Don't let the crappy political landscape in these United State drive you to drink just yet... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Argh! While my politics are more inline with fiscal conservative ideals, I usually end up voting Democrat because I am a hardcore social progressive. Everybody's bought and paid for by lobbyists anyway, so what's the difference? That being said, I frickin' loathe Hillary Clinton and am absolutely gutted that she's almost certain to be the Democratic candidate for president. Not that I'm not ready for a woman in The White House... on the contrary, I totally am... it's just that I don't want this woman anywhere near the Commander in Chief's desk.
I just don't get it. Her foreign policy as Secretary of State was disastrous. Against all advice, she fucked up Libya so bad that the country may never recover. She's taken so much foreign money for her campaign that I find it laughable she could possibly have this country's best interests at heart. And anybody thinking liberal anti-war ideology factors into her thinking should take a look at the shit-loads of cash she's taken from defense contractors. You think the wars we're fighting are never-ending now? Wait until Hillary Clinton is running the show. And while you're at it, take a look at the piles of money she's taken from the banking industry cesspool... she's got funds from Goldman Fucking Sachs on the books! Much as she claims otherwise, the status quo for Washington politics and its filthy finances ain't changing one damn bit with her in office. Odds are, they'd only get worse.
But of course the idiot Republicans won't give us someone I can vote for. GOP candidates I could live with (like Jon Huntsman) are eviscerated by the party even though a progressive who embraces equality and diversity is the ONLY WAY they're going to take the White House. And so let's give it up for President Clinton!
The sequel, that is.
• Argh Redux. Case in point for the Republicans? So far we've got Ted Cruz and Rand Paul on the ticket. I'm sure Rick "Piece of Shit" Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie will be up next. No word from God as to whether he'll be asking Michelle Bachmann to run again. A sorrier lineup of assholes, bigots, and idiots you will not find.
Unless, of course, Sarah Palin decides to entertain us all with another run.
Shit. At this point, I'm actually missing Mitt Romney.
Not that he's any more a gem than the rest of the GOP freak show that seems intent to run unelectable candidates guaranteed to put Hillary Clinton in the Big Chair.
Meh. Guess I shouldn't be too torn up... in the end it doesn't seem to matter who gets into office anyway.
• Honesty. What we need is this guy...
At least then we'd know where we stand.
• Babe. Tell me something I don't know.
• Underline. A moment of silence for the passing of The Bold Italic... a San Francisco-centric web zine that quickly became one of my favorite things online. You will be missed.
• The Ant Man! Looking better and better with each new preview...
I had sincere reservations once Edgar Wright left the project, but it looks like Marvel has another terrific film under their belt.
• Fight! And speaking of Marvel Cinematic hits, this week we were treated to the longest look at the film yet...
And comic book geeks around the world just peed a little bit.
And then there's this...
Three weeks to go...
See you next week, True Believer!
Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? Really?
Not shaping up to be the best of elections. Unless something drastic happens, you just know we're going to get stuck with the lowest common denominator...
Originally spotted at Meme Generator.
For the love of Pete, just make it stop.
Yes.
This guy unleashes a lot of wisdom in a short amount of time. It's an enlightened take on current events... that was recorded two months ago (some explicit language ensues)...
Thanks so my Facebook friends for introducing me to Prince Ea's YouTube channel. I can't stop watching.
As of today, I have become a single-issue voter.
Since it doesn't seem to matter which political party gets into office, and Republicans and Democrats have been equally guilty of caving to lobbyists and fucking up this country... I just don't give a shit anymore. This tends to lead me to vote based on social issues rather than the Big Political Issues that are decided by People With Money instead of politicians.
Because if we're going to charge ahead into wars so the 1% can profit from the carnage... if we're going to continue to subsidize industries that destroy the environment... if we're always going to pass laws that stack the deck against the little guy so the big guys can keep their wealth and power... does it really fucking matter if it's a conservative or a liberal making the decision? Why should I care?
Newsflash... I don't.
I haven't for a long time.
And so I've made my election decisions based solely on the issues that politicians can actually change. Any time a candidate is fighting for personal liberties, equality, fairness, and keeping the government the fuck out of our bedrooms, vaginas, and private lives... they get my vote. Which is why Mitt Romney wasn't even on my radar during the last presidential election. President Obama was the least worst candidate on crap that presidents are actually a factor in changing. Sure he totally fucked us on "government transparency," but the People With Money were never going to let ordinary citizens see how the government really works anyway... so whatever. But Obama has pushed forward on issues like marriage equality, which is all he can truly change anyway, so there you have it.
And now we come to the one issue that makes me a single-issue voter from here on out.
Daylight Saving Time.
Any politician... ANY politician... who makes a campaign promise to eradicate Daylight Saving Time gets my vote. Republican... Democrat... Libertarian... Independent... Communist... whatever... that's how I'm casting my ballot.
I can't stand Hillary Clinton. But if Hillary Clinton runs with the promise of dropping Daylight Saving Time and her challenger does not... CLINTON 2016!
I can't stand Mitt Romney. But if Mitt Romney runs again with the promise of dropping Daylight Saving Time and his challenger does not... ROMNEY 2016!
Hell, if mental midget with an IQ of a butter dish Louie Gohmert decides to stop obsessing over gay men long enough to make a run for president in 2016 with a promise to abolish Daylight Saving Time... GOHMERT 2016!
Sure he's dumber than a box of rocks, but it's not like this would be the first time we've had a person so pervasively, astoundingly, unyieldingly ignorant in the White House. But we survived then and we can survive again... we'll just be doing it without having to dick with our clocks twice a year.
And speaking of pervasively, astoundingly, unyieldingly ignorant potential candidates... if he vows to get rid of Daylight Saving Time? TRUMP 2016!
Because the madness simply has to end.
Eliminate it... or split the difference... or even make Daylight Saving Time become Standard Time... I don't fucking give a shit... just stop this antiquated, nonsensical, idiotic crap once and for all...
RICK "PIECE OF SHIT" SANTORUM 2016???
Could be. Could be. All it takes is one campaign promise... you disgusting, unAmerican, homophobic, dumbfuck... and my vote is yours!
The mind-blowing thing about political dramas like House of Cards and Scandal is that you know... you just know... that the outrageous fiction the writers dream up for these shows undoubtedly pales in comparison to what really goes on behind closed doors in Washington, DC.
And no wonder. Politicians do all kinds of crazy shit because they can. Not that I blame them... I shudder to think about all the horrendous crap I'd get into if I had political power rendering me invincible from consequence and knew that a whole team of people are dedicated to cleaning up my messes. Seriously, what wouldn't I do under those circumstances? I just don't know. I'm not into drugs, but you don't think I'd be the first one in line to snort cocaine off a hooker's ass with John Boehner if given the chance? You're damn right I would! Drugs, hookers, theft... even murder... it's all on the table. Political power makes everything possible...
Which means it's probably good that a megalomaniac with an addictive personality like me has never run for office.
And yet...
Don't be surprised if this page disappears one day in the future. I don't need it coming back to haunt me if I should ever decide to become a Congressman.
Because I'd like to think that I could resist an invitation from Paul Ryan to chase down homeless people in Foggy Bottom and taser them for sport, but you just never know what a taste of power is going to do to the mind of a politician.
If past precedent is any indication, they all end up fucked in the head sooner or later.
Hold on to those Super Bowl XLVII predictions... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Seahawks! And speaking of the Super Bowl... looks like the Seahawks are getting their second trip to the big game. Ironically they'll be playing the Broncos, which means it's a battle between the two states that legalized marijuana. That's quite a bowl.
• Security! Show of hands... who thinks that President Obama would have held a press conference concerning infringements on civil liberties and new restrictions on NSA surveillance if the government hadn't been caught spying on all the wrong people? Another show of hands... who thinks anything is going to actually change? Meh. It's all bullshit anyway. Politicians can say whatever they want to mollify the public, but whether it's our own government... or a company like Google... personal privacy is gone.
"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither" — Benjamin Franklin
• Freedom! To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Freedom Industries (the company whose badly maintained waste storage tanks are responsible for a chunk of West Virginia losing their water supply) have declared bankruptcy. Typical. Big corporations pay for politicians to advocate the elimination of environmental protections under the guise of "job creation," when everybody knows they're only angling to avoid paying for eco-friendly business practices. Then, when their reprehensible excuse for "public safety" fails, they declare bankruptcy so everybody responsible has their ass covered and everybody else gets screwed. Now that's freedom!
• Gilligan! Was sad to learn that Russell Johnson, the guy who played the professor on Gilligan's Island, has died. As the guy who could make a nuclear reactor out of a coconut and two bananas, he was always my favorite castaway...
Smooth sailing, sir.
• Betty! Very happy birthday wishes to Betty White who turned 92 this week!
Still one of my favorite actresses.
And... time to put away my bullets and pack a suitcase.
Before I get to the part of this post where everybody starts hating me, I just want to say that I think Genetically Modified Organisms (better known as "GMOs") are a horrible idea for our food supply.
Life on this planet has evolved over millions of years to create a delicate balance between we animals and the food we need to survive. To go mucking around with this balance by modifying the gene sequence of a crop so that it's stronger, more virile, tastier, and bug-resistance, is reckless, dangerous, and probably immoral. I don't care what the FDA says, we simply do not know enough about GMO foods to declare them "safe"... and the consequences of consuming such products could have dire health consequences that won't become clear for generations. The fact that numerous countries outside the USA consider GMOs to be unhealthy and have restricted their use (or outright banned them) should be a serious wake-up call to Americans about the foods we eat. Especially considering that a shocking 80% of processed foods in this country are estimated to contain GMO ingredients.
To put it another way, if you live in the USA and are not at least a little concerned about the GMOs that are plaguing our food supply with unknown consequences, you need to pull your head out of your ass.
Given my serious objections to the use of GMOs in our foodstuffs, you would think that I would be a big supporter of Washington State's Initiative 522... which would require all (non-exempt) GMO foods to be clearly and conspicuously labeled on the front of the package.
And yet... I am not.
Or rather I was not, because it looks like the initiative failed to get the votes it needed.
There are a lot of reasons I think that 522 is/was a bad piece of legislation.
First of all, have you actually read the thing? I have. It's just so absurdly written that after trying to parse my way through it... three times... I was left looking for the benefit to consumers. It's so inconsistent and incomplete as to be laughable. Genetically-modified fruits and vegetables would require labeling. But a steak coming from a cow that has been fed nothing but a diet of genetically-modified foods from birth to slaughter would not. This alone makes 522 a complete joke. If consumers believe everything GMO is labeled, and their meat choices were not, they would naturally assume that the meat had no GMOs. But here's the rub... if GMOs are so horrible for the health of people that it should be labeled, wouldn't it also be so horrible for the health of cows that any product coming from that cow should also be labeled? And what about fast food restaurants, arguably one of the biggest movers of GMO foods in existence? Oh... never mind... they are exempt from labeling laws! I mean, come on! This is absurd. Unless everything is labeled, then labeling a selected subset of our food supply renders the whole idea of forced-labeling for "The Public's Right to Know!" useless. And don't hand me this bullshit about "Something is better than nothing" and "It's a good start" because that is the stupidest damn response I've ever heard. That's the equivalent of saying "THREE OF THESE FOUR FOODS WILL KILL YOU! But we're only going to label ONE of them BECAUSE THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW!" And yet people buy into this crap hook, line, and sinker every time. Well, helpful hint... IT'S ALL OR NOTHING OR IT DOESN'T WORK!
Next up, the labeling is categorically unfair to manufacturers. And I'm not talking about the giant conglomerates like Kraft or Coca-Cola or Unilever or whatever... they manufacture such massively huge quantities of processed foods that making a packaging change would hardly cost a thing in the grand scheme of things. No, I'm talking about the thousands of small companies who sell food products in Washington State. To them, the cost of changing all their packaging (or adding a label to their existing packaging) is a pretty big expense. First of all, if they did go to the expense of changing their packaging (because it's cheaper than adding a label), odds are they would not be able to afford packaging exclusively for Washington State. Nope, the new packaging would be what they have to use to sell to all fifty states. So they would either A) Have to stop selling in Washington... or B) Have to splash "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY-MODIFIED INGREDIENTS" across their packaging, which would then have to sit on the shelf in California next to a competitor's product which doesn't say a damn thing about the GMOs in its contents... how is that fair? Well, it's not. I am sick and tired of people who consistently paint all food manufacturers as these massive corporations when it's decidedly not the case. Again, helpful hint... IT'S ALL (FIFTY STATES) OR NOTHING OR IT DOESN'T WORK!
And then... ultimately GMO labeling laws do nothing to help a significant portion of our society. Namely poor and elderly people who have to buy cheap food or they're not going to eat at all. Let's think about this for a minute. Say 522 gets passed, so a canned spaghetti manufacturer is forced to label their product because the noodles are made from GMO wheat and the tomatoes in the sauce are from GMO tomatoes. Now some 85-year old woman on a severely restricted income goes to the store and sees a can of friendly organic spaghetti at $2.69 sitting next to a can of scary GMO-laden spaghetti at $1.89. Do you honestly think she gives a flying fuck about GMOs when she barely has the money to buy food at all? But hey, at least she can make an informed buying decision! The process required to grow organic crops ain't cheap. And do you know why? Organic foods are ineligible for federal subsidies! That's right... apparently "organic" is categorized as some kind of "luxury" instead of a necessity... so organic farmers get no federal monies to help them out. So what they sell is actually the real cost of growing food. Take away the subsidies from Big Farm so they have to pay real costs, then make them responsible for the environmental impact of their business, then sit back and watch as GMO food prices increase to organic price levels. Hey, I have an idea! WHY DON'T WE ELIMINATE THE SUBSIDIES SO THERE'S A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD? Or, if we're going to do the whole subsidy thing, why not allow organic farmers to get a piece of the pork pie too? Then perhaps GMO labeling would actually mean something because consumers on fixed incomes would truly have a choice. Of course, taking on the demonic Special Interest Groups which work 24/7 to exclude small farmers from federal funding so Big Farm is consistently at an advantage won't be easy... and it sure as hell won't be cheap. Welcome to American politics!
Up next... GMOs, while certainly the subject of considerable concern, do not automatically make manufacturers, suppliers, or especially the farmers producing them... some kind of evil bastard out to kill you. Genetic modification is not something that is done for fun. There's a reason behind it. One significant "advance" (assumably) to food production was modifying plants to survive drought conditions. Questionable? Yes. Unhealthy? Possibly. But evil? Every time I see somebody play the "Evil Card," my eyes roll so far back in my head that they are in real danger of getting stuck there. Sure, I can buy into a corporation like Monsanto being evil... hell, they are beyond evil for the heinous shit they do... but using such inflammatory words to turn public opinion against farmers who are just trying to make a living by using seeds they are told are perfectly safe by the FDA? That just makes you an irresponsible asshole, NOT some kind of champion of the people.
And now, for the big gun... GMO labeling is completely unnecessary. Shocker, I know, but it's totally true! Do you know why? Because non-GMO and organic products are super trendy and hot right now. It's the fastest growing segment of food production by far because consumer demand is growing by leaps and bounds every day. Which means manufacturers who sell products without GMO ingredients would be insanely stupid to not make that claim as huge as possible on their packaging. And guess what? Manufacturers who sell products without GMO ingredients are not insanely stupid. THEY ARE ALREADY LABELING THEIR PACKAGING AS ORGANIC AS HUGE AS POSSIBLE! There's even symbols for organic certified products and non-GMO products to identify them. Hell, even pet food manufacturers let you know when their products are organic! There's so much "green" in the supermarket now-a-days, there's no way you can miss the organic bandwagon everybody is hopping on...
So, seriously, think about it. IF SOMETHING ISN'T LABELED AS "ORGANIC" OR "NON-GMO" THEN IT'S GOING TO CONTAIN GMO INGREDIENTS! This is all the information that shoppers need to make an informed buying decision if they are concerned about GMOs in the food they buy. But if this is the case, and people already know how to identify non-GMO foods, then why the big push to label products containing GMO ingredients? Because information by omission is just not good enough for the anti-GMO advocates. They want to scare people into buying organic, non-GMO foods with labeling laws because fear is the easiest way to manipulate the masses to supporting your agenda. It always has been. "But wait!" you may be saying, "Isn't that a good thing? GMOs are bad, right? So scaring people into eating healthier is okay!" Except... no. It's not. Leading people to make informed buying decisions is what's okay. Scaring them into doing your bidding... no matter how altruistic... is not okay. Should not be okay. Which brings me to the most damning condemnation of Initiative 522 yet... if you are so fucking concerned about GMO foods, then spend the money to educate people instead of manipulating them. Granted, there are going to be people too damn stupid or ignorant to get the message, but it's not like they were candidates for using mandatory labeling in the first place. Which brings us to...
Lastly (well, not "lastly"... I could go on and on here), Initiative 522 was destined to fail, so wasting millions of dollars trying to pass it is/was categorically stupid. Seriously, who thought that GMO abusers like Monsanto were just going to sit on their hands and do nothing while their bread and butter was being challenged? Anyone? Anyone? Of course not. Monsanto pumped millions of dollars into a counter-campaign, completely dominating the political landscape with their limitless funds. There was no question... none... that Monsanto and its confederates would spend whatever money necessary to smash Initiative 522 to pieces. And, given how incredibly badly the legislation was written, it's not like there wasn't boatloads of opportunities to turn public opinion to their favor. Initiative 522 was just a colossal waste of time and money and that's my biggest problem. Just think of what could have been done with all that cash wasted on an unwinnable battle!
And now is where you are probably saying to yourself... "Wow, Dave... if you were so dead-set against Initiative 522, why didn't you write this BEFORE the ballots were cast?"
Simple... I just didn't want the drama. There are many, many, hard-core advocates of GMO labeling (some of them good friends of mine), and dealing with the fall-out of writing an inflammatory opinion piece (no matter how unintentional) was more than I wanted on my plate. In my heart, I knew that 522 was going to fail (too much was at stake for Big Farm for it not to) and so what would be the point?
In closing, I'd just like to say that my opinion about genetic modification in our food supply still stands... we should not be doing it. Recklessly defying the millions of years of evolution and adaptation it took to get where we are is the height of hubris, and the possible consequences are just too dire. We need to spend more time and money trying to figure out how to get our food back to the natural state our bodies have evolved to consume instead of trying to solve our food supply problems with potentially hazardous genetic modification. We also need to spend more time and money educating people as to why this is important. Initiative 522 was never about either of those things. It was a mis-use of funds for a campaign of manipulation, unfairness, and inevitable failure that distracted people from what is truly important. Even worse, once all the cards have been counted it probably set back the cause of the pro-organic foods movement.
That's a shame, really. But it's not like politics ever aspire to be anything more than that now-a-days.
Time to put your Wiener back in your mayoral candidate pants... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Dumbosity! I am still trying to figure out how Anthony Weiner went from being a politician I actually respected... to somebody I loathe with such fervor that I want to kick in my television every single time his stupid face shows up on it. In other words, just like every other politician out there. I should have known better. Is it too much to hope that this is the very last we will ever see or hear of him?
• Dumbsuckery! I hate CAPTCHAs. I'm not alone. Everybody I know hates them too. Which is why running across this particular CAPTCHA pretty much summed the whole situation up nicely...
But hey, at least you could actually read the characters.
• Dumbassery! Just when you think Microsoft couldn't possibly be more of an embarrassment to itself, they find a way to prove you wrong. First came this tweet from now-Microsoft-owned Nokia...
Thanks, #Apple ;) pic.twitter.com/x4w3r8Ghcy
— Nokia UK (@nokia_uk) September 10, 2013
I'm willing to guess that Apple would agree... as would any other company in the history of the world who has made different-color products ever...
I'm sorry, but when it comes to "imitation being a form of flattery," Microsoft has had had their mouth permanently attached to Apple's dick in an imitation-induced frenzy since around 1984. Which is not to say that Microsoft hasn't been innovating... but you'd never know it from their advertising, which is constantly painting them as a pathetic, lame, whiny bitch who is having to play catch-up to Apple. It's like they're their own worst enemy, and just when you think they couldn't possibly beat themselves up any worse than they already have, they proceed to do just that.
• Dumbfuckery! I am at a complete loss for words. This wouldn't be so terrible if these were three random assholes just pretending to be representing the United States... but they are actual US Representatives! I am so fucking embarrassed right now that I don't even... I don't know... I don't... I just don't...
I mean, holy shit! People actually elected these fucking idiots.
• Dumbholery! And if you thought that was bad... never underestimate the agenda-ramming mouthpieces at FOX "News"...
They don't even try to hide it. Yet, they're the "Fair and Balanced" network. And people keeeeeeep watching. Any bets on how much longer it'll be until Andrea Shea King is added to the FOX "News" team? If anybody could put a new and interesting negative spin on First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to keep America hydrated, it's her.
And, I'm about as disgusted as I'm going to get tonight. Kind of pointless to continue now.
This is a blog post I've been holding for nearly a week. It concerns my home state of Washington suing a florist who refused to service the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer (now that we have marriage equality here). The story itself is a sad one... and most certainly controversial... but that's not the reason I've been sitting on it. The reason is that I just can't form a solid conclusion on the subject, and it's been driving me crazy.
But before we go there, an interlude...
My personal beliefs don't allow me to give money to strangers when I can't verify how the money will be used. So, for example, when a homeless person approaches and asks me for my spare change so they can eat, I always say "I'm sorry, I don't have anything I can give you." This way, even if I do have some change, I'm not lying because (philosophically) I really can't give it to them. They might use the money to purchase something harmful to themselves or others, and then I would be a party to it. Instead, if they're hungry, I'll offer to buy them some food to eat. This is a win-win solution because they get the food they need and I get to help out without violating my beliefs.
But, like everything in life, it's not really so cut-and-dry. Can you ever truly verify what happens to the money you give? Let's say I help a stranded motorist buy gas so he can get home. But once he gets home, he siphons the gas from the car and uses it to burn his house down with his wife inside because she was cheating on him. And what if the owner of the gas station uses their profits to bet on dog-fights which torture and kill innocent animals? By trying to help, I just enabled two people to commit terrible acts, even though I never intended it to happen that way.
The reality is that the only way i can truly control what happens with the money I earn is to never spend it. Since that's not really an option, I just do the best I can to be as responsible as I can... then hope for the best. Money may indeed be the root of all evil, but I'm trying to stem the tide where I can.
End interlude.
With all this in mind, I feel like condemning the florist shop owner is kinda hypocritical. Her beliefs don't include same-sex marriage, so isn't she just doing the best she can to stem the tide? And, since this is America, shouldn't she have the freedom to follow her religious convictions so she won't be responsible for contributing to something she feels is wrong? In her own way, she may even be trying to keep her long-time customer from doing something she considers harmful. And for this she's going to get sued?
That doesn't seem fair. For better or worse, American citizens have the freedom to be raging bigots if they want to be. So why shouldn't this freedom extend to shop owners? If they want to hide behind religion so they can avoid doing the right thing, shouldn't that be their right? It's certainly the right of the customer to let the entire community know that the florist is a homophobic piece of shit. And since more and more people are standing on the right side of history to support love and equality, won't the florist eventually go out of business because she'll keep losing customers? Why do we need to bring in the lawyers and start a lawsuit when the problem will solve itself?
Perhaps we should have faith in the free market to work these things out. If businesses want to live in the dark ages, let them die out as society leaves them behind. New businesses will take their place, and life goes on.
Right?
Well...
I may not always agree with Democrats (or Republicans, for that matter), but there is one thing President Obama said as he was campaigning that really resonated with me when it comes to a person building a business... they didn't build it alone. This was explained beautifully by Elizabeth Warren...
"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
It's this overriding truth which has me not giving a fuck if the florist's freedom to be a bigot is infringed upon. That gay couple she refuses to service? Their tax dollars contributed to the system that allows her business to exist in the first place. But, more importantly to me, my tax dollars contribute to the system that allows her business to exist. The idea that some homophobic asshole can benefit from my tax dollars, then turn around and discriminate against customers holding a perfectly legal event? It pisses me off. Washington has legalized marriage equality. If you don't like it, then pack up your flowers and move to a state where you can benefit from tax dollars that support your bigotry. Otherwise, you deserve to get sued.
Right?
Well...
The bigger truth here is that my tax dollars are going to crap I loathe all the time. I'm a vegetarian. I believe the meat industry is environmentally hostile and killing this planet. And yet beef, pork, and poultry mega-corporations are getting billions in tax subsidies. This is how Burger King can sell a steroid-ridden "Whopper Jr." for $1.29, when that's a tiny fraction of how much it actually costs to make. For oh so many reasons, it should cost much, much, much more, but the US government uses my tax dollars to keep it cheap, and that pisses me off. Much like the way poultry subsidies allow Chick-fil-A to make record profits... which they then use to support hate groups. It's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm sure there are things I do like supporting with my tax dollars that other people don't believe in, so I guess it all balances out.And if my tax dollars are already supporting a bunch of things I don't believe in, then what difference does it make that a florist I don't believe in is getting tax money?
Right?
Well...
What if this bigoted florist was refusing to sell flowers for a wedding because the bride and groom were black? Or short? Or left-handed? Gay friends have told me that their sexuality is not some "lifestyle choice" they make, but instead a part of who they are. They were born that way, and nothing can change it. Just as straight people don't "choose" to be straight, they don't "choose" to be gay. I choose to believe them... partly because they are my friends and I trust them... but mostly because it would be fucking insane to think that homosexuality is some kind of massive deception by gays around the world and throughout all of history. And, since it would be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a bride and groom with red hair wanting to get legally married... it should be discriminatory and illegal to deny floral service to a groom and a groom with gay hair wanting to get legally married.
We have chosen to make laws against discrimination. Here in Washington, we have chosen to extend that to include discrimination against same-sex marriage. If you break the law, there should be consequences. Like getting your ass sued.
Right?
Well...
And it goes on and on.
Marriage equality is something I support 100%. Love is love, and gay couples have every right to celebrate their love in marriage the same way that straight couples do. Anything less is not fair... it's not right... and it's not human. I believe this so strongly that I want to cheer on our Attorney General as he fights discrimination in Washington State. That's his job, after all.
But a part of me will always wonder if this is the best approach. She's withholding flowers... not urgent medical care... not life-sustaining goods... not some other critical need... it's flowers. Might it be better to just boycott her homophobic ass and let nature take its course? Let her business inevitably die out on its own instead of turn this florist into some kind of misplaced martyr for "religious freedom" that slows down our march to equality acceptance? That seems like it might be a better route to take.
Right?
Well...
This is not about fucking flowers... this is about dignity, respect, and human rights! It's about...
Oh hell. At some point I really just have to stop this.
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