Prop 8 Realpolitik

[purejuice]

Nothing I have seen or heard since I began my life in civil rights in the late 1960s has persuaded me differently, despite the taunts of a younger and crankier generation of lawyers, that civil rights will be gained anywhere except in a court of law. If there.

I have been spelunking around to see if there is a Thurgood Marshall for gay rights, since I'm truly ignorant of the legal history which has gone down since 1976, when I wrote the first story I know of in any mainstream publication about gay marriage.

Thirty-two years down the road, I submit, Marshall would have had Brown v. the Board of education behind him and be headed for a bitter and alcoholic old age on the Supreme Court.

He is my hero. The blueprint for civil rights success was born in his head and actuated because he did not falter from the incredibly long and lonely march he set out for himself as the lone litigator of the NAACP. Which you should join if for no other reason than that there would be no civil rights without Marshall.

He first decided what was the one and only single issue he could prosecute. Desegregation of the schools he chose for several reasons. Bottom line, it would have the most impact, it was winnable, and he could do it with the pittance he had.

He had a strategy, first to desegregate private schools. Then, when a homerun case, with several impeccably photogenic plaintiffs, the right lineup on the Supremes, emerged, or when he emerged it, he completed the long march.

I have been wondering why the gay rights activists have no such general. It's been nearly two generations since I wrote my story.

I have been appalled, frankly, by LA activists, whose main response has been let's do a fundraiser by promising to send a vicious post card to the Mormons for every $5 you contribute.

Meanwhile, girls in Afghanistan are in the hospital being treated for the acid burns on their faces. Acid was thrown in their faces as they tried to attend high school. I don't know about you, but I'm sending money to RAWA today.



Meanwhile, I'm going to be inspecting the record of Lambda and consider sending them some money.

Finally, if I were the gay general, instead of starting arts industry witch hunts and getting fourth-rate Mormon theater directors fired on account of their $1000 contribution to enemies of gay marriage, I would be organizing a serious investigation into Mormon finances.

This story is at least 20 years old, but I have no doubt serious malfeasance is still a foundation of the Mormon -- and the other religious orgs, such as the Knights of Columbus, who were actors in the Cali debacle -- church. Twenty years ago, when for various reasons I was the world's expert on Dwayne Andreas, the World Food Programme and farm subsidies/commodities fraud, the Mormons were the banditti of the Agriculture department, manipulating the farm subsidies programs through their entirely corrupt congressional delegation, running others out of the farm subsidy business and so on. I'd investigate this system first by talking to Ag department and Senate Ag committee retirees, to find out what the scams are, then by determining the agribusinesses that are Mormon held, and what their tithing system is. I would definitely tie in the questionable legal relationship of government subsidy and universal Mormon tithing to the church, and its tax exemption. Time for that to go.

I been tired of stupid (see user info). Stupid and ugly? I'm not having it.

http://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/articles/proposition-8-challenged.html?print=t
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/04/nation/na-roberts4

Comments

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i agree. there was almost nothing nice about thurgood marshall, especially in the ruthless way he cut off hundreds of people who needed to have their civil rights protected -- most notably, those subjected to peonage -- because their cases were unwinnable.