Screaming Penguin

sa·cred Pronunciation: 'sA-kr&d Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from past participle of sacren to consecrate, from Old French sacrer, from Latin sacrare, from sacr-, sacer sacred; akin to Latin sancire to make sacred, Hittite saklAi- rite Date: 14th century 1 a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity b : devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) 2 a : worthy of religious veneration : HOLY b : entitled to reverence and respect 3 : of or relating to religion : not secular or profane 4 archaic : ACCURSED 5 a : UNASSAILABLE, INVIOLABLE b : highly valued and important

Just a short rant. I'm watching Meet the Press today and seeing Tom Daschle talk about how gay marriage is bad because marrage is a "sacred" bond between a man and a woman is making me ill. The government should not be in the role of enforcing "sacred" holdings, whether it's same-sex marriages, or Mormon polygamists. That's just not their role, and the use of this word makes me ill. On an interesting aside, I was reading the Walter Isaacson Franklin biography last week and one of the stories that stood out in my mind was that Franklin replaced "truths to be sacred" with "truths to be self evident" in the Declaration of Independence. Our founding fathers were acutely aware of how the use of language paints and issue and avoided exactly these trappings. Even the Bible-thumping President discovers the truth to Frank Herbert's note that when politics and religion ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows, being unable to keep from angering his evangelical base. Just because your god doesn't endorse gay marriage doesn't mean it should be the law of the land. My other interesting observation this week was, with the exception of the 18th Ammendment, which was repealed to end Prohibition, a constitutional ammendment preventing same-sex marriage would be the only ammendment to the Constitution that explicitly denies someone the right to take an action, rather than guaranteeing fundamental rights or expanded rights that were historically denied. Maybe it is nothing, but that seems like a telling factor. While we are talking about the constitution, check this shit out. Gen. Tommy Franks seems to think that should a terrorist successfully deploy a WMD on U.S. soil, he believe the Constitution would be scrapped in favor of a military government. Frigging chilling words from a man who took an oath to preserve, protect and defend exactly that Constitution. Of course, the administration seems to feel that large swaths don't apply anyway. Update: Ok, not that I could detest David Limbaugh much more than I already do, but...

Given the public outcry about the federal court's order for the removal of Judge Roy Moore's Ten Commandments display, I'm surprised there isn't as much alarm about the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision to sanctify gay marriage.

Opens this piece of drivel. Now, I would think that this would be an affront to the religious community, implying that a judge and not a priest has the ability to "sanctify" something. Of course, arguing Mass. Constitutional Law with quotes from Genesis is always a winner with me. He continues:

The oft-repeated lie that "we can't legislate morality" has finally born its poisonous fruit. Of course we can legislate morality. We always have. We must. Try looking at the criminal code of any state or the federal system and tell me it isn't based on morality. Look further into our civil law and try to deny that much, if not most, of tort law and contract law, not to mention property law, are rooted in our traditional (Biblical) moral beliefs. It is not just for mercantile reasons that men are prohibited from breaching contracts. And punitive damages in tort law are awarded not to compensate the victim, but to punish the tortfeasor. Punishment -- that's a moral concept. Not only are our statutory and common law rooted in biblical morality; at a more fundamental level, so is our constitution. If we remove that foundation, the fabric of our society will unravel, and we'll eventually lose our liberties -- ironically, at the hands of those claiming to champion freedom. And, by the way, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, in demolishing traditional marriage, is itself legislating -- that's right, I said "legislating," not "adjudicating," morality.

Wow. That's amazing, I didn't realize that Buddists, Hindus, Shitoists, the pagan Greeks and Romans, Pharohs, Celts, and God-forbid Atheists never had any laws against theft, fraud or murder before the Christians brought it to them. That must have made it very hard on them. No, a social contract based on the common good and protection if individuals' property, life and liberty would have no context without the big J-C there to lay hands upon it. What a frigging crackpot.