Someone Get The Texas Supreme Court A Dictionary So They Can Look Up "Equality"

In a display of blatant bigotry, homophobia, stupidity and lack of knowledge about the law, last week the Texas Supreme Court sided with same-sex marriage opponents who argued that the city of Houston should not have extended its benefits policy to married same-sex couples because ... same-sex.

Yes, even though the United Effing State Supremes ruled that The Gays are legally entitled to full equality, as in marriage, the Texas Supremes, stepped back a bit and said, Oh no, not The Gays! Not.The.Gays.

The Texas court—and, yes, I get it, it’s Texas—threw out a lower court ruling that had favored the benefits policy was enacted by Houston's former, and first openly gay, mayor, Annise Parker, in 2013.

And that was the same year that the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must extend benefits to married same-sex couples, while in 2015, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states ... which, last I checked, though I don’t like the idea ... included Texas.

The plaintiffs—two taxpayers, and no doubt, _____ supporters, represented by same-sex marriage opponents—say that Houston's benefits policy goes further than the 2015 Supreme Court's Obergefell decision requires ... you know, that The Gays are equal and should be treated as such every-effing-where.

And the Texas Supreme Court agreed this time, though they originally declined to hear the case, but reversed course "under pressure from top Texas Republicans":

"Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton [all known homophobes ... my opinion] filed an amicus brief in October asking the all-Republican court to reconsider. They also asked the court to clarify that the U.S. Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, does not 'bind state courts to resolve all other claims in favor of the right to same-sex marriage.'"

Yes, these wingnuts and bigots running Texas, while taking time away from their new anti-transgender platform, have convinced the state Supreme Court that even though the US Supreme Court found The Gays equal under the law, it doesn’t have to be that way in Texas.

So, you know, Fuck off, Texas.

NPR

Pot.Kettle.MarcoRubio

Oh, Florida, how dumb can you be? I mean, you elected Marco Rubio as your Senator once and he, to be fair, did a terrible job. Then he up and told you he wasn’t even going to finish the job to which you elected him, and the job where you pay his salary, because he wanted to be president and he would never, ever go back to the Senate again.

So he stopped working for you, and ran for president and failed miserably at that job, too. And then he came crawling back home and suddenly realized he might become an unemployed has-been so he asked you to re-elect him to the Senate—the job he stopped doing, the job he said he no longer wanted, the job he stopped showing up for—and you voted him in again.

How.Dumb.Are.You? Don’t bother, it’s a rhetorical question and, actually, not at all the subject of this blog post. Nope, this is about the death of Fidel Castro, tyrant, dictator, human rights violator, and despot. And, yes, to be clear, a family man; father, brother, cousin, uncle ...

When Castro passed away over the weekend at the age of 90, President Barack Obama said:

“At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans – in Cuba and in the United States – with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him…”

There was no praise for Castro, just condolences to the family who lost someone they loved. But that wasn’t enough for Rubio, who then took to the media to call the President’s comments “pathetic”:

“Barack Obama is the president of the most powerful country in the world. And what I called pathetic is not mentioning whatsoever in that statement the reality that there are thousands upon thousands of people who suffered brutally under the Castro regime. He executed people. He jailed people for 20 to 30 years. The Florida Straits, there are thousands of people who lost their lives fleeing his dictatorship. And not to acknowledge any of that in the statement, I felt was pathetic, absolutely.”

But should we have expected more for lying, pandering, can’t get elected, can’t do his job, Marco Rubio? See, because after Castro’s death Marco Rubio ran to the media to talk about Fidel Castro’s history of oppressing gays.

Huh; oppressing gays? Who else has done that? Oh, wait ...Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio who voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] which would have protected LGBT Americans from being fired from their jobs based solely on their sexual orientation.

Marco Rubio supported the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] and was steadfastly against marriage equality even after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of it.

Marco Rubio has raised money for the Arizona Center For Public Policy, which advocates for "ex-gay" torture among other anti-gay positions.

Marco Rubio allowed his voice to be used in robocalls for the National Organization for Marriage [NOM].

Marco Rubio has vowed to do whatever he can to undo the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling which made marriage legal in the United States for same-sex couples.

Marco Rubio was a sponsor of the First Amendment Defense Act [FADA], which would legalize anti-LGBT discrimination nationwide.

Marco Rubio threatened to withdraw his own immigration reform bill if it were be applied to same-sex couples.

Marco Rubio declared that gay adoption is a “social experiment” that “shouldn’t be forced on children.”

So when Marco Rubio stands up and denounced Fidel Castro for being anti-LGBT—and to be clear, in 2010, Fidel Castro told the press that he took the blame for the “great injustices” suffered by his nation’s gay community—when he himself has been at the forefront in this country of many of the same vile ideas, he is nothing but a pandering lying asshat of epic proportions.

And please, let us not forget how Marco Rubio blatantly lied about his own family’s history with Fidel Castro, claiming that they fled Cuba after the revolution when in fact they were living comfortably in Miami years before Castro seized power.

Florida. This is what you elected to office ... again. A pandering asshat who knocks down Castro when, apparently, he and Castro share many of the same ideas—even if there is evidence that Castro had evolved on LGBT issues. A lying pandering asshat who can’t even tell the truth about how, and when, he arrived in America.

Marco Rubio. F**k off.

Issue Hawk

Mississippi Told To Knock Off Their Lame Attempts To Circumvent Marriage Equality

A year ago this past Sunday, the Supreme Court ruled that The Gays were free to marry the person they loved and we rejoiced.

Well, most of us rejoiced; Mississippi did not. In fact, after that SCOTUS ruling Mississippi passed a law allowing county clerks to recuse themselves from granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples because, well, God Hates Fags Who Get Married … or something.

Then, this week, a year and a day after Obergefell, Federal Judge Carlton Reeves told Mississippi to ‘knock it off,’ though in more legal terms than that; he said the state’s newly passed law allowing clerks to Just Say No Cuz The Baby Jeebus — i.e. their religious beliefs — was just a lame attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision.

Reeves was particularly critical of the decision of state officials to respond to the Obergefell ruling by passing such a law and taking other related actions aimed at avoiding the existing injunction:

“The Fifth Circuit long ago chastised our State for such ‘a carefully calculated campaign of delay … and masterly inactivity’ … Mississippi’s elected officials may disagree with Obergefell, of course, and may express that disagreement as they see fit — by advocating for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision, for example. But the marriage license issue will not be adjudicated anew after every legislative session.”

Sometimes you gotta drag these states kicking and screaming into the 21^st century and simple equality and Civil Rights.

Still, one would have thought Mississippi might have learned their Civil Rights lesson last century.

Buzzfeed