Misanthropy on the Mall
[I have changed the title of this diary, but not the content. The original title reflected my feelings and thoughts immediately following this event. It has served its purpose. It was intended to provoke the discussion which subsequently took place. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Greg]
I’ve grown so cynical about the cynical attempts to “protect” marriage with a constitutional amendment that I’ve coined my own phrase for proponents: Maggots - a blend of marriage and bigotry produces big maggots. They were in abundance this morning on the Halifax Mall, a veritable quiverfull of bored teenagers, angry white men and women in long denim skirts with woolen tights. Yes there were nice people there - very, very, quiet, nice people.
I don’t need to repeat the rhetoric. You know the script and you’ll read it elsewhere. No surprises. The crowd was large, larger than last year, but I seriously doubt the claim of 12,000. Maybe half that at most.
David Gibbs, main speaker and the epitome of a suitable boy. What a fine catch. One of Gibbs rabble rousing pitches was that “There are some people who want to marry their dogs. I’d rather marry a dog than marry some people”.
Sen. Jim Forrester, primary sponsor of the Senate “Defense of Marriage” marriage amendment bill.
One of the subtle ironies of the event was the introduction of Rep. Tim Moore as having filed a “companion Bill” in the House.
Fred Smith running for Governor pitching for the vote of “one man” and “one woman”. That makes two votes. It’s a start.
Andrew Brock testifies to Pastor Baity. Goes directly to rehab after the event.
Phil Berger doesn’t waste any opportunity to be on camera these days.
Bored teenagers can’t wait to get back to the Christian Academy to read this week’s installment of the Old Testament.
Called2Action’s Steve Noble whispers behind Uncle Sam. “He doesn’t know we’re trying to change the Constitution”.
Rep Carolyn Justus. The only woman allowed to speak. (The only other woman sang).
Rep Bonner Stiller pointing to Carolyn Justus saying “That is one woman”.
Ron Baity equating the fight for the marriage amendment and a firm foundation of “Judeo-Christian principles” with the revolutionary war. “The crowd that opposes us is loud and militant”, and is “trying to steamroll over what we believe”. He wants to “take America back to where it used to be”.
Nervous men contemplate assaults on their virility.
Tagged:
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Are you sure this isn't. . .
Just a group of folks protesting discrimination against the obese, unfashionable, and stupid?
Or the convention of cheap suits?
Or the Raleigh Combover Club?
No wonder these people fear gay sex---they no doubt fear sex with each other!
Yikes! In my neighborhood, they'd be called the Ugly Muthafucka Club!
War is over if you want it.
Jesus Matchmakers gone wild Video for only $6.66?
Probably haven't had a good 2 minutes in the missionary position in a loooooong while.*SD
Naw! No doubt the 6000 propects or protestors were simply a example of the newest TV singles matchmaker on-line service gone wild. They should demand a refund from the service now!
Wait a minute! Is that Senator Fred Smith licking Uncle Sam ear?
They were all just trying to hook up
Look at the desperate looks on their faces. Probably haven't had a good 2 minutes in the missionary position in a loooooong while.
Yeah....I edited it :)
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
Edit
I thought you might. I even got an email from Jack Betts today saying "I always need a good editor!" Everybody needs a good ... edit once in a while.
Yes....I probably need to edit more often
I'm just sayin............
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
From the N&O: "A companion
From the N&O:
"A companion bill was introduced in the House yesterday signed by 62 co-sponsors -- 50 Republicans and 12 Democrats, said state Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican from Cleveland."
OK, time to find out who the 12 are.
Anyone?
"85% of Republicans are Democrats who don't know what's going on." -Robert Kennedy, Jr.
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire
here are the sponsors and co's
Status: [H] Filed on 03/05/2007
Sponsors
Primary: Moore; Crawford; Hill; Johnson;
Co: Allred; Almond; Avila; Barnhart; Bell; Blackwood; Blust; Boylan; Brisson; Brown; Brubaker; Church; Clary; Cleveland; Cole; Current; Daughtridge; Daughtry; Dockham; Dollar; England; Folwell; Frye; Gillespie; Gulley; Hilton; Holloway; Holmes; Hurley; Justice; Justus; Killian; Kiser; Langdon; Lewis; Love; McComas; McElraft; McGee; Neumann; Pate; Pierce; Ray; Samuelson; Setzer; Spear; Stam; Starnes; Steen; Stiller; Thomas; Tillis; Walend; Walker; R. Warren; West; Wiley; Yongue;
I'll need help sifting through the respective affiliations
War is over if you want it.
Boylan
Darn hairdresser. Another embarassment for Moore County...
Sponsors
House Bill 493: Defense of Marriage
Don't have time to sort them out but compare it to this Member List
Maggots
Perfect. Marriage Bigots.
Looks like Fredly Smith is getting his wacko credentials polished up a little.
Here we go:Sponsors:
Here we go:
Sponsors:
Crawford - (D - Vance, Granville)
Hill - (D - Brunswick, Columbus, ancient)
Cosponsors:
Bell - (D - Sampson, Wayne - geezer)
Brisson (D - Bladen, Cumberland)
Church - (D - Burke - Methuseleh)
Cole - (D - Rockingham)
England - (D - Cleveland, Rutherford, hoary)
Love (ironic, ain't it) (D-Harnett, Lee)
Pierce - (D-Hoke, RObeson, Scotland, land of good government)
Spear - (D - Chowan, Dare, Hyde, Washington)
R. Warren - (D - Catawba, Alexander)
Yongue - (D - Hoke, Robeson, Scotland - 297 years old)
AND NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS A WEBSITE
"85% of Republicans are Democrats who don't know what's going on." -Robert Kennedy, Jr.
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire
so,
Will this thing die in the Senate?
Any takers?
War is over if you want it.
Yongue - (D - Hoke, Robeson, Scotland - 297 years old)
ROTFLOL. This had me rolling with laughter. Will have to use that list in my update on this.
--
Pam Spaulding
Durham, NC USA
Pam's House Blend
www.pamshouseblend.com
--
Pam Spaulding
Durham, NC USA
Pam's House Blend
www.pamshouseblend.com
Yeah, I was laughing too hard to comment
but Methuselah is my guy. (Hey, it's in my spell check!) Hoary was good, too. But 297 was the real laugh line, tho. I'm laughing again.
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.” So enjoy the drama.
I missed a good protest protest!
Blast. I mean I love going to these things just to get a kick outta them.
Like Max B. from the Nation, someone should ask, "if everyone here is for protecting marriage, than why have 50% divorced?"
Our children need to know that some people fought back, when others collaborated.
Our children need to know that some people fought back, when others collaborated.
They would tackel you and TAKE YOU DOWN
if you ever asked that question of their sheeple!
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Progressive Discussions
Someone who just starting working as a staffer
for a House rep told me, "There were all these Christians milling around in really bad polyester suits. What was that all about?
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.” So enjoy the drama.
Good story on WUNC today about this
My favorite part: Fred Smith talking about how the marriage bigots are just like the good people fighting slavery back in England. WTF? This guy is a bigger lunatic than I thought.
Ed Cone
takes issue with the headline, specifically the word "maggots." In doing so, he raises the question of linkability, which I presume to mean he doesn't feel comfortable linking to BlueNC, except in this case he's linking to the thing he finds offensive.
I get his point, though it is a bit ironic.
In any case, I've heard from more than a few people lately that they'd read my stuff more if I didn't swear so much . . . and I am taking that on as a project.
And I still think Greg's collapsing of "marriage" and "bigots" is pretty much on the mark.
Ed is sensitive about maggots?
I find it entirely appropriate to refer to bigots as larvae that feed on rotting flesh.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
***************************
Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
Give me a break, Anglico
“I presume to mean he doesn't feel comfortable linking to BlueNC, except in this case he's linking to the thing he finds offensive.”
You not only presume incorrectly, you seem to have short memory.
I link to BlueNC frequently, and include the site in my blogroll.
I have a problem with calling a large crowd of people “maggots.” I would have liked to link appreciatively to the reporting and the photo on this topic, I felt constrained from doing so.
I know you link often to BlueNC
and I appreciate it. I meant no offense. I was just commenting on the irony of your linking to an entry that you felt uncomfortable about.
Seriously, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I just didn't handle my observation about the irony very well.
I took a break from reading your blog for awhile and really missed it. Even though I'm not a Greensboro guy, I love having a front-row seat on the topics you tee up.
Please accept my apologies for any offense.
Ed, would you feel more comfortable with the title
Marriage Bigots on the Mall?
No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Progressive Discussions
I feel like saying "Now BOYS"
Except that it's not all boys. The problem Ed is having lies at the core of the difference between the so-called mainstream media and the freewheeling funhouse that is the blogosphere . . .
We nutjobs can't complain when someone wanting to seem more mainstream says they won't use (or link to) our stuff because it's more partisan-sounding. That's the game, guys.
I always remind myself that we're the ones not pretending to be anything other than what we are. Do we have as much influence as someone who tries to appear less partisan? Who knows? But, remember, we're the ones having more fun.
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.” So enjoy the drama.
More comfortable, yes
Seems within bounds to me in a way that "maggots" does not.
Look, I'm not the word police. As I said at my blog, you are free to tell me to go piss up a rope. It's your site, your rules. I'm just a reader and a linker, reacting to a choice of verbiage.
My last word
Drama Queen, I've been blogging for five years and I'm having plenty of fun. I say what I want to say. The problem with calling people "maggots" isn't that it's partisan, it's that it's dehumanizing and childish.
you give and you get
In the past 6 years i have been called a traitor, a terrorist, an agent of the devil and many other things.
And that is just because I opposed the war in Iraq and dont understand why we should ban something that is already (and wrongfully) illegal.
When you have people running around comparing congressmen and women to Osama bin Laden and calling a candidate for President "faggot" I think calling people maggots ranks as little more offensive than calling them hacks.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Petition
"Keep the Faith"
Less offensive, yes, but
being relatively less wrong doesn't make one right.
my point
wasnt that maggots is less wrong, and it wasnt that two wrongs dont make a right.
civil discourse in this country is dead. Acting like we are above that doesnt fix anything.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Petition
"Keep the Faith"
Say it ain't so!
On a respirator, maybe, but not dead!
And to torture the analogy, I wouldn't want to be the one to pull the plug.
is pulling
the plug on something that is brain dead really torture?
i guess we know where you stood on the terry schiavo case.
ok. no more bad attempts at puns. I am not greg.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Petition
"Keep the Faith"
I'm with Ed on this one
It is not nice to call people "maggots". I'll add, however, that the nature of political blogging seems to demand limit-testing, which inevitably results in a fair amount of line-crossing (the kind of thing that can get you fired from your job with the Edwards campaign, say). Greg's use of the word "maggot" seems to me to be one of those situations (sorry, Greg, if you disagree), but not so awful as to demand deletion.
Had more to say over at Ed's place about the difference between what people deserve and what they can expect, but I have to get back to work now, so if you care you'll need to click the link.
Marri-gots
... anyone?
This is not easy. The whole issue is painful. I have to say that the maggot thing makes it harder. If only because I want to be able to keep talking to these people.
I'm sure I could get angry at them for their meanness and just let it go and lash out ... if I could just get past this feeling of my heart hurting; a deep deep ache. It feels too much like betrayal.
I have a dear dear relative whom I totally admire and adore who works for a prime sponsor of this ugliness-in-legislative-form. As far as I know, they are silent.
I come at this from different directions. As a child I learned about Christianity and the teachings of Jesus from the Bible my grandmother sent me for my tenth birthday. It was a little white leather bound red-letter KJV. I was intrigued by the words in red. As a result, I only read the Gospels and the first few chapters of Acts. Those parts now form the core of my own personal faith. No where in the teachings of Christ is there cruelty, distain, disrespect or meanness. No. where.
Another direction comes from just growing up in NC around decent hardworking, live-and-let-live regular people. I picked up their snippets of wisdom. One that stuck in my head from the first time I heard it is,
And not finally, but finally for now, most of these people are otherwise good and sincere. Its just that somehow they've been convinced that humbling themselves before God means they also have to humble their minds and personal opinions before their minister or priest or preacher. They hear words of fear and danger and judgement from these men, their leaders, and they don't see the horrible harm they do to other human beings with their words and their absolutes and their cold hard hearts.
It is cruelty when their actions (following the absolutes called for by their leaders) are carried out in the lives of their neighbors. As such, their actions cannot be christian. They can't. This is all just the newest shade of inducing fear/distain in peoples minds so as to create an enemy against which the leaders can protect and lead the people.
Nothing bonds disparate individuals like a common very dangerous enemy who is coming to get them and their children.
"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
Diet of Worms
Diet of Worms
Source: Wikipedia
just so you know what you are doing here...
You are comparing your calling people "maggots" to Martin Luther. Yes, the Martin Luther who inspired the Reformation. You are comparing your name calling to Martin Luther.
I would argue that all of this name calling isn't progressive and that it only serves to affirm what the leaders of the anti-gay movement are telling people: that liberals and pro-gay people are nasty people who have no respect for them or their faiths.
Greg, you need to put yourself in the positions of these people. They are being told that homosexuality is an illness (something the entire establishment/medical community supported until less than 30 years ago) and that they should love the sinner and hate the sin. They are being told to ban same sex marriage so that they can help gay people.
Gay rights are advancing thanks to people reaching out and explaining why gays and lesbians are wonderful people and why their sexuality is natural, neutral and something that they are entitled to. This name calling is hurting that progress.
When you suggest that these people are just a bunch of hateful bigots, you are showing that you don't understand what we are up against.
"Repealing the estate tax is like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics". - Warren Buffett
"Repealing the estate tax is like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics". - Warren Buffett
Just so you know
I also said: "Yes there were nice people there - very, very, quiet, nice people."
Much of what has been attributed to me has not actually been said by me.
As to Martin Luther, I was raised Catholic and draw no comparisons with him. I do note the irony of that passage in the context of centuries of intra-Christian strife since his time.
I did not "suggest that these people are just a bunch of hateful bigots" however nothing about this rally had to do with "loving the sinner".
Same sex marriage is already banned.
N&O
This rally was about sticking it to the "sinner", gay or straight unmarried and while nominally about defending the abstract "institution of marriage" did nothing to support those real individuals engaged in or attempting to engage in the "institution of marriage".
I <3 Diet of Worms
Misanthropy. Well said.
I appreciate this entry enormously. It has spawned wide-ranging discussion and introspection . . . and it has called an ugly spade an ugly spade.
Over at Ed's place, there's ongoing dialog between most people and a few oppressed reactionaries - with an underlying current that somehow it's not fair to consider the misanthropes a homogeneous group. I reject that current and applaud your take on this radical fringe of the emerging theocracy.
These people - ALL OF THEM - believe they speak for god and that god speaks for them. More to the point, they want to have the Law of our Land shaped by their personal beliefs.
There is nothing to say about that other than: It is wrong.
Ed Cone, hello!
I will stand by my comment. I can't imagine you are having as much fun as we are if you haven't at least WANTED to use the word maggot. It's such a juicy word.
Is it dehumanizing and childish? I guess so. I have a hard time worrying about dehumanizing people who are trying to dehumanize me. But it certainly IS childish. And I enjoy being childish.
But I will defend to the death your right to say you don't want to link to a post here because you think it is not in the literary style your readers would appreciate. Is that fair enough?
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.” So enjoy the drama.
It's not about my readers,
It's not about my readers, it's about the purpose and effectiveness of this site, and the tone of politics in general.
I think BlueNC is on its way to being an important part of state politics. I hope it is rowdy and smart and fun to read, without compromising its values.
If it chooses to define its values as lowest-common-denominator they-do-it-too mommy-he-hit-me-first talk-radio bullshit, well, that's a path to take, it's just not the path that I see leading to the highest and best use of this community, or one I find particularly interesting or palatable.
I'm one reader. Your mileage may vary.
group think
That is the difference between a community blog and anything else out there. When I post something it is my thoughts. Part of the reason for using certain words and language is to fight through the noise that is surrounding politics right now.
Certain words, like "wrong" and "lie" are almost never used. While others, like "traitor" and "terrorist" are used all the time. I am not endorsing ad hominen attacks. What I am endorsing is a certain amount of contempt who are lying about politics in this state, and who are hypocrites. I will not apologize for that.
But the joy of this site, is that we are not an "it". This isnt the borg.
Draft Brad Miller -- NC Sen ActBlue :::Petition
"Keep the Faith"