Cartoonists With Attitude

Via Kevin Drum.

Click the image to read the cartoon at full size. It will make you a better person.

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch have written the week’s most talked-about op-ed, “A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage.” It’s an eye-catching byline, because Blankenhorn – a marriage equality opponent I’ve criticized once or twice in the past — and Rauch, one of the country’s leading marriage equality proponents — seem unlikely bedfellows.

We take very different positions on gay marriage. We have had heated debates on the subject. Nonetheless, we agree that the time is ripe for a deal that could give each side what it most needs in the short run, while moving the debate onto a healthier, calmer track in the years ahead.

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill.

Pam, who I usually agree with, has misunderstood what the proposal is:

I have a problem with this already, though I see where they are trying to accomplish — getting same-sex couples access to the rights and benefits of civil marriage and cede the word marriage to those who cannot decouple it from religious marriage in their heads.

But the compromise doesn’t cede the word “marriage.” Blankenhorn and Rauch aren’t trying to end debate over the word “marriage.” What the B/R compromise (as I shall now call it) attempts to do is put aside two sub-debates associated with marriage, while leaving the primary debate — over formal marriage equality — untouched and ongoing.

I think marraige equality proponents should take this deal, if it becomes a real legislative possibility.

First of all, Federal recognition of same-sex marriages and unions is worth a lot, even though the fight for full marriage equality would still go on. The benefits for couples currently torn apart by unjust and bigoted immigration laws, for example, would be incredibly important, and that’s just one example — there’s also tax law, social security, etc..

Second of all, the anti-marriage-equality movement relies on saying “booga-booga! Teh gays are coming to take away your religious liberties!” in order to drum up donations and votes. This bill could be an enourmous boon to us, because it would let equality proponents say “not only is that not true, it’s against a Federal law that was passed just last year — and the law was originally proposed by the guy who wrote the book on opposing equal marraige!”

Would that, alone, be a game-changer? Would it stop some marriage equality proponents from lying about what marraige equality would do? Of course not. But it would help. Not a guaranteed win, but also not nothing. As David Link writes,

The compromise tests the veracity of the claim that religious believers worry civil recognition of same-sex relationships will invade their belief system through the enforcement of civil rights laws which require gays to be treated equally.  The right has been able to scare up a few anecdotes about this misuse of civil rights laws: a wedding photographer forced to photograph a lesbian wedding; a same-sex couple who wanted to take advantage of a church-owned gazebo, which the church offered for use to the public; and churned them into a froth of paranoia about governmental intrusion into religion.

I’m with Jon in offering this proposal up publicly.  I am happy to let the right know that we are dedicated to stopping this cascade of anecdotes.  If they want additional assurance that the first amendment’s separation of church and state means what it says, I will be on the front lines to add a statutory “and we really mean it” clause.

In fact, the B/R compromise doesn’t go far enough. Can we also add another “and we really mean it” clause, saying that parents have the right to withdraw their children from any class in which the teacher is teaching about same-sex marriage?

Because if those two clauses had been federal law a year ago, I very much doubt Proposition 8 could have passed.

* * *

There is a danger here, as Nan Hunter points out:

…satan is truly in the details of their proposal for a “robust” exception for religious belief. It was  striking to me that the op-ed completely omitted any discussion of the impact when non-church (etc) entities – like charities or hospitals with a religious affiliation –  accept public funds. When all of our tax dollars are supporting these organizations, then all of us have a legitimate concern about the services they provide.

I wondered about this too, and emailed Rauch asking about it. Rauch told me that he’s imagining broad federal guidelines, with freedom for states to make their own religious exemption rules within those guidelines.

That’s conforting, in a way. If the “robust” exception for religious belief would mean that Massachusetts can set its own standards, then Massachusetts wouldn’t have to accept Catholic hospitals refusing to acknowlege same-sex marriages.  Of course, homophobes in states like Florida would use the exemption to screw over same-sex couples — but that’s already happening, so it’s not clear how the B/R compromise would make things worse.

Assuming it doesn’t become a trojan horse for eviserating anti-discrimination laws (as Kate Harding thinks is Blankenhorn’s intention), I’d like to see this compromise become law. It could provide substantial benefits for same-sex couples nationwide, and also blunt one of the anti-equality side’s favorite attacks. And I think that the more experience the country has with legally recognized same-sex unions, the better the odds of reaching full marriage equality. (Maggie Gallagher agrees with me, although in her case it’s something she fears.)

Curtsy: Eve at the Marriage Debate blog.

I was introduced to the Farting Preacher several months ago, but I was away from my computer and never got around to posting him here, where he belongs.

Perhaps this error is why I’ve had such bad luck this winter.

I am so glad I signed up for the OneNewsNow daily newsletter. It’s like getting a daily chuckle in my e-mail, only from your crazy right-wing religious uncle who fears Muslims, Arabs and Teh Gayz. And he’s not at all in on the joke.

For example, take this headline: ‘God’ – the new four-letter word in public schools.

Perhaps they mean “Godd.” Or “Gawd.” Or “G-man.”

You totally know where this article is going a litany of whinging about the exclusion of religious indoctrination from public school curricula. No posting of the Ten Commandments, no teaching Intelligent Design in biology class, no Christmas pageants, no prayer or moment of silence or whatever. Actually, the fundy-du-jour John Whitehead, a “Christian attorney” (as opposed to those godless shysters at the ACLU) does not tick those issues off, but they are in the background to such grandiose pronouncements as this:

The issue, according to the attorney, is not separation of church and state — an argument frequently cited by those who assume the secular viewpoint. “The issue in such instances is the religious believer versus the secular state,” he writes. “It is also a denial of everything this country stands for in terms of the freedoms of speech, religion, and a respect for moral tradition.”Whitehead believes that what exists now in America is akin to the old Soviet Union and China, where it is religious believers fending off the state.

Yes, it is EXACTLY like that. Have you not seen the lines of evangelical clergy rounded up and carted away in black vans to trains bound for gulags and labor camps? Man, one month into the Presidency, and the socialist caliphate is in full swing!

All irony aside, here’s an alternate link to the etymology of the word “shyster,” disputing its anti-semitic origins. Interesting history, but I feel the word is often employed with anti-semitic intent, often against attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union which, it should be noted, employs lawyers from a wide range of religious and non-religious beliefs.

At any rate, I used it to reflect on the rather presumptuous identification of Whitehead as a “Christian attorney.” What is that marketing? Like the “Christian supply” store near my house? (Just in case I ever run out of Christians.) Look my toothbrush is bona fide Christian! It’s got a pithy quote from scripture! Now my teeth will be super shiny clean and saved!

I’m excited to announce a cool project I’ve been working on for a while: a cartoon search engine that allows you to locate Slowpoke strips using keywords. Right now the database contains most of my cartoons from the past five years or so, and some even older classics. It’s still a work in progress — I’m continuing to refine it — and I invite you to try it out and let me know how it works for you. Have I overlooked some obvious keywords? Is something funny coming up in the results? Any and all suggestions will be helpful.

Slowpoke cartoon search

and finally joined Facebook. Not sure why.

I’m also on Twitter.

TPM’s coverage of eccentric megaswindler Sir Allen Stanford provided the inspiration for this one, right down to the mustache on Mr. Perkins. Between touting his Antiguan knighthood and pretending to be related to the founder of Stanford University, Sir Allen is a hilarious douchenozzle of the first order. Although he probably isn’t so funny to the people whose money he lost.

(UPDATE: Doh! I just saw in an old altweekly lying around my house that my colleague Ruben Bolling had a P.O.N.Z.I. acronym gag in a “Tom the Dancing Bug” cartoon from a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen it before I drew this, I swear.)

I guess in all that time delivering flowing sermons praising the glory and salvation of Bobby Jindal, no one in the Republican Party took the time to notice he has the rhetorical skills of Emo Phillips.

More from Oliver. And Singer.

Oh, what the hell. Just read the Free Republic thread. It’s like they just found out there’s no Santa Claus.

Update: A commenter on MyDD made a point similar to this, and it should bear repeating through the remainder of whatever disastrous presidential crusade Jindal may attempt: last night, Barack Obama tried to talk to the American people like they were adults, and Bobby Jindal responded by talking to the American people like they were six-year-old children.

Second Update: Oh my holy tap-dancing Jeebus. Chris Matthews at the 0:21 mark.

“Big Money-Making Opportunity!!“…