The ruling on California's gay marriage ban is coming today
This is the case to overturn Proposition 8, the Mormon-backed initiative that wiped out the ability of gays and lesbians to marry in California.
Most analysts say the U.S. District Court judge will void the proposition, but you never know.
The case against to overturn Prop. 8—and make gay marriage legal again—was led by David Boies and Ted Olsen. The pair got a lot of notice because they were on opposite sides of Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that handed the 2000 election to George W. Bush.
From the SF Chronicle:
Walker’s ruling, due sometime between 1 and 3 p.m., is certain to be appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 or 2012.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that the millions the Mormons spent spreading misinformation to California families worked.
From the LAT:
The numbers are staggering. In the last six weeks, when both sides saturated the airwaves with television ads, more than 687,000 voters changed their minds and decided to oppose same-sex marriage. More than 500,000 of those, the data suggest, were parents with children under 18 living at home. Because the proposition passed by 600,000 votes, this shift alone more than handed victory to proponents.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise. The Yes on 8 campaign targeted parents in its TV ads. “Mom! Guess what I learned in school today!” were the cheery-frightening first words of the supporters' most-broadcast ad. They emerged from the mouth of a young girl who had supposedly just learned that she could marry a female when she grew up.
Among the array of untrue ideas that parents could easily take away: that impressionable kids would be indoctrinated; that they would learn about gay sex; that they would be more likely to become gay; and that they might choose to be gay. California voters, depending on where they lived in the state, were exposed to the Yes on 8 ads 20 to 40 times.
If you haven’t seen it, Netflix 8: The Mormon Proposition, a fairly rigorous documentary that examines the national campaign the Mormons waged against the proposition.
It’s nice—a supposed church collecting money from its flock under the guise of doing good works, and then using it to spread hate and intolerance.
Churches get a pass in our political debate—everyone’s scared to criticize groups that run around with the idea of morality draped about them.
But why can’t we call bigots bigots?
Why don’t they build tolerance rather than spread intolerance?
7:43 AM
Bishop Thomas "The Turtle" Olmsted: Candidate for Worst Arizonan!
It’s a tough competition in a state with Joe Arpaio, John McCain and Russell Pearce. But the head of the local Catholic diocese, Bishop Thomas “The Turtle” Olmsted, is right up there as one of the most despicable figures in the state.
E.J. Montini in the Republic noted this last month: That while the local Episcopal Bishop, Kirk Stevan Smith, has come out against SB 1070, Olmsted hasn’t said a word.
Olmsted’s counterpart in Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, has condemned the law in the most forthright terms, saying it used “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques.”
From Olmsted? Nothing.
Olmsted’s also the guy who presumably orchestrated the diocese’s $50,000 donation to an anti-gay marriage campaign in Maine in 2008…
… and he’s also made it clear to administrators at St. Joseph’s hospital that he’ll scuttle their careers if they even think about approving an abortion—even to save the life of the mother.
Religious people are supposed to be compassionate and righteous, the enemies of cruelty and hypocrisy. Olmsted is more like Tony Soprano, overseeing a many-fingered operation that lacks morality and enforces its dictats brutally.
He deserves an appropriate street name; given his testudinal visage, as seen above, it seems “The Turtle” is most appropriate.
8:29 AM
NPR reports on the debacle at St. Joseph's
(updated to include Bishop Olmsted’s testudinal visage, above)
Earlier this week it was revealed that a local bishop, Thomas J. Olmsted, had cashiered an administrator at St. Joseph’s hospital after she permitted an abortion to save the life of its mother.
(The bishop also excommunicated the mother, which hardly seemed sporting. I mean, having been in a position essentially to murder her had he been in the operating room that night, Bishop Olmsted with the parting shot of an excommunication leaves himself open to the charge of just being petty.)
NPR reports tonight and makes the obvious point:
It’s funny how the Catholic Church administers punishment with swiftness and surety when the victim is an 11-week-old fetus and the supposed criminal is a woman.
But it has never seemed to act with the same assurance when the victims are hundreds if not thousands of children and the criminals are scores if not hundreds of predatory male priests:
“In the case of priests who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children, they are in a sense let off the hook,” canon lawyer Rev. Thomas] Doyle says.
Doyle says no pedophile priests have been excommunicated. When priests have been caught, he says, their bishops have protected them, and it has taken years or decades to defrock them, if ever.
“Yet in this instance we have a sister who was trying to save the life of a woman, and what happens to her? The bishop swoops down [and] declares her excommunicated before he even looks at all the facts of the case,” Doyle says.
10:32 AM
SB 1070--The Mormon anti-immigration bill?
The Republic reports that the LDS is suffering some backlash because SB 1070 author Russell Pearce is a Mormon:
Kenneth Patrick Smith, a Mesa lawyer and president of the Valencia Branch, a Spanish-speaking LDS congregation in Mesa, said missionaries from his church have had doors slammed in their faces since Arizona’s new law was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in April.
“They say, ‘Why would we want to hear anything from a religion that would do this to the Hispanic community?’ ” said Smith, who emphasized that he was speaking for himself, not the church. “It’s a great disconnect because on one hand the missionaries are out there preaching brotherly love, kindness, charity, tolerance, faith, hope, etc., and then they see on TV a quote-unquote Mormon pushing this legislation that makes them not only … terrified but terrorized.”
The church itself says it doesn’t have a position on the legislation, though Pearce himself uses the church’s teachings to defend his law:
Pearce has repeatedly said his efforts to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and keep them from coming here is based on the Mormon Church’s 13 Articles of Faith, which includes obeying the law.
Pearce is a cretin and ordinarily it wouldn’t be fair to tar the church with his membership. But even the Catholic Church has smacked Pearce’s hateful bill; just by being silent, the Mormons are fostering bigotry …
…. as they have of course done against homosexuals.
Previously in PHXated: “Temples of Bigotry”
7:35 AM
Creepy bishop punishes a hospital administrator for allowing an abortion--to save a woman's life
A Catholic nun and longtime administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix was reassigned in the wake of a decision to allow a pregnancy to be ended in order to save the life of a critically ill patient.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, who indicated the woman was “automatically excommunicated” because of the action.
Bishop Olmsted is apparently also the guy who cashiered the nun. St. Joseph’s is the hospital on Thomas and Third Avenue.
The story explains:
The actions involving the administrator, mostly taken within the past couple of weeks, followed a last-minute, life-or-death drama in late 2009. The patient had a rare and often fatal condition in which a pregnancy can cause the death of the mother.
Sister Margaret McBride, who had been vice president of mission integration at the hospital, was on call as a member of the hospital’s ethics committee when the surgery took place, hospital officials said. She was part of a group of people, including the patient and doctors, who decided upon the course of action.
The patient was not identified, and details of her case cannot be revealed under federal privacy laws.
This decidedly un-compassionate act comes after another one the local diocese is known for—donating $50,000 to an anti-gay marriage political campaign in Maine in 2008.
So people who are donating to local Catholic churches are having their money go to hate campaigns in other states … and to prop up local abortion fetishists who persecute hospital administrators put in the position of having to make a horrible decisions — not to mention the sick patients whose life hung in the balance.
(Though we have to note that excommunication strikes us as a pretty positive development for the woman. I mean, it’s obvious the bishop wasn’t looking out for her best interests.)
And for the rest of us, who wants to patronize a hospital that will let its patient’s die because of the radical religious views of a crazy bishop?
1:10 PM
Those nutty Colorado City polygamists...
Two guys overseeing a fire district in Colorado City were arrested yesterday for allegedly using department funds for their own use, “the Republic says”:http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/08/20100408polygamy-colorado-city.html:
warrants [were] executed Tuesday against Town Manager David W. Darger and Fire Chief Jacob “Jake” Barlow. In an affidavit filed with Mohave County Superior Court, investigators accuse the two of looting money for personal use from the local Fire Department.Based on information submitted to the court, prosecutors received permission to search the suspects’ homes, offices and computers for evidence of fraudulent schemes.
Darger and Barlow have not been charged with any offense. They did not respond to phone messages.
The town and its sister city HIlldale, in Utah, is known as the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist sect that despite its name isn’t formally associated with the Mormon Church.
The paper includes this litany of trouble the town’s gotten itself into:
• The imprisonment of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, known as the “prophet,” for rape as an accomplice in connection with the marriage of an underage girl to an adult. Jeffs, already convicted in Utah, is awaiting trial on similar charges in Arizona and Texas.
• The conviction of about a dozen other men on charges involving sex with child brides.
• The seizure, via civil litigation, of United Effort Plan, an FLDS trust that controlled most of the property in Colorado City/Hildale, once valued at more than $100 million.
• The takeover of Colorado City’s school district, replacing FLDS board members who controlled it.
• The removal and decertification of about a half-dozen Colorado City peace officers.
6:49 AM
How I got screwed by the Easter bunny
According to the Arizona Republic, Easter is losing its punch:
Today, Easter Sunday remains the holiest day of the year for Christians, but it is far less significant outside church doors.
Given that—and the fact that Apple is based in godless California—you’d think you could have gone down to the Apple store yesterday and help a friend get a new laptop.
(No, not the iPad—you’d have to be crazy to get the first iteration of a new Apple product.)
I’m not a complete idiot, so I checked the store’s website to see time it opened on Sunday. 11 a.m., it said.
But when we got there, the store was dark, and a security guard, oddly, sat in the darkened interior, reading a book. This was undoubtedly made more difficult by the fact he was wearing sunglasses.
To make matters worse, there was a sign on a stand inside the door, saying clearly that the store was open at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
So, we thought—fuck the Apple Store.
We’ll go to Best Buy, which has those odd little sequestered “Apple tables.”
You can see this coming: Best Buy was closed too.
“If I’m not getting a laptop,” announced my friend, “I want ice cream.”
A perfect day for the classic Phoenix ice cream parlor Mary Coyle, yes?
Nope: No answer when we called.
What was particularly galling, in all three cases, is that the stores didn’t even both to use a sign or an answering machine message to say, “Hey, it’s Easter, numbnuts—We’re closed.”
They just assumed that people would know they weren’t open for Easter.
As usual, the Arizona Republic was wrong.
What did we do?
We went to Gallo Blanco and ate flan and postre de chocolate—and cursed the Easter bunny.
9:31 AM