In today’s New York Times, Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich addressed the Obama choice of anti-gay minister Rick Warren as part of his inaugural ceremony:

December 28, 2008
You’re Likable Enough, Gay People
By FRANK RICH

IN his first press conference after his re-election in 2004, President Bush memorably declared, “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” We all know how that turned out.

Barack Obama has little in common with George W. Bush, thank God, his obsessive workouts and message control notwithstanding. At a time when very few Americans feel very good about very much, Obama is generating huge hopes even before he takes office. So much so that his name and face, affixed to any product, may be the last commodity left in the marketplace that can still move Americans to shop.

I share these high hopes. But for the first time a faint tinge of Bush crept into my Obama reveries this month.
(more…)

John Hodgman, a self-proclaimed “famous minor television personality” (and co-star of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials for Apple), said this about Obama and Rev. Rick Warren:

WHAT’S MORE: this not solely a question of being inclusive of different viewpoints. If Warren were merely a pro-life creationist, I would not be so bothered. It’s the question that Obama and Warren agree on that really troubles me.
BOTH WARREN AND OBAMA believe in a fallacy: that one can support equal rights for “everybody” (Warren) and for gay folks specifically (Obama), and yet not support a gay person having the same access as a straight person to the governmental special status known as “marriage.”
I KNOW HOW TEMPTING this fallacy can be: I am ashamed to admit that I half-fell for it myself until Massachusetts proved that the world would not end, and the semantic difference between “domestic partnerships” and “marriage” was so meaningless as to be offensive. I was wrong, I am sorry.
I HAVE CONFIDENCE that, in no short order, Prop 8 will be repealed, and the gay marriage debate will look as absurd at the miscegenation debates of the 20th century do now. I have confidence this will happen not because it is merely right, or because the electorate will suddenly love gayness, but because opposition to gay marriage has no logical foundation in a civil society that is premised on equality.
(CHURCHES can go ahead and ban it all they like. They have their own charters, and no obligation to logic.)
THOSE OF US, however, who foolishly refused to take Obama at his word when he told us he didn’t support gay marriage OVER AND OVER AGAIN must now take him at his deed. He really, really doesn’t want gays to get married. SRSLY.

John Hodgman’s blog

As a former employee of Continental Airlines (I would have celebrated 25 years on January 3, 2009), I was saddened to hear of the aborted takeoff and subsequent low-level crash landing in Denver late last week.

Whilst perusing the London Times, I found three illustrative photos of the ‘totalled’ 737-500 aircraft:

from David Craig:

“In the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, which banned same-sex marriage, I posted the event on Facebook. My fellow organizer, Steve Holzer, inspired by the Latino protests, suggested we call it A Day Without Gays.

We soon discovered that other organizers had conceived of the same idea simultaneously, and we all agreed to schedule the protest for December 10, which is International Human Rights Day. A week later, Join The Impact, the group that organized City Hall rallies nationwide November 14, joined forces with us.

Our goal is to raise awareness that marriage is a “basic human right” as declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia, the case that ended race-based restrictions on marriage.

We believe that to deny gays and lesbians that right, and the 1,400 state and federal legal and economic benefits of marriage, is discrimination and in violation of the 14th Amendment.

We are asking people who support us to “call in gay” to their workplace by taking the day off or to shut down their businesses. Our goal is to raise awareness that we are gay and lesbian Americans who work, own businesses, pay our taxes and support the economy to the tune of $712 billion a year, according to an analysis by Witeck-Combs Communications, a public relations agency that specializes in the gay and lesbian consumer market. This is a declaration that we take our rights seriously and demand full equality.”

LINK

Gay Marriage Ban Inspires New Wave of Activists
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: December 10, 2008
Outraged by a ban on same-sex marriage, a new wave of gay rights advocates have pushed to the forefront.
LINK

The Los Angeles Times published a story today about California Proposition 8’s acceptance for deliberation by the California Supreme Court.

This paragraph gives me hope — and is not a stretch from what happened in this current instance 42 years later:

Although the court tends to defer to voter sentiment on initiative challenges, it has overturned popular ballot measures in the past.

In 1966, the California Supreme Court struck down an initiative that would have permitted racial discrimination in housing. Voters had approved the measure, a repeal of a fair housing law, by a 2-to-1 margin. Opponents challenged it on equal protection grounds, not as a constitutional revision.

UK-based The Guardian has published a gallery of Obama-themed frontpages from around the world.

Click HERE to view them.

IF you have any doubt on which way to vote in the upcoming Presidential election, let THIS New Yorker editorial lay it out in detail.

There really is no question.

I think this lays out a theory that most pundits are avoiding for fear of being labelled “unpatriotic” for questioning McCain’s Vietnam war service.

I’m not a huge Harry Reid fan, but at last someone, SOMEONE, has the cojones to call Utah (and by extrapolation, Mormons) to repentance for continuing to support the failed presidency and policies of our current head of state.

Reid unleashes on Republican ultra-loyalty in Beehive State
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune

DENVER - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview Thursday he takes pride in the inroads Democrats have made in the West, but is confounded by Utah’s loyalty to Republicans.

“What is wrong with the people of Utah? They like where this president has taken this country?�? asked the Nevada senator, who is LDS. “People in Utah need to wake up.�?

Reid, meeting with other Western officials, noted the gains Democrats have made in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. But Utah and Idaho remain firmly entrenched in their Republican devotion, which perplexes him.

He said Utahns should be upset about the Bush wiretap program, torture record and government spending.

“I was thinking Idaho and Utah are very much like we were [in Nevada] 10 years ago,�? he said. “It’s hard for me to understand why [Utah is] such a Republican state. Utah should be a state that believes in what we stand for.�?

SLTrib Article