Arizona S.C.R. 1042 Equates Homosexuality with Incest

It starts innocently enough, in the beginning SCR 1042 proclaims March 29 as Vietnam Veterans’ Day in Arizona. And then it changed, to a strike-everything amendment.

As passed by the Senate, S.C.R. 1042 proclaims March 29 as Vietnam Veterans’
Day in Arizona.

The House of Representatives adopted a strike everything amendment that does the following:
Purpose

Subject to voter approval, constitutionally defines marriage as a union of one
man and one woman.
Background

Statute prohibits certain people from marrying. Specifically, A.R.S. § 25-101 proscribes and nullifies marriage between parents and children, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree, and between brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews and between first cousins. Section 25-101, A.R.S., also specifies that marriage between persons of the same sex is void and prohibited. Therefore, Arizona law does not recognize a marriage contracted in any other state or country that is between two persons of the same sex.

The 2006 ballot included Proposition 107, which constitutionally stipulated that only a union between one man and one woman is valid or recognized as marriage in Arizona, and prohibited legal status for unmarried persons that is similar to marriage from being created or recognized by this state or its political subdivisions.

Proposition 107 was not passed by the voters.

There is no anticipated fiscal impact associated with this measure.

To Senator Robert Blendu, who voted Yes to this blight,

You are to represent all of your constituents, not just the Fundamentalist Christian constituents. Not just the extremist homophobes. Not all Christians feel threatened by legal unions between members of the same sex. Not all Arizonans are Christian. And many of us believe in reason and compassion over dogma and superstition.

As a registered Libertarian I am often confronted with the assumption of others that I am more likely to vote Republican than Democrat. In the past that may have been true. However, during the past eight years I’ve witnessed our government expand as never before under the current Republican watch. With the growing theocracy of Republican leaders, such as yourself, I can only see the current Republican policy as an affront to the American philosophy of freedom and liberty. The bulleted highlights of your bio list you as a Bible Study teacher, Chairman of the Finance Committee and member of the Official Board of the Glendale Light and Life Church. Since you put so much emphasis on your religious affiliations it is no surprise that you have a failure to understand the secular nature of your position as Senator. SCR1042 equates homosexuality with incest. There is no explanation for restricting marriage to one man and one woman that isn’t fueled by superstition and dogma.

In a free country, consenting unrelated adults should have the right to form whatever configuration of union they wish. It is not government’s business. It is not your business. Whenever I next see your name on the ballot, I will be sure to check the box without your name, regardless of who that person may be.

Hollywood and Atheists are to Blame?

A "culture war" in America between religion and atheism is the underlying cause of the war on terror, political commentator Dinesh D'Souza told a crowd of about 150 people Wednesday night at Harris Hall.

…um… no… that would be completely wrong.

I’m not a political science expert (or even a novice) and my education on the subject is formed from watching the Discovery and the History Channel. And I don’t think a topic as involved as Western and Middle Eastern politics could be nicely summed up in a blog post, much less a once sentence sound bite.

But here are some of my opinions as to why there’s a “war on terror”:

In 1953, the United States decided to overthrow the democratically elected prime minister in Iran because we didn’t like him nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. In his place we put in a more U.S. friendly monarch, the Shah.

Surprisingly the Iranians weren’t too fond of our puppet leader, or us, and starting listening to an active critic of the Shah and the US; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. They had a revolution. Since we kept messing in their business, they took the US Embassy hostage. We froze Iranian assets (and have to this day, not released them.)

Saddam Hussein decided to take advantage of the disorder and started the Iran-Iraq War. Iran pushed back and then sought to expand the Iranian Revolution (or Islamic Revolution) into Iraq. The US backed Saddam Hussein (and sold some weapons to Iran as well, what the hey.) Eventually there was a UN mediated truce.

Thanks to our medaling, there is now a government in Iran devoted to eliminating outside influences.

In 1979, as a part of our Cold War strategy, we began having a war by proxy with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. When we “won” in Afghanistan, we lost interest in the country leaving it’s war ravaged corpse for the warlords to fight over.

Many Muslims from other countries volunteered to assist various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan, and gained significant experience in guerrilla warfare. Organized religious students formed into an armed movement, were backed by Pakistan, funded by the U.S, defeated most of the militias and took control of Afghanistan. “Students” by the way is the English translation of the Pashto word “Taliban”.

One of the mujahideen groups was al-Qaeda, formed by bin Laden. They fought against the Soviets and then Bin Laden went from being a hero of jihad in Saudi Arabia to being an enemy of the Saudi monarchy for his opposition to non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia (that would be the U.S. during the first Gulf War.) Bin Laden hates the U.S., socialism, communism, democracy, Israel, and pretty much anything outside of his particular code of Islam (including music.) He believes in an all out war against everything he hates and any innocents that are killed (there’s probably no such thing as an innocent infidel in his book) are justified martyrs in the jihad. I don’t believe we’re responsible for the creation of a monster like Bin Laden, but we are responsible or at least complicit, for creating an environment in which he could thrive.

Oh, and an “Atheist” to Bin Laden would be everyone not his particular brand of Muslim.

In one of the Bin Laden videos, he says,

“It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam. We have witnessed the true crimes of those who call themselves humanists and claim to be defenders of freedom. Those who lived under continuous US raids for the past months are aware of it. How many villages have been destroyed and how many millions have been pushed out in the freezing cold? These men, women and children who have been damned and now live under tents in Pakistan, have committed no sin. They are innocent. But on a mere suspicion, the United States has launched this fierce campaign.”

I don’t know about you, but if I’m living in poverty, in a country that’s being ripped apart by war, hearing about villages that are getting bombed by those U.S. devils, I’m going to think this Bin Laden guy is right. And if I live in a country that has a history of the those U.S. devils interfering with my government because they want my country’s oil and they start making air-strikes against my country, I’m not going to think I’m being liberated. The U.S. practically pushes people into terrorist training camps.

This entry has gone on way longer than I expected to and I didn’t even get into our debacle in Iraq. But really it’s all just the same shit in a different country. We mess around in other people’s business, piss people off, kill people, meddle in their governments, destroy people’s lives, and then wonder why nobody likes us. We need to learn to mind our own damn business.