Well, now we know what fires up the rubes who run OKC's daily paper, The Oklahoman. It would seem the editorial staff of that suspect publication has what could almost be called a fetish about gay people.
Usually the right wing rag is barely interested in anything, other than overcharging for ad space, sports, and the occasional local murder. Although in the last instance it has to be a spectacularly gruesome act of violence and the victim is required to be white.
It is doubtful The Oklahoman would have dedicated as much ink to an ISIS terrorist attack on Pearl Harbor as it did to yesterday's Supreme Court decision to not decide anything about the issue of gay marriage.
Besides a huge headline, four local reporters, plus the paper's Washington Bureau writer all had stories covering the Supreme's refusal to hear appeals of lower court decisions. Those rulings had previously overturned laws in Indiana, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, which outlawed gay marriage. In Oklahoma it rendered a state constitutional amendment, which had been passed in 2004 doing the same thing, invalid.
For all practical purposes the entire front page of The Oklahoman dealt with the decision, as did pages two through five. The front section of today's edition was only eight pages long and that eighth and back one was top to bottom advertising. All the journalistic hysteria left one page for the usual GOP propaganda, which passes for op-ed pieces and another for world news. You know, things like the ISIS thugs running amok and two guys in the U.S. suffering from the Ebola virus. Those abbreviated stories shared space with a series of AP snippets which ran the gamut from news about the Seattle City Council renaming Columbus Day, a paragraph about Saturn's moon, Titan, and four other day old highlights from around the world.
As can be imagined the non-decision appalled many notable people which was well documented, even as at least 14 same sex couples were getting married in the metro area. Chris Casteel quoted Governor Mary Fallin, who became engaged to her first husband at a party thrown by Playboy Magazine impresario Hugh Hefner, as saying, "The will of the people has now been overridden by unelected federal justices, accountable to no one. That is both undemocratic and a violation of state's rights."
State's rights would be the same argument the south used to justify slavery and secession. It was soundly defeated by another act of the people known as the Civil War.
Writer Carla Hinton, covering the reaction by local clergy, quoted a Southern Baptist minister who also harped on the whole state's rights--will of the people thing. The Southern Baptists broke away from their other baptist brethren when questions were raised about their noxious habit of owning human beings and considering them as nothing more than property. The Muslim guy Hinton interviewed didn't even have the subtly to stick to just gay marriage. He simply said, "Islam is against homosexuality..."
The Most Rev. Paul Coakley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Oklahoma City, told her, "Today's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is deeply disappointing. Our faith affirms the central importance of marriage and family life." Coakley was last seen performing an exorcism of residual evil spirits in the Oklahoma City Civic Center a day after seven or eight people performed what they called a black mass there for fun and shock value. The Episcopalian Bishop and the Dean of the state's Episcopal Cathedral mumbled things about some people being happy and others who wouldn't be so happy--leaving unsaid, no we don't want talk about this, because if we did, we'd have to make a choice that might splinter our ever shrinking denomination even more than that it has been.
In 2004, 76% of the people who voted on the issue said gay marriage in Oklahoma should be banned and same sex couples who were legally married in other states, then moved here, should not have their unions recognized.
Trust me on this, I've lived here almost my whole life. Tomorrow, if some crank were to get a measure on the ballot forbidding Muslims from holding public office in Oklahoma, it would win by about 76%. Afterward, if he was feeling really giddy about that one and proposed a ban on the construction mosques anywhere within the state, it would pass by just a few thousand votes less..
Such is the nature of the vox populi south of Kansas and north of the Red River.
For those wondering, Casteel writes that according to stats compiled by the Williams Institute of the University of California School of Law, there are more than 6,100 same sex couples living together in Oklahoma. 21% of them are raising an estimated 2,500 children.
There hasn't been, as far as I know, one case of abuse, sexual, or otherwise, committed by those gay parents reported to authorities, or by the local media. Ah yes, as the Archbishop said, "...the importance of marriage and family life."
Hey, in the final analysis winning an election doesn't mean everyone around here believes the majority is right. Think not? All you have to do is ask the opinion of those angry and pathetic fools who voted for Mitt Romney a couple of years ago to get their answer to that question.
sic vita est
10-7-14
No comments:
Post a Comment