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.

Shame on you Trent Franks

I wanted to write a thank you to the nine house representatives who voted NO to House Resolution 847 to "Recognize the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith" but they have blockers so that only their constituents can send emails. Then nine who I'd like to thank are:

Gary Ackerman (D-NY)
Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Diana DeGette (D-CO)
Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Bobby Scott (D-VA)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
Pete Stark (D-CA)

Please write your representative and let them know how you feel about this vote.

As The Exterminator points out:

the House has now formalized, in whatever small way, four very scary ideas.
They're not stated explicitly, but implied, although the meanings are clear nonetheless. In the following list, the numbers correspond to the highlighted portions of the document that support each idea. (The highlighting and numbering are mine.)
Idea 1:
America is a Christian nation: 1, 2, 3, 5
Idea 2:
America was founded as a Christian nation: 3, 5
Idea 3:
Christians in America are being assailed by secularists and need support: 4, 6
Idea 4:
The United States has a mission to defend worldwide Christianity against its enemies: 2, 6, 7

So borrowing from his bullet points I've written the following to Trent Franks (R-AZ) who voted Yes:

Shame on you for voting for House Resolution 847 to “Recognize the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.” I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the supernatural. And while I enjoy any holiday that gives me a paid day off from work accompanied by rich food and festive lighting, I don’t enjoy the constant threat against reason from superstition. The separation between Church and State is growing ever thinner and I’m saddened that you were not one of the nine representatives willing to stand up to enforce that line. America is not a Christian nation, it was not founded as a Christian nation, Christians are not being assailed by secularists -- if anything it’s the non-Christians that are being assailed -- and the United States should not be on a mission to defend worldwide Christianity against its enemies.

Only nine were willing to stand up and say “No” to theocracy. You weren’t one of them. Shame on you.

Sentient Creature Products

Every morning I go through the same ritual. I take a shower and wash, paying particular attention to the stinky bits. Dry off. Add additional deodorants to the stinky bits. Brush and gargle the food ingestion bit. Put makeup on the presentation identity bit. Make sure nothing is hanging out of the primary oxygen intake bit. Etcetera. Which made me ponder the Creationist argument; "All this is so complicated, it must have a designer."

Nightline had a Creation vs. Evolution debate awhile ago with Kurt Cameron and Ray Comfort on the Xtian side and the Blasphemy Challenge on the other. One piece of "evidence" the Xtian side used, I don’t remember if it was Cameron or Comfort, was a painting. Perhaps it was the Mona Lisa. Their argument was that if you looked at something created, like a painting, you knew there had to be a painter, or creator, behind it.

I’d like to run with this concept for awhile.

First off, a painting like the Mona Lisa doesn’t just happen. Leonardo da Vinci, brilliant as he was, wasn’t born one day and creating the Mona Lisa the next. He learned his skills as an apprentice of another artist, Verrocchio, who learned some of his skills from Donatello, who received some of his training from Lorenzo Ghiberti. Leonardo learned anatomy, performed dissections, observed and produced studies, was exposed to technical skills along with the various artistic skills from other artists. His work would have started raw and progressed as his skills grew. In other words, his work, the Mona Lisa, was his later contribution in the evolution of his own skills and to the evolution of art as a whole. It was not the first painting ever produced by anyone.

Second, a painting doesn’t do anything. I am a complex system, made up of thousands of other, smaller complex systems. Looking around at complex systems that we know for a fact have been created, were created by teams of people. They were also advancements of other simpler complex systems. Bill Gates didn’t just wave his hands and create Windows Vista. He’s got hundreds of developers and engineers that have been working for years, advancing technology from simpler operating systems. Even the ancestor of operating systems, older than DOS, the CP/M (Control Program/Monitor), was composed of other systems (the console command processor or CCP, basic disk operating system or BDOS, and basic input/output system or BIOS.)

Third, and last, I’d like to point out that even if I and my operating system were the result of designers, there is no celestial patent office around to prove who gets the credit. It might be Yahweh and Son, Allah Inc., Xenu & Co., or even Taiowa. Just because a company is popular and currently dominates the market share, doesn’t mean they created the product. It could be they bought it from Sentient Creature Products for $50,000.