he stays off federal turf. And there is another thing that bothers me. As reprehensible as I find this man to be, I am troubled that Congress has seen fit to try to stifle him. Despite his ranting and viciously biased ravings, he is an American, protected by the constitution, specifically the First Amendment. He has a god-given right to say whatever the hell he wants.

This is America.

It is what these young military people fight and die for. Yes, his acts are a slap in the face and blatant disrespect of our military, but illegal, or unconstitutional, I don't think so. What is Congress going to do, pass a law to stifle every other group who voices discontent or disrespect? What about using the hate crimes law? Phelps violates those every time he opens his mouth. Fine him. Turn the IRS loose on him. Take away his privileged status as a Church. But let him keep talking. That's his right. And mine. And yours.

If It Walks Like a Duck and Quacks.....

Obama in denial about racism, misses opportunity to address systemic issues

I understand that Obama has firmly planted himself in the middle. He wants to be president to everybody. I'm on board with that. He was elected by nearly everybody. However, the very vocal minority who didn't vote for him and even refuse to recognize his very human-ness, as well as his American-ness, have hijacked the national conversation.

Jimmy Carter, the former president who was not as bad a president as some would imagine, kicked the door wide open on the subject. All Obama had to do was to walk through and begin the discussion.

But he backed off, preferring instead to let Carter twist in the wind. Carter's problem, even when he was president, was that he usually spoke the truth..

People just didn't want to hear it.

If this country had taken the steps mandated by Carter, back in the day, we might not be paying $4 for gasoline and hundreds of dollars a month heat our homes.

If we had listened to Carter back then, America would probably be green today living on solar power instead of just getting into the ballgame with two out in the 9th and the score 10-1.

The problem with Obama is that he still thinks he is walking the hallways of academia breathing that rarified air of debate, discussion and civil discourse....

while a street fight has broken out around him....

The guns are literally out in full view......and he doesn't want to talk about it.....

First things first...let's deal with health care reform...or let's put wall street back on track....or let's look for alternatives solutions to our energy crisis...

Note to O.....the underlying cause of this stuff.....is racism...systemic...institutionalized racism...except now it has broken into the streets and some people are hiding behind the first amendment and threatening to invoke the second....

Whole Black people have had to deal with this scenario our entire lives..."you don't like what we sayin'....we will kill you!"

That is the message from the streets to the White House...

The problem with ducking the issue in hopes that it disappears is that it doesn't...It does what things do when pushed underground and ignored.....It grows and grows until it pushes itself into the light of day...and one day you trip over it...

Obama talks about the racism he heard from his white grandmother....it is one thing to hear it from a white relative....

This is his way of showing off his so called Black credibility....see I'm really one of ya'll....

But it is another thing completely to experience it over and over again from strangers....His grandmother loved him and protected him from it as he lived in her world...even as she spoke it and practiced it against others....

He needs to step to the plate and deal with a problem that still has a strangle hold on this country.....

No amount of ducking the issue or shushing former presidents is going to make it go away..

Good Intentions, Bad Law

A small community in Texas wants to ban the “N”-word. Furthermore it wants to charge up to 500-dollars in fines, if you get caught using it. The proposed legislation comes from the Mayor of the hamlet of Brazoria, Texas, with a population of little more than 27-hundred people, 81-percent of them white. Blacks make up a bit more than 10-percent of city residents with Asians and Native Americans filling out the rest of the demographic. A total of 736 families reside inside city limits.

The way it works is citizens who hear someone use the word can then report the usage to police who will come and issue a citation. The offender then appears in court where a judge sets the fine for bad linguistic behavior, which, as I said can run as high as 500-dollars.

Now, while I am on record as being in favor of no longer using the term, I am not in favor of this proposal. The intentions behind the measure are probably very good, but face it, the very people who should be protected by this law, will probably be the very ones cited and fined. Blacks use the term openly, and in many more contexts than whites and others. So if the word is heard in public, it’s probably going to be some black kid walking down the street with his friends.

What makes the word so insidious is the number of whites who use it covertly, in like minded company, when they think blacks aren’t listening. These users, who are probably the targets of the proposed legislation, more than likely, will not be reported. So you have a situation much like the Rockefeller drug laws of the 70's where the very people who were supposed to be protected, end up victimized, arrested and jailed.

Besides, I am against banning words. Say, the N-word gets banned. What’s next, the F-word, or the MF-word, or the J-word or the K-word? It goes on and on. Banning words, banning books, banning television, attempting to legislate behavior, does not work and is in violation of our first amendment rights.

Brazoria’s mayor is not the only legislator thinking along these lines. There is also a “ban the N-word movement” in upstate New York and also in Congress. Reportedly, New York Representative Charles Rangel is contemplating writing national legislation on this subject.

I applaud these folks for trying to do the right thing. Their hearts are in the right place, but this is a very bad use of legislative powers. It’s just bad law and no good will come of it.