Ms. Clinton. Gay Marriage, DADT, And "Dr. Death"

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law that prohibited interracial marriages. The Court said: "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Twenty years later this axiom still holds true, and provides the strong logic underpinning the argument in favor of gay marriage. Unfortunately, NONE of the major Democratic candidates running for president are willing to embrace the Court's logic and take a stand in favor of gay marriage. Ms. Clinton is so backward on the issue that until just recently she actually SUPPORTED the hateful "Defense Of Marriage Act" signed into law by her philandering husband. Ever the cunning political operative, she now says that a PORTION of DOMA should be scrapped in that gay and lesbian couples should receive federal benefits, but only in those states with legal gay marriage or domestic partnerships. Talk about unfair! The rest of us can just go take a hike, I guess. Now this is really political needle threading taken to the ultimate degree. Anyone who thinks that this woman and her husband will not throw gays and lesbians under the bus the first time they get put on the spot about gays is severely deluded!

I read that they released "Doctor Death" Jack Kevorkian from prison. At age 79, he has been paroled after eight years in jail for assisting about 130 terminally ill people to end their lives with dignity. Kevorkian had to make a lot of promises to get out of jail, so he won't be able to help anyone else die, even if someone comes to him and pleads for his help. He considers the U.S. a "tyrannical" country and he's right, of course. We live in a country that is more and more under the control of Christian cult tyrants who will not be satisfied until they impose their beliefs upon the rest of us. To me Kevorkian is a hero who helped a lot of dying people when they needed his help the most. It's not him who should be in jail, but the nut cases on the far religious right who are trying to rob the rest of us of our basic human right to die with dignity. Each any every one of us ought to be free to make our own decision about our quality of life if we are stricken with a terminal illness. I will allow no religious fanatic to make that decision for me and I will oppose their efforts to pass laws that interfere with my right to make my own end-of-life-decisions.

Returning to one of my favorite targets, Ms. Clinton, in addition to refusing to admit that her vote to authorize the war in Iraq was a mistake, she also refuses to admit that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a a costly mistake. No, it's a good "transitional policy," says Ms. Clinton. Now let's see, we continue to dismiss openly gay linguists from the military who know Arabic even though there is a critical shortage of these experts in the fight against terrorism. But no, DADT is not a mistake, and if another terror attack occurs against us somewhere due in part due to to the lack of trained Arabic translators, well, we'll just chalk it up to our "transitional" policy and that'll explain it all and make everyone just feel so much better about the body bags. Ah, Hillary, silly me, I just don't understand about political pandering, er, I mean "transitional" policies, do I?

Photo: this interesting little perennial blossomed again this year. I'll have to look it up because I forget what it is!

Jim