A bit late, but...

The Moosetivity:

(via the Rude One, whose blog is quite obviously NOT SAFE FOR WORK)

Redistribution of wealth

Who all got a visit from that red-suited socialist today?

WAFFLES

Toronto is weird:

A 31-year-old man charged with mischief after throwing waffles on the ice at a Toronto Maple Leafs game says he did it out of frustration at the underperforming team.

...

Robb acknowledged he had thought about his actions, in that fans don't usually arrive at games with a box of waffles.

 Not without maple syrup, anyway. This is Canada.

Stop Playing the "Duplicitous Moron" Card

This review has been inspired by the high-grade excoriation to be found in abundance at World O'Crap.

Matthew J. Franck, the Washington Post:
"In the gay marriage debate, stop playing the hate card"

I am not familiar with the work of Matthew Franck, but the title alone says quite a lot. Mostly it says "I am a concern troll" with a dash of "these cherry-picked examples of liberal "oppression" are the best I could come up with against the vast religio-partriarchal complex."

In the debates over gay marriage, "hate" is the ultimate conversation-stopper.

Actually, no: it's what the whole conversation is about. And you know this. It's about your bigotry.

So, let's have some strawmen right off the bat:

Some stories from recent months: A religion instructor at a midwestern state university explains in an e-mail to students the rational basis for Catholic teaching on homosexuality. He is denounced by a student for "hate speech" and is dismissed from his position. (He is later reinstated - for now.) At another midwestern state university, a department chairman demurs from a student organizer's request that his department promote an upcoming "LGBTQ" film festival on campus; he is denounced to his university's chancellor, who indicates that his e-mail to the student warrants inquiry by a "Hate and Bias Incident Response Team."

Do they have cool uniforms? Was there rappelling involved? In slow motion?

On the west coast, a state law school moves to marginalize a Christian student group that requires its members to pledge they will conform to orthodox Christian doctrines on sexual morality. In the history of the school, no student group has ever been denied campus recognition. But this one is, and the U.S. Supreme Court lets the school get away with it.

Let's look at that last one, because it is emblematic of these convenient examples. The linked story (at the Post, natch) is about a requirement of the school that no student can be denied membership in a university-sanctioned club. This is because those clubs are funded in part by the school.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a once-respected civil rights organization...

 Once-respected by you, maybe, although you won't admit it because then the SPLC...

publishes a "report" identifying a dozen or so "anti-gay hate groups," some for no apparent reason other than their vocal opposition to same-sex marriage. Other marriage advocacy groups are put on a watch list.

The SPLC, he does not point out, in their most recent issue tackles "for no apparent reason" the issue of hate speech and the rising number of teen suicides due to anti-gay bullying. Which is a direct and deplorable result of this kind of hate speech.

On a left-wing Web site, a petition drive succeeds in pressuring Apple to drop an "app" from its iTunes store for the Manhattan Declaration, an ecumenical Christian statement whose nearly half-million signers are united in defense of the right to life, the tradition of conjugal marriage between man and woman, and the principles of religious liberty. The offense? The app is a "hate fest." Fewer than 8,000 people petition for the app to go; more than five times as many petition Apple for its reinstatement, so far to no avail.

"The offense?" Let's see what the good folks at change.org said in that article linked above:

After Apple approved an application that called gay people "sexually immoral" and suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to the end of civilization, more than 7,700 Change.org members emailed the company to ask them to pull the app. The app is now unavailable on the iTunes store.

So, yeah, I can see how that might be characterized as a hate-fest. Funny how those quotes (my emphasis) don't make it into his little pity party.

And for good measure, an example from a sitcom, because everything that happens in sitcoms is a reflection of liberal Jewish elitist Hollywood Ivy League Constitutional Law schools, funded by George Soros:

Finally, on "$#*! My Dad Says," a CBS sitcom watched by more than 10 million weekly viewers,

YOU CANNOT CONTAIN THE POWER OF THE SHATNER.

an entire half-hour episode is devoted to a depiction of the disapproval of homosexuality as bigotry, a form of unreasoning intolerance that clings to the past with a coarse and mean-spirited judgmentalism. And this on a show whose title character is famously irascible and politically incorrect, but who in this instance turns out to be fashionably cuddly and up-to-date.

And sensible. And to nitpick, it's a 22-minute episode, unless you think Slap Chop and Cash4Gold ads are part of the plot as well. That might explain a few things, actually.

What's going on here? Clearly a determined effort is afoot, in cultural bastions controlled by the left, to anathematize traditional views of sexual morality, particularly opposition to same-sex marriage, as the expression of "hate" that cannot be tolerated in a decent civil society. The argument over same-sex marriage must be brought to an end, and the debate considered settled. Defenders of traditional marriage must be likened to racists, as purveyors of irrational fear and loathing. Opposition to same-sex marriage must be treated just like support for now long-gone anti-miscegenation laws.

Well, yes. Because they're using the exact same arguments. It will lead to the destruction of society. It will create races of impure (ie. not white and straight) humans. It will pollute the VERY FABRIC OF TIME AND SPACE ITSELF.

This strategy is the counsel of desperation. In 30 states, the people have protected traditional marriage by constitutional amendment: In no state where the question has been put directly to voters has same-sex marriage been adopted by democratic majorities.

That is weaselling of the highest order (Mustela mustelinae, if you must know). Five states, plus DC, recognize and perform same-sex marriages, something which is not usually put to a popular vote because it's a matter of interpretation of the law. Which is done by the courts. I'm not even American and I understand what Separation of Powers means. Why does Matthew J. Franck hate the Constitution?

But the advocates of a revolution in the law of marriage see an opportunity in Perry v. Schwarzenegger , currently pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In his district court ruling in the case in August, Judge Vaughn Walker held that California's Proposition 8 enacted, "without reason, a private moral view" about the nature of marriage that cannot properly be embodied in public policy. Prop 8's opponents are hoping for similar reasoning from the appeals court and, ultimately, from the Supreme Court.

Haha! They want equality! Aren't they just precious?

The SPLC's report on "hate groups" gives the game away. It notes that no group is listed merely for "viewing homosexuality as unbiblical." But when describing standard expressions of Christian teaching, that we must love the sinner while hating the sin, the SPLC treats them as "kinder, gentler language" that only covers up unreasoning hatred for gay people. Christians are free to hold their "biblical" views, you see, but we know that opposition to gay marriage cannot have any basis in reason. Although protected by the Constitution, these religious views must be sequestered from the public square, where reason, as distinguished from faith, must prevail. 

Christians are free to hold their "biblical" views, you see, but not to enforce their moral code as law upon other people. That would be, you know, tyranny, something on which Jesus Christ had a few choice words. Reasoned words, I might add.

Marginalize, privatize, anathematize: These are the successive goals of gay-marriage advocates when it comes to their opponents.

Marginalize, privatize, anathematize: These are the long-standing goals of the GOP and their theocratic enablers.

First, ignore the arguments of traditional marriage's defenders, that marriage has always existed in order to bring men and women together so that children will have mothers and fathers, and that same-sex marriage is not an expansion but a dismantling of the institution. Instead, assert that no rational arguments along these lines even exist and so no refutation is necessary, and insinuate that those who merely want to defend marriage are "anti-gay thugs" or "theocrats" or "Taliban," as some critics have said.

Protip: if you're having to cite a Daily Kos diary to make your point, you need to start digging somewhere else. And no one's ignoring "the arguments of traditional marriage's defenders." We're refuting them. And mocking them. With SCIENCE.

Another protip: not all of us have mothers and fathers, and we turned out pretty good. My siblings did, anyway. I'm just an asshole with an internet connection.

Second, drive the wedge between faith and reason, chasing traditional religious arguments on marriage and morality underground, as private forms of irrationality.

These arguments aren't being chased underground, they're being discussed and critiqued. Open debate is the cornerstone of democracy, right up there with cutting taxes for the rich and getting every lobbyist their annual consignment of hookers and blow before the Fourth of July. Seriously, is there anything government can't mess up?

Finally, decree the victory of the new public morality - here the judges have their role in the liberal strategy - and read the opponents of the new dispensation out of polite society, as the crazed bigots of our day.

Except for still getting airtime on major networks and newspapers like the Washington Post and decrying "activist judges" with a straight face. Did you know that Justice Scalia will be speaking at a Tea Party caucus? Totally different.

American democracy doesn't need civility enforcers, nor must it become a public square with signs reading "no labels allowed." Robust debate is necessarily passionate debate, especially on a question like marriage. But the charge of "hate" is not a contribution to argument; it's the recourse of people who would rather not have an argument at all.

So stop doing it.

That is no way to conduct public business on momentous questions in a free democracy.

So stop doing it.

"Hate" cannot be permitted to be the conversation stopper in the same-sex marriage debate.

So stop doing it.

The American people, a tolerant bunch who have acted to protect marriage

And about half of whom support gay marriage. Or is that not the right kind of tolerance?

in three-fifths of the states,

Three-fifths is a good compromise! It worked for years!

just aren't buying it. And they still won't buy it even if the judges do.

CUE OMINOUS MUSIC.

But wait! There's more!

Matthew J. Franck is Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.

Fun fact: Matthew J. Franck also writes for the National Review Online, where this piece also appears. I can't imagine why the Washington Post would want to hide this fact.

Please stand by.

This blog is out of gin. Please visit at a later time, and bring some limes while you're at it.

Rest assured that our IT support team

is working around the clock to bring back the belligerent animosity you know and love.

Or might admit to knowing, anyway.

(image via)

We're back

and we survived. Mostly.

While we recuperate, kindly contemplate the following from "new folk" (whatever that means) band Stornoway:

Since releasing its first single, "Zorbing," in July 2009, the combo of Briggs, multi-instrumentalists Jon Ouin and Oli Steadman and drummer Rob Steadman has seen its fortunes rise. Favourable reviews, plenty of airplay and being lumped in with the 'new folk' scene with Mumford & Sons, Noah and the Whale and others lead [sic] to high profile gigs.

Emphasis min. McG will be pleased and/or flummoxed.

Also, LAX is easily the shittiest airport I have ever visited. No offence to our colleagues in the vicinity, but have you people not heard of mass transportation? We had to take an actual bus between terminals, driving on the tarmac, in close proximity to moving aircraft. I hope you feel secure.

It's 4am and I'm already at the airport

We are departing for warmer climes until Wednesday.With luck we will escape the TSA's tender touches en route to Las Vegas.

SPOILER ALERT: drinking may be involved.

Also, Google reliably informs me that the country with the second-most hits to this blog last month was... the Netherlands?

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

"Non-Newtonian housepets"

Awesome:

Finally, there is the case of “Giggles,” a largish calico of uncertain dimensions who was remarkable for his repeated and unsuccessful attempts to violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle with the neighbor’s tabby