Tom Toles for May 18, 2012

One day the closet door will open and surprise, surprise, surprise.

As someone who has lived in Virginia for 38 years I resent this cartoon. I resent its truth.

Judicial activism—defined as “doing something I don’t like.”

‘Investigating’ a story for a right-winger means turning on FOX News, and then Rush Limbaugh and waiting for their take on it.

Nonsense. “Judicial activism” is a code word for “things left-leaning judges do.” Did you object to Citizens United, as blatant an example of judicial activism as anything done by the Warren Court, and for far less good reason? If you have your proof, post it. I’m a scientist — I like evidence.What I’ve read is that this is a highly competent prosecutor living a quiet life as a husband and dad who was turned down for a judicial post for no other reason than who he was married to.If you want to claim that this would make him a judicial activist, then this eliminates ALL judges. Men will rule in favor of men. Women in favor of women. Married people in favor of married people. Etc.

“Of course, the liberals here don’t care that you have found the truth.”We don’t care about your “truth” because it rarely contains any actual fact or truth.

He was fired because he was Gay. That’s the truth. He was highly qualified, no one argued that there was ANY reason other than his sexual orientation that he was turned down. The conservative denial here (conspicuously devoid of any single fact) proves why we need to reduce their influence in what could be a free country. We don’t need an American Taliban.

Oh Puh-LEEZE! What do you think I just started reading gocomic this morning?

You robo-post the same thing over and over, parrot back every right-wing talking point, and always refer to the Democratic party as the ‘Democrat Party’

You’re about as independent in your actions as Kermit the Frog.

No, I don’t watch FOX or listen to Rush either…but I work around people who do, and they never stop quoting both of them.

You seem to hate a lot of people. Anyone ever tell you that is NOT a good thing?

All these right wing, conservative, Ayn Randian children above are standing in the way of progress. They have failed to advance beyond the 11 year old boy that hates his mother’s power over him, resents having to clean up after himself, being forced to act responsibly, to take responsibility for their actions in the world and to try to make it a better place for everyone. They’ve stayed in a repressed, undeveloped nether world of little boys that are concerned with one thing, and one thing only…their own selfish comfort. What passes for thinking in their little world is just a muddled little swamp of ego centered self indulgence.They are to be ignored!!!

Here’s a GREAT article analyzing the failure of the right to grow up. Of course, THEY won’t understand it, or, possibly, even read it, but for those of you who have actually matured, this is very worthwhile reading: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/155393/How_the_Ayn_Rand-Loving_Right_Is_Like_a_Bunch_of_Teen_Boys_Gone_Crazy/?page=entire

I form my opinions based on my own beliefs,an only my own beliefs.

Might work better if you form your opinions on the basis of objectively verifiable facts, instead of just whatever you happen to believe already. Just sayin’.

Virginia is for haters and pays that price. I personally know two people with high incomes who moved to Maryland simply because of Virginia’s hatred of homosexuals. Now Maryland gets their taxes…

Marriage is a legal status, onguard. It carries rights and protections with it, which are nowhere else duplicated.

As I’ve said elsewhere, though — even if marriage were just a word, I think it is particularly mean-spirited to insist that two competent, consenting, equal adults who love each other should not be allowed to use it as part of their commitment to each other just because you don’t think they should be allowed to. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “it neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg.”

…Also, if you sure do not care what they do, why are you trying so hard to set rules for it?

As a Virginian, this is embarrassing.

“All this over Gays trying to steal a name, Marriage. All they have to do is get their own Name for their Relationship(s)…..Who cares what they do? I sure do not.”Clearly you do care, or you wouldn’t be insisting on gays being treated differently. Separate but Equal didn’t work in the 50s and 60s and it won’t work now. If you’re so insistent about maintaining an exclusive club, go create one with your religion without legal recognition. Either this is a truly free society in which consenting adults are treated equally under the law, or the we live in a free society is just a lie. You can’t have it both ways.

It’s useless to argue with these so called “conservative” wing-nuts. No amount of evidence ever, ever makes any difference. They are immune to facts. They have one thing in common, and that is that they cannot abide change. Thus the conservative moniker. They stand always in the way of progress. The best thing to do is ignore them. Change is coming, the corporations are going to lose this battle to control the world government, people are participating in a nascent true world democracy. These twirps will be swept aside by the change and revealed for the cancerous louts they truly are. Their arguments are hollow and useless.

Offhand I’d say an attack by several rightwing trolls on people who are out of work, speak a different language, are of different sexual orientation, diffwerent religion, are sick or can’t find a job while busily defending the ultra rich and the military industrial complex.

No, that was another poster. I remember, coz I always used to ask him why he thought the Dems were Nazis.

He invariably disappeared when asked that question.

You, trying to hijack threads…

Amazing how the right is desperately trying to claim that this guy wasn’t fired for being gay.

Lots of twisting and cognitive dissonance, but they are oblivious.

And once again you refuse to admit your failure. You are on the wrong side of history. Deal with it.

In other words, “If you let two consenting adults marry, then nothing will stop dogs marrying underage kittens.”

Apparently kato 1979 “pricked” you in the wrong spot.

1. The marriage of “thousands of years” you cite was mostly a way to preserve wealth, not love. If you want to refer to history, then you need to admit that marriage in history was sexual slavery for the woman. Furthermore, around 80% of cultures TODAY permit polygamy, and a tiny percentage permit polyandry (multiple husbands). King Solomon had a thousand wives, remember? Are you citing that?2. You make an assertion about liberals which is 100% NOT TRUE. Why do YOU want to prevent gays from having families?3. Well, let’s look at REAL history as opposed to fictional history again. Marriage is a religious creation, not a legal or biological one. Most of humanity throughout its history lived in larger groups, not nuclear families. Children knew their parents and were cared for by their parents and grandparents. 4. This is, in a word, bullshit. No one — NO ONE — is proposing “interspecies” marriages. Defining marriage as a relationship between two adults is light years away from that. We already exclude people of too young an age, for example. You are merely being ridiculous. 5. I’m sorry, you just walked in to an obvious parallel to Hitler. He’d be delighted by that. And for the record, since some research suggests that conservativism has a genetic heritage — and that’s WAY more complex than you know, obviously — maybe your views can be “cured” in the womb as well. The idea that homosexuality is a disease has been long since eliminated by science — but not by the bigoted. You might want to think about that.

We’re talking about gay marriage, which has never been approved of anywhere, in any culture, before now.

False; certain dynasties in China (including the Ming dynasty) recognized both male and female homosexual marriage, and the Lakota, Navajo and Mohave of the American tribes recognized both male and female homosexual marriage as “two-spirit marriages”, and the Yoruba of West Africa, the Igbo of Nigeria, the Nuer of Sudan, the Lovedu, Zulu and Sotho of South Africa, and the Kikuyu and Nandi of East Africa all recognized homosexual marriages, at least before Christian missionaries saw to the demonization of homosexuality. (You could see the papers here or referenced from here for more, if by some miracle you wanted to learn more about it.)

Homosexuality has been a stable percentage of the population in over 400 species of birds and mammals, and in humans for millenia. Behavioral genetics in general and homosexuality in particular are extremely complex issues – I suggest maybe you should leave them to people who have a better understanding of both behavior and genetics than you do – but one thing which can be said from history is that the presence of homosexuality has never scuppered a species.

I would also point out to you that “all of society” had to change to abolish slavery, but that this could quite legitimately be regarded as an unmitigated good, especially by the people who were no longer slaves. Allowing homosexuals access to equal rights and equal status neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg, but it certainly represents a good thing for them. It’s sad that you want to hold on to your supposed “right” to deny rights to others.

In only one respect would I disagree with motivemagus: marriage is quite distinctly a legal status; it exists completely outside a Christian context, it can be administered for atheists by secular authorities (and is still “marriage”), and it defines legal status for things like taxes, power of attorney, immigration rights, and property rights. These are not in any way dependent on any particular religion, and haven’t been for centuries.

In fact, I would argue that historically marriage has been more a legal status than a religious one, but religion has attempted to co-opt it and absorb all authority over it into itself, regardless of whether justified — but that this is not justified.

…Also, you really need to work on the difficulty you have understanding the concept of “competent and consenting adults.” This automatically excludes children and animals, and if you can’t figure out why, then you have more problems than anyone can address on a message board.