Chatty Extremist Christians

When I was a kid, Mattel sold these dolls called Chatty Cathy. You pulled a string in the doll's back, and it would say something, like "Would you play with me?" I think there were eleven phrases or so, played back randomly, in June Foray's voice. (June was also the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.) You couldn't have a real conversation, of course, because its "response" had nothing to do with what you said to it. Exchanges went something like this:

Pirate Movies

As early as 1398, the word "royalty" was borrowed into English (from the French roialte) to refer to the "office or position of a sovereign". In those days, the King owned everything. If you wanted to live on a bit of property, or cut down a tree, or hunt for a rabbit—you had to pay that royalty for the privilege. As centuries passed, people accepted "paying the royalty" as a fact of life. By 1839, the word was used to refer to paying any landowner (not just a King) for the use of a mine, and by 1857, payment to an author or composer for the use of his work.

Shut Up About Human Rights!

The United Nations allows about 3000 groups to come before it and speak on subjects of concern. These groups include the International Red Cross, for example. Which groups can be heard by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is controlled by the NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) committee. 18 nations are on this committee, including the United States.

Why Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

Being gay is not natural.
Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

Gays In The Bible

Take all this fuss over gay marriage. Christian extremists who want to impose their own lifestyle and beliefs on me insist the Bible defines marriage as being between "one man and one woman" and that is their basis for the oppressive laws they propose. Well, even if true, that shouldn't matter because the Constitution of the United States is the basis for our law, not the Boy Scout Handbook, Redbook, and certainly not the Bible.

Even so, they're still wrong. The Bible isn't nearly as clear-cut as fundamentalists would like to think on the subject of marriage. In fact, it describes eight different types!

The Return of Prissy Pamela

One day, as I sat waiting for my piano lesson, my classmate Pam, the most popular girl in the class (as she had described herself to me) came out from her lesson and had to sit with me on Mrs. Capella's porch to wait for her mom. And she wasn't reticent to talk to me. She had a long list of my shortcomings, and was eager to share them. In other words, she spent the next twenty minutes telling me exactly why I was a creep.

Changing The World

A few days ago, Dear Abby printed a letter from a man who was about to be married, and who had asked his gay brother to be his best man. The brother refused, on the grounds that, since he couldn't legally get married, he couldn't in good conscience attend a wedding until the discriminatory laws are changed.

In Favor of Panic Defenses

Predictably, organizations that support gays and lesbians also support the idea of disallowing a defense plan that makes the victim's sexual orientation the centerpiece of the trial. But I disagree. I just don't think we have enough panic defenses. I would support keeping the Gay Panic Defense as long as we also pass a Federal law to allow these additional panic defenses:

Loathing

On every side, we find evidence that suppressed sexuality erupts in perverted sexuality, just as people who starve themselves dieting usually wind up binging. What would you expect? As human appetites, neither will be denied. Yet powerful churches continue to demand such repression.

Whattyacallit

However, the argument that "marriage" has always meant "a man and a woman" is false. In pre-Communist China's Fujian province, up to the second century in Europe, in ancient Rome and Greece, among Native North Americans, and in several African tribes, male-male marriages were common enough to be ritualized and documented.

Missing The Point

There's a hilarious new product coming soon to your Costco store shelves. It's called Batter Blaster^?; and, according to its web site, "it makes organic light and fluffy pancakes and light and crisp waffles in minutes!"

The Gays Are Getting Married

As you know unless you've been living under a rock, the California Supreme Court struck down the discriminatory law forbidding California gays and lesbians to marry a couple of weeks ago, and ordered the state to issue gender-neutral marriage licenses to any couples who wish to marry, starting yesterday. One of the first couples to get one, and the first to get married, were Phyllis Lyon (84) and Del Martin (87), a couple whose six-decade relationship has outlasted those of basically any Republican politician or "Pro-Family" Christian fraudster. The first couple to obtain a license in West Hollywood was George Takei and Brad Altman, who've been together a mere 21 years. George Takei, of course, played Lieutenant Sulu on Star Trek; after the couple got their license, Takei called to the crowd outside the West Hollywood city auditorium, "may equality live long and prosper."

Marriage Equality

You can't help but think that, if these people would devote half the energy to their own marriages that they have spent trying to prevent other people from getting married, their own marriages might be a lot more satisfying.