ROBESPIERRE RICK

It took 16 presidential election cycles, beginning in 1952, but I finally heard the quote from a presidential contender that may never be topped for sheer lunacy. Speaking at a Texas campaign stop February 8, Rick Santorum offered this bit of delusion and fear mongering:

"When you marginalize faith in America....what's left is the French Revolution. What's left in France became the Guillotine...if we follow the path of President Obama
and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that path."

Santorum, of course, was merely scoring culture war points with the extreme Tea Party and Evangelical wing of the Republican Party, the highly energized segment which is fueling his inroad on front runner Mitt Romney. Somehow Santorum believes making contraceptives available at no cost to the 98% of sexually active women who use them, of their own free will, represents a hostility to religion that moves in a straight line to the French Revolution and the guillotine.

I am not worried that my continued support for the sensible and measured policies benefiting the health of women will bring back (or rather to since America never had it) the guillotine. There is, however, a device I wish we could use on the Santorum candidacy...the Hook.

THE DINOSAURS WILL APPEAL

February 8th was a great day for personal freedom and human dignity in California, and indeed, all of America, when the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals struck down California's gay marriage ban as being unconstitutional.

The 2008 law which stopped California from being what would now be the seventh state to legalize gay marriage, was decreed by the 9th Circuit to be unconstitutional because, while states are generally allowed to pass any law deemed desirable, "it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently". The decision implies it is no more constitutional to prevent two persons of the same sex from marrying as it is to prevent two persons of different races from marrying.

Regardless of the eventual U.S. Supreme Court decision on today's action, marriage equality for all will ultimately prevail. Demographics are on the side of justice and first class citizenship for gay Americans. A recent poll showed the following support for gay marriage:


18 - 34 years: 70%
35 - 59 years: 53%
60+ years: 39%

The unreconstructed homophobes, the religious intolerant, the haters and the prisoners of fear; if they look in the mirror, are likely to see a graying and wrinkled visage staring back. They are human dinosaurs who either won't or can't adapt to a changing world. The real dinosaurs who roamed the world millions of years ago failed to adapt and became extinct. As the former group becomes extinct, succeeding generations of more secure, tolerant souls will make this a better country for all.

BOMB IRAN - LOSE $3 BILLION

Most media reports indicate an Israeli war against Iran, possibly as early as spring. Israel has determined there is room for only one major power in the Middle East and it is willing to jeopardize massive regional war and a world wide economic meltdown to maintain their regional hegemony.

The Obama Administration has pushed back...timidly. President Obama knows that an Israel - Iran war would be a catastrophe, but he is terrified of publically alienating the Israeli Likud Party and and the American Israel Lobby, especially in an election year. Regardless, he should unequivocally declare that the US will not support Israel's plans for a needless, criminal war against Iran and will instantly cut off our $3 billion yearly foreign aid to Israel should any overt military action be undertaken.

Also published in the Daily Herald, February 9, 2012