It’s nice to know what one celebrates; it’s even nicer to be able to quote it. With that in mind, click here for a link to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, ruling that Prop. 8, California’s 2008 anti-same-sex marriage ballot initiative, is unconstitutional. There’s a three-page summary, if the full decision knocks you out.

Then, for some insight into the coming U.S. Supreme Court battle over Prop. 8, click here for an interesting profile of National Organization for Marriage founder Maggie Gallagher, by Mark Oppenheimer at Salon.

With celebratory love,
K-B

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

(My thanks to Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage for providing the majority of this fable’s dialogue and a significant amount of the narrative — from the last four year’s of NOM emails, media releases and website content, for example, click here …)

In 2010, California Federal Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. He determined that the ballot measure, which defines marriage as only between a man and a woman, violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Leaders of the anti-same-sex marriage lobby were crushed by the decision, although they continued to tilt at homophobic windmills until the final legal blow to their cause smote them impotent, along with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). But as time passed, they saw that traditional marriages were not, after all, diminished by same-sex marriages. Realizing the error of their rationale, they all trotted off to happier pursuits. All but one, that is. Brian Brown, ill-equipped for mainstream employment, struggled to redefine NOM’s mission, to reframe his marriage message, a message that would support a new cause and his continued income. And so, one day, he was found doggedly pursuing his mission along the streets of Fallbrook the Friendly Village. …

One blustery Wednesday afternoon, in a burst of unprecedented rejection, Brian Brown, president of NOM, struck down the request of a senior citizen who was seeking assistance to cross Elder Street in Fallbrook, California

“I only asked him for an arm to lean on, to step down from the curb,” said Rose Kaminski to the chubby Eagle Scout who came to her rescue. The petite octogenarian wore a mint-green polyester pantsuit and sneaks, the balls of her Peds, a perfectly matching hue. She knew she looked just lovely. “It’s a special day for me, so I’m trying to look my best. But my, oh my, that young man nearly jumped out of his skin when I asked for his help — I just had to pick up my marriage license, oy! The little nebbish, I guess he’s not used to folks being friendly. Between us, Bubele — shush, now, you didn’t hear this from me — he favors the Pillsbury Dough Boy, don’t you know.” She chuckled as she tucked a Macy’s shopping bag under one green arm and with the other hand clasped the Eagle Scout’s elbow. The poor boychick, she noticed, was devastated by pronounced acne. A little chicken soup, maybe? she wondered, as together they toddled across the street.

Meanwhile, pedestrians waylaid by Brown’s boorishness gave witness to a growing crowd that his unthinkable behavior did in fact happen, as wrong and outrageous as it was: an openly Christian man, throwing a little old lady’s harmless request into a dustbin like so many pieces of dirty paper, declaring his imperial will should trump her plea. Although, as the people chatted among themselves, no one was quite sure what that will was.

“Why would he do it?” they murmured to one another. “How could he?” And then, “Brian, Brian!” they called to him. “You must explain yourself, Brian!”

Brian considered turning tail and running like hell to his “Autumn for Marriage 2011: One Man, One Woman of Child-Bearing Age” tour bus, but he took so long to consider his exit that he was surrounded before his legs got pumping. And by then, the group was rapidly expanding, thanks to the residents of Shady Oaks Rest Home who had hit the street for their daily power walk.

Brian eyed the fomenting mass, whispered a prayer, rolled up his sleeves and said, “I’ll take your questions now.”

“How could you refuse such a benign request, Brian?” asked Cecil Adams, an adjunct professor of philosophy at Palomar Community College; although at the moment, he was moonlighting as a skateboarding pizza delivery person, a pragmatic move he would soon abandon with a modicum of nostalgia, as spring enrollment increased at the school. “All that sweet old gal wanted was a hand down the curb, Brian. And on her wedding day! Where’s your soul? Don’t you aspire to a higher plane? What gives, man?”

Brian put his right hand to his heart, NOM’s polling having indicated that 67 percent of respondents interpreted the gesture as strongly positive.

“Now, let me just preface this with my absolute assurance that I bear no ill will toward senior citizens,” Brian intoned. “I harbor no prejudice in my heart. I have senior citizens who are friends and family! Nonetheless, that woman is headed to meet her partner at Town Hall and apply for a marriage license, and that jeopardizes the definition of marriage across this great nation of ours. Senior-citizen marriage is threatening to strip millions of Americans of our core definition of marriage — of our right to traditional marriage!”

“Oh, yeah?” the philosophic pizza person asked as he passed out slices to the agitated crowd. “How so?”

“Senior-citizen marriage will undermine the institution of marriage as we’ve known it for millennia. That’s why I’m — we’re — on this bus tour — to make it clear that the people of this country will not be silenced and that activist judges who try to defend senior-citizen marriage do not have the right to impose their views on the people of this country. We need to make it clear to the Supreme Court and we need to make it clear to the out-of-control Congress. Senior-citizen marriage conflicts with marriage’s central purpose — of procreation!”

“Well, yep, she looked a bit old to have a bun in the oven.” Cecil twirled an empty pizza box on one finger and the audience politely applauded. “But you haven’t answered my question: How is senior-citizen marriage threatening to strip millions of Americans of our right to traditional marriage? That smacks of a non sequitur, man.”

“Advocates for senior-citizen marriages are threatening the definition of marriage as we know it. The sheer audacity of senior citizens, wanting to redefine marriage for everyone else, as though it’s their civil right to do so! The sheer ego mania of it is startling to the core, the ah, the very definition of marriage that is the basis of our nation, the procreational purpose that marriage is intended for, one husband, one wife, ah — procreating. You know what I mean.”

“Brian, are you speaking in tongues, man? You’re not making one iota of sense, dude.” Cecil sucked some pizza sauce from the COEXIST tie his former wife had given him for Co-parents Day.

“I know, but our polling indicates that 79 percent of respondents have a very strong positive reaction to statements about protecting their right to traditional marriage, so I’m supposed to say it whenever I get a chance — because you, too, have the right to traditional marriage and your right deserves to be protected from special interests who are trying to redefine it.”

“You take direction well, Brian. Gotta give you credit where credit is due, man. But I’m divorced, and you know senior-citizen marriages don’t hurt anyone else’s. How can you justify all this effort to oppose a problem that doesn’t exist? How can you try to stop seniors from being married? Come on now, guy! They might be a little shriveled, and there is that oldster talcum powder smell, but they’re still human beings. Don’t they deserve the same rights as the rest of us?”

“Yeah, that!” the crowd chimed in.

Brian eyed the riled folks and his sweat glands gushed. “We’re not trying to ban senior-citizen marriage, but we are against redefining marriage. And those people have civil unions at their disposal. Traditional marriage is the exclusive right of a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation. It’s what’s best for children, for families, for the nation!” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and stopped the salty flow at his chin. “It is an abomination to redefine marriage as anything else. It’s just wrong. Very wrong. And we will fight back! And we will win! Because senior citizens don’t have the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us. And, and they are too old for, you know, procreation!”

The assembly, comprising a goodly number of senior citizens, drew a collective gasp and stepped back from Brian — that he was imagining them in flagrante was grossing them out. “Damn voyeur,” they whispered, exchanging winks.

“Brian, Brian, Brian!” Cecil said. “Get your mind out of the gutter! Don’t you pay attention to the stats? We are an aging population. Don’t mess with the dominant demographic’s sexuality! The Baby Boomers, man — they might be cruising into their golden years, but they’re still having plenty of nookie.”

Brian shuddered. “Eeuwwww! It’s unthinkable — senior citizens — the death knell of traditional marriage — how can they? — marriage is for pro– procreation! — unthinkable — but when I do think — Sweet, Baby Jesus! — Grams and Granny going at — you know — gyuhhcchhh! — God almighty, it’s — disgusting!!”

A low rumble burbled from the depths of the throng, and Cecil, an intuitive philosopher, leapt back from its center just as the people swarmed Brian, who disappeared amid blazing knock-off purses, rolled newspapers and well-aimed Shady Oaks water bottles.

Cecil thought about stepping into the fray to intervene, but decided to let natural law run its course. Besides, he had to get back to Pizza Hut and explain the disappearance of four extra-larges.

As he skated out of sight, the mob quickly thinned, and Rose returned with a hefty man on her arm. “Did we miss something?” she asked the stragglers.

“Not much,” said Rod “The Rod” Robertson, a retired professional wrestler and occasional birthday party clown. “Just took care of some pipsqueak senior citizenphobe.”

“That nebbish who wouldn’t help me across the street? I told you about him, Bruno. His poor mother, what a disappointment he must’ve been, what a heartache.” She patted her fiancé’s arm. “Not like my Bruno.”

“Yes, Sweetie.” Bruno gave her a reciprocal pat.

“You look just lovely today, Rose,” The Rod said, silently mourning Bruno’s success.

“Thank you, Rod. Aren’t you a mensch. See you at lunch!” Rose waved as she and Bruno strolled up the walk to Shady Oaks. “Well, it takes all kinds, don’t you know, but between us, Bubele — shush, now, you didn’t hear this from me — that young man favors the Pillsbury Dough Boy.”

“Yes, Sweetie, I’d wager he does.” Bruno had heard the story twice before, but he knew how to make an old gal feel good. He gave her a love pinch and said, “Rosie, would you like to take a little nap before the wedding, Sweetie?”

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Note: A different version of this piece was published in 2010.

Special Thanks to JoJo Diggs For Her Choreography!

Special thanks to Ana Beatriz Cholo, of the Courage Campaign, Chris Lilly and the countless volunteers who stepped up to help at the last minute to make this a success.

Courage Campaign gleefully protests Michele Bachmann outside of the California Republican Convention. For more on the Courage Campaign visit the Courage Campaign.

This video is for educational and awareness purposes only. Dancers are dancing to Mad House’s version of Madonna’s Like a Prayer. To purchase this version of the song please visit iTunes!

Fact:  A U.S. citizen falls in love and marries an immigrant. The U.S. citizen can sponsor the immigrant for a visa so they can live together in the US. Right?

Wrong. Because they’re both guys. And that’s the story of Henry Velandia, who is about to be torn apart from his husband, Josh Vandiver, unless we do something.

Watch their Testimony video, and sign the emergency petition to Secretary Napolitano to stop their deportation:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/tornapart

Here are four more facts (these are actually true):

1.     President Obama ordered his administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law that prevents Josh from sponsoring Henry’s visa.

2.     Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has the legal authority to stop Henry’s deportation — not to mention the forced separation of 36,000 couples like him and Josh — until DOMA is resolved in the courts. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) recently wrote to the Administration on their behalf.

3.     Henry’s final deportation hearing is scheduled for May 6^th.

4. We have to do something.

Click here to watch their story, and sign Courage Campaign’s joint emergency petition with AllOut.org, an organization working for global LGBT equality.

We started Testimony: Take a Stand to make these stories known so they aren’t ignored. Please watch the video and sign our emergency petition to Sec. Napolitano — before it’s too late.

Together for equality,

Adam Bink
Director of Online Programs, Courage Campaign

By Murray Richmond

A recent poll shows a huge shift in American attitudes toward gay marriage, from a 32 percent approval in 2004 to 53 percent today.

I am one of those people who changed their minds.

In 1989 when I was ordained as a minister to serve a small church in North Carolina, homosexuality was an invisible issue. …

… Read full article at Salon.com.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

“They gotta learn some phone manners,” he said, angrily scrawling the address of his next fare. “They call me and then they’re talking to somebody else — in Spanish! — and I’m saying, ‘Hello, Fallbrook Taxi, Fallbrook Taxi, Fallbrook Taxi!’”

My taxi driver ended his rant with a snort and a “How ya doing?” his nicotine-stained fingertips drumming the steering wheel while he dredged a glob of phlegm from his depths.

Meanwhile, my fanny puckering at his comment, I reached for a response, any response other than telling him to pull over and let me out. Abandoning my ride would have satisfied my desire to escape his bigotry and deprive him of my $2.50 fare, but it also would have delayed my return to my desk, and, since delving into school full time, I schedule my days in 15-minute intervals. I couldn’t afford to lose an entire unit of homework time to the careless ramblings of a tobacco-addled bigot. So I went with a compromise.

“That behavior is not restricted to any particular ethnicity or race,” I said, staying firmly buckled into my seat. “My lily-white, U.S.-born family does that all the time.”

But I’d spoken too soon: There was more to his rant.

“And babies hanging off the boob,” he spat, “screaming in my ear.”

I reached for the door handle, hesitated and remembered my primary goal for the day: to use every waking moment to study for midterms, not to save the world or myself from idiots. That would have to wait.

But that word he used, “boob,” that stuck in my craw. His delivery had transformed it from a bit of comic slang to a sexist, racist slur. He was talking about female body parts, intimate parts to which he would never be granted access — surely not by me or the Latinas he targeted with his ire. His only way to lay any claim to said breasts was to belittle them and thus lend import to his job as a taxi driver in the bucolic burg of Fallbrook. What a boob!

I couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “Hey there, guy. I nursed my daughter in public — for more than two years! And, by the way, she’s Latina.”

He fell silent, drumming the wheel, waiting for my exit so he could light up again in the non-smoking cab.

I welcomed his silence, stared out the window and thought of all the places I’d dragged my child “hanging off the boob”: the restaurants and demonstrations, the public hearings and backyard barbecues, the campaign trails and grocery stores. Oh, a few folks freaked, but the vast majority of people endorsed us with a smile or a nod.

But I wondered: Had our skin been a little darker, would we have been reviled instead, banned for being brown and female and, thus, boob-feeding, not breast-feeding?

And I wondered if I would have been as annoyed with the driver if my daughter were not Latina.

Or if I were not a woman.

Or if the taxi driver had not been male and white.

Or if it were not March, National Women’s History Month.

Or if the world were not still so riddled with hateful anti-woman, anti-other-than-heterosexual-white attitudes and policies and laws and institutions.

He pulled up to my house, looked at the same-sex marriage sign on my gate and said, “So, you support the right to marry, do you?” and followed that with another productive hack of phlegm.

“Yes,” I said, “I do,” and exited the taxi, wondering where his loogie landed.

Sometimes it’s a real challenge to travel through a world where white male taxi drivers think a white female fare is all ears for his sexist, racist sputum.

Where the men of The Koala tabloid think calling a woman “fat whore” and “uppity skank” can pass as satire.

Where U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t recognize the profanity in calling a homosexual a “fag.”

Where the cultish Christians of Westboro church* enjoy disrupting funerals with signs that read “God Hates Fags,” “God Hates Jews” and “Thank God for Dead Solders.”

It’s enough to make a gal mad. In fact, when I first told my kiddo I had selected women’s studies as my college major, she rolled her eyes and warned me, “You’re just going to get more angry that you already are.”

And she’s right. But you know what? I wish I were even more angry than that. I wish more people were even more angry, angry enough to get out of the taxi and hoof it home. Because in the United States, idiots can freely say whatever horrendous things they can think — until they slander or libel someone — and, in the meantime, our most effective recourse is to aim for their wallets.

So I won’t be using Fallbrook Taxi until their drivers are trained to keep their prejudicial thoughts to themselves while they’re driving on my dime.

I will continue to call The Koala’s advertisers to ask them to stop supporting homophobic, misogynistic, pedophilic, racist and sexist content (see numbers below).

And I’ll certainly never put a sawbuck in Westboro’s collection plate.

Love,
K-B

Call The Koala advertisers to ask them to withdraw their support of the tabloid’s homophobic, misogynistic, pedophilic, racist and sexist content.

Goldfingers Gentlemen’s Club, Owner Aaron Goldberg: 858-530-0766

The Dank Bank: 619-589-0117 or thedankbank619@yahoo.com

The General Store Coop: 858-450-3080 or trex@generalstorecoop.com

PB Entertainment, Owners Mike Ettenberg and Jason Sampas: 858-598-7759

Porter’s Pub & Grill: 858-587-4828

Spirits of St. Germaine: 858-455-1414

Therapeutic Healing Cooperative: 619-717-8060 or 866-378-1726

*NOTE: Although I’m not a fan of website hacking, it is divinely interesting to note that a couple notorious hackers, Anonymous and The Jester, have gone after the Westboro Baptist Church websites, some of which have been down since February 24 and remain down as of publication of this column:

www.americaisdoomed.com

www.godhatesfags.com

www.westborobaptistchurch.com

www.yourpastorisawhore.com

Interview with Anonymous representative and Westboro Baptist Church representative, Shirley Phelps-Roper:

Crossposted at the OB Rag, the Progressive Post and San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

Dear Readers,

On Wednesday, the Obama administration said the federal law banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, and the U.S. Department of Justice would no longer defend it in court. National Organization of Marriage’s Brian Brown said the news was shocking — shocking, I say! — and an “amazing display of arrogance combined with incoherence.” He begged his followers to demand that Congress “fight for marriage.”

This seems an opportune time to reintroduce a contributor to Excuse Me, I’m Writing: Brother Buddy from KGAP radio — not Satan’s store but God’s agape love! — the hometown station of Fallbrook the Friendly Christian Village.

Brother Buddy’s loving wisdom is kind of like receiving a blessing, a hug and poke with a sharp stick all rolled into one. Enjoy!

Love,
K-B

True Friends of Marriage, Take Heed!

It is with deep sorrow — but also with God’s abiding love and hope — that I’d like to chat with you, my Brothers and Sisters, about Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

For those of you unfamiliar with the man, Brother Brian has made a controversial career of preaching from the mountaintop that marriage needs protecting.

“From what?” you might ask — and well you should.

According to Brother Brian, we must protect marriage from homosexuals whom he fears will be the death knell of the hallowed institution.

And just how are homosexuals going to rend the sacred commitment of marriage from the prayerful hands of heterosexuals?

According to Brother Brian and NOM, “Marriage is under assault! Marriage is under assault!! Marriage is under assault!!!”

My, oh my, oh my! One would think from Brother Brian’s cultish rhetoric that gays and lesbians must be conducting a malevolent campaign to prevent heterosexuals from being married. That homosexuals are buying up all the wedding gowns and tuxedos for their cross-dressing parties. That they are barring entry to all the places of worship and rituals, all the perfect sunset beaches and the VFW halls, for their female impersonator AIDS fund-raisers. That they are hording all the flower arrangements and tulle for their own perverse use — and God knows where the Jordan almonds are ending up!

But, because common sense prevails, we must acknowledge, Brothers and Sisters, that such a scenario is idiotic — if for no other reason than that the bridal industry is not about to give up the huge segment of their market represented by heteros.

Well then, if homosexuals are not bent on destroying the heterosexual dedication to gift registries, honeymoon packages, and the inevitable second guessing — lying there the next morning, watching him or her snoring, halitosic drool pooling on the sheets — then we must pursue our query: Just how are homosexuals going to rend the sacred commitment of marriage from the prayerful hands of heterosexuals?

And it is at this point that Brother Brian resorts to reasoning that is shady at best. But, of course, Brothers and Sisters, he is counting on you, on your generosity of spirit, your wish to lend credence to a Brother, your inclination to let others think through the tough issues for you — come on, admit it, Dear Ones — yes, Brother Brian is counting on you to let his Orwellian logic slip by unnoticed, unchallenged.

Hence, our little chat.

First, let’s take care of a quick point: Brother Brian’s parent-baiting tactic. He warns that children will be taught about homosexuality in our schools.

Well, Jesus, Mary and Joseph! They are already learning about homosexuality — on TV, on the playground, from the furtive body language their parents reveal when encountering a homosexual. Better they should learn the facts in school, don’t you think, Brothers and Sisters? If only it were so. Say amen!

And, compared to the supposed biblical lesson likely perpetrated on the children of misguided “Friends of Marriage” — that homosexuals are an abomination — whose children do you think will turn out the more loving and accepting, the more true to Christian ideals? Those who learn of homosexuals’ natural existence or those who are taught to fear and revile them?

Next, consider a few of NOM’s “Marriage Talking Points.”

Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose; they don’t have a right to redefine marriage for the rest of us. … Who gets harmed? The people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of a husband and a wife, that’s who. That’s just not right.

Nor is it accurate. Contemplate the above statement, Brothers and Sisters, and find the wisdom so artfully excluded: When we have same-sex marriage, heterosexuals will still define their marriages as being between a man and a woman. Legalized same-sex marriage does not bear with it a conversion clause that all straights must go gay. (Besides, with the struggling economy, the homosexual recruiters are out of toaster ovens.) Legalizing same-sex marriage simply allows gays to accurately define their own marriages, while straights continue in happily hetero bliss (or divorce courts). But seriously, now, Brother Brian and his Newspeakers should not be so silly as to suggest that straight and gay marriages cannot cheerily coexist, because, in essence, they do. Say amen!

Next…

If courts rule that same-sex marriage is a civil right, then people like you and me who believe children need moms and dads will be treated like bigots and racists.

I have accepted the holy burden of speaking God’s truth on this issue, so, although it pains me to say it, it must be said: Brother Brian and his “opposite-sex marriage” marauders are indeed bigots. And God knows that gay marriage does not put heterosexuals’ parenthood at risk; only their ungodly behavior does that.

Nonetheless, in the spirit of tolerance and love, let me try to temper that sad news with this: In our great United States, Brother Brian and his “traditional marriage” cult have every right to be bigots, and we will continue to love them despite themselves — as we pray for their salvation from the sins of discrimination.

They do not, however, have the right to force the rest of us to join in their idolatrous bigotry. Try as they do, they cannot force the entire nation to kneel before the false god of “Marriage and Religious Liberty” they have so cleverly sculpted with words and hate and Beelzebub’s wily ways.

No, indeed, Brother Brian — and I pray you are listening. Leading your followers to vote away the rights of a class of people in the name of “Religious Liberty” is a thing of the Devil! Encouraging the fearful to celebrate their prejudice — presumably in God’s name! — is downright satanic, Brother Brian, satanic! And I fear for your soul. You are slip-sliding toward Hell in a bigot basket, straight toward Hell. The Evil One has tempted you with the sinister lust for white heterosexual male privilege, the craving for power, and you have succumbed. Your soul is at risk of an eternity of fiery damnation, Brother Brian. Repent before it’s too late! You must drop to your knees and pray to God. Pray for God to exorcize the demons from your heart. Pray for God’s great and abundant forgiveness for the sins you have perpetrated on the voters of Maine and California, New Jersey and New York, Delaware and Washington, D.C., Rhode Island, Texas and Illinois. Throw yourself before God’s merciful heart and thank Jesus for suffering for your bigoted sins. Repent, Brother Brian, repent before Satan’s snaky tail has an unbreakable grip on your soul and you are lost to his hellfires forever!

Yes, well, Brothers and Sisters, I am sure you can understand the need to bathe Brother Brian and his hornswaggled disciples in the truth and the light. There is no other way to save them.

Although — and I admit this because I remain only an imperfect child of God — it would be so much easier if the poor boy would get caught with his drawers down, figuratively speaking, of course. Come to think of it, the revelation of a spanking fetish would be so, so delicious! Say amen!

With love, your Brother in Christ,
Brother Buddy

California’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina died Saturday when her Retire Boxer Money Bomb exploded prematurely, killing Fiorina immediately and injuring a campaign aide. Fiorina, the infamously fired CEO of computer giant Hewlett Packard, was 56.

Distraught and slightly singed campaign manager, Marty Wilson, stood outside Fiorina’s Sacramento campaign headquarters as firefighters extinguished a small fire caused by the explosion.

“We don’t know what happened,” Wilson said. “Carly was getting ready to launch the money bomb email. She’d just put another million bucks into the campaign, but that was it; she wasn’t going to risk any more of her own money, so we really needed contributions. Anyway, the fuse must have been faulty. The thing went off in Carly’s face. It’s gotta be [U.S. Senator Barbara] Boxer’s fault. Or [President Barack] Obama’s. We demand an immediate investigation and an apology to Carly and the California voters, not only for this deliberate assault but for Boxer’s refusal to have an honest and serious debate about the issues during this crucial time for our nation!”

Paramedics treated Wilson on the scene for a minor head injury and first-degree burns.

The deadly explosion followed another life-threatening incident just two weeks ago at the Republican Party’s Hispanic 100 Awards Gala in Newport Beach. According to an event volunteer, Fiorina had been “slamming down tequila shots, trilling her tongue and shouting ‘Andale!’ in this really pathetic accent. Then she passed out. We thought she was dead at first. But, nope, she barfed and got up to dance.”

Republican Party insiders had purportedly been concerned about Fiorina’s “self-sabotaging behaviors” since she became an economic advisor to the 2008 McCain-Palin presidential campaign, which made Wall Street and CEO compensation reform key platform issues. Skydiving into a campaign event, Fiorina had become entangled in the lines of her golden parachute, preventing the chute from fully opening. Skydive experts at the time said she would have plunged to her death had she not had the presence of mind to pull the cord on her bonus chute. Still, she made a hard landing when she said Sarah Palin was unqualified to run a corporation, and the campaign fired her from the media circuit.

Although Fiorina’s tenure at Hewlett Packard was longer lived than her time on McCain’s campaign, she suffered a more devastating crash from HP and was eventually ranked by Portfolio magazine as one of the 20 worst CEOs ever:

“A consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005. THE STAT: HP stock lost half its value during Fiorina’s tenure.”

Despite her very public HP failure — or perhaps because of it — Fiorina was determined to prove herself in the public arena, and Boxer’s senate seat became her next target. She reconciled with Palin, who endorsed her in the primary, when Fiorina depended on the conservative Republican vote to topple moderate Republican Tom Campbell.

But just last weekend, noting Palin’s sagging polling numbers, Fiorina declined to appear with her at a Republican event in California. Palin’s husband, Todd, subsequently leaked a scathing email:

“Sarah put her ass on the line for you, Curly [sic]. She thought you were the real deal. But you and me both know you’re no Joe Sixpack. All that crap about starting as a secretary. You pulled yourself up with your family’s gold plated bootstraps. And now you can’t answer a simple invitation with a yes? Please explain how this endorsement stuff works, is it to be completely one sided, cuz if so, you don’t have a wolf’s chance in Wasilla of getting a cabinet seat in Sarah’s administration. You think you can throw a punch, but my Sarah can take you out in one shot! From a helicopter!”

Fiorina’s past job performance was not her only weakness on the campaign trail. She was A-rated pro-life in a pro-choice state. She supported offshore drilling in an anti-drilling state. She supported Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law in a state where 71 percent of Latino voters oppose it. And, in her op-ed piece announcing her campaign she highlighted her failure to exercise her right to vote: “Admittedly, I have not always been engaged in the electoral process, and I should have been.”

One of the few votes Fiorina reported casting was for California’s anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure, Proposition 8. That revelation, apparently intended to woo conservative voters, attracted the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay lobbying organization, which invested in anti-gay, pro-Fiorina advertising targeting Latino voters.

“Wouldn’t you know it!” said Juan Bautista, an independent gay voter, who was passing by Fiorina headquarters when the money bomb exploded. “One of the few times Fiorina bothered to vote, and it was for Prop. 8. What a poop she is, er, was. And the NOM ad, have you seen it? It’s pure manipulation. At least it’s not as bad as that pissy Sharron Angle ad telling Arizona Latinos not to vote at all. ¡Pendejos racistas!”

Most daunting of all Fiorina’s political challenges was her claim to be a jobs champion, which was contradicted by her corporate experience, noted for mass layoffs and outsourcing jobs overseas, strategies that have not been forgotten by California’s workforce.

Pedicab driver Bobby Sneed, who dropped off a fare just before the explosion, had little faith in Fiorina’s commitment to creating jobs for Californians.

“She laid me off from HP, shipped thousands of jobs overseas, and got a $45 million boot out the door. Now I’m essentially unemployed, she’s worth $120 million, and she was asking voters to give her money? Good lord! She wanted the senate badly enough, she should’ve just sucked it up and bought it, like Meg Whitman. Look, Fiorina soared to the corporate heights by whatever means she had at her disposal — and her dad’s telling her she’d never amount to anything surely motivated her — but she lacked the ability to translate her personal ambitions into a vision that captured the voter’s heart. And, I know it’s petty, but I couldn’t get beyond that snarl she was always trying to hide.”

Perhaps feminist activist Gloria Steinem captured the tormented essence of Carly Fiorina best, after Fiorina committed a live microphone faux pas in June:

“We had the prospective joy of two powerful women competing for a U.S. Senate seat. And in a moment of unintended, unedited honesty, what did we get from Fiorina? A pearl of wisdom? A poignant revelation? No. We got a snarky comment about Senator Boxer’s hair. That, Sweetie, is not feminism.”

Love,
K-B

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Crossposted at The Progressive Post.

Note: Carly Fiorina image from Carly for California campaign ad; Carly punch, from Californians Opposed to Carly Fiorina Facebook page; Carly Out of Control from Carly for CA website.

Brian S. Brown, Executive Director
National Organization for Marriage
2029 K Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 2006

Dear Brian,

Say I marry my same-sex partner and we set up house in our little town. How will this harm the nice Christian folks across the street and their right to heterosexual marriage? Please be specific and factual in your response.

Your answer here:


















































Hmmm, you got nothing? OK, then.

Thanks and love,
K-B

P.S. Martin Luther King says your new ad befouls his name, and even Maine’s GOP candidate Reverend Brian Hale, who opposes same-sex marriage, says your message is inappropriate — his kid says it’s “really creepy.”

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

It all started with our wedding: the be-medaled uniforms on one side, the prochoice buttons on the other. … Nope, nope, it started with the intervention, the dinner at which my friends planned to confront the self-delusional rationalization that I, the leftwing columnist, had surely contrived for accepting the proposal of a Marine. A Marine colonel, no less. Problem was, it turned out they liked him.

And he met my political litmus tests: He’s prochoice, figures sexual orientation is irrelevant in battle, and actually gives thought to California’s unbridled ballot measures. Our marriage proceeded, and we’ve been playing house ever since, despite occasionally cancelling out each other’s votes.

Then, in 2008, Prop. 8 passed 52 to 48 percent, resulting in a state constitutional amendment that restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples, effectively prohibiting any new same-sex marriages in California and denying recognition of those from other states and nations.

My response was to staple a sign to our front gate above the Marine Corps welcome mat — “I DO Support the Freedom to Marry” — with heavy-duty staples, every other inch. Having lost a car window to someone peeved with the bumper sticker in it, I was determined that my next opponent would have to work a lot harder to remove my message.

My husband came home, and the conversation went something like this:

“See the sign?”

“Yep.”

“I’m keeping it up until same-sex marriage is secured for California.

“Yep.”

“Maybe all fifty states.”

“Yep. Want to go for sushi?”

As our collective social circle now says, he’s not bad for a Marine and I’m not bad for a liberal. We’re both pretty tolerant. Oh, he might wince when he brings Marines home to dinner, but he’d never ask me to take the sign down, and I always discretely seat our conservative guests with their backs to the liberal artwork on the dining room wall. Wouldn’t want to give them agita.

Then, a couple weeks ago, when Judge Vaughn Walker struck down Prop. 8 as unconstitutional, I contemplated what my next gate message might be. And when he announced last week that his temporary stay on the decision would be lifted August 18 (barring any interim action by the Appeals Court), I was vacillating between saving the 14^th Amendment right to citizenship for children of immigrants and protecting Afghan women from Taliban brutality.

But an email from Brian Brown of National Organization for Marriage hit my inbox and squelched my hopeful ruminations.

He claimed “the American people are furious” — furious! — with Walker, that his decisions have “ignited a firestorm.”

I did a quick check outside, because I live in Southern California and fires are not to be taken lightly here. Turns out Brown was misstating the situation. There wasn’t even a whiff of smoke in the air. However, he also reiterated NOM’s message that the purpose of marriage is procreation.

Now, this made me wonder, because my husband and I had both been to the Yankee Clipper prior to our marriage, which means we don’t meet NOM’s procreation criteria.

I mentioned this to my husband, and the conversation went something like this:

“Honey, according to NOM, you and I should not have been allowed to marry in California because we can’t procreate.”

“According to who?”

“National Organization for Marriage, NOM. They say the primary purpose of marriage is procreation.”

“They some kind of commies or something?”

“I love you, Honey.”

“Yep.”

In the end, I figure it’s like this: A Republican Marine and a Democratic feminist can agree that marriage is a civil right, to be enjoyed by everyone, and we’re just not that unusual. Remove the angry rhetoric from the debate, the fearful propaganda, and most folks will eventually join us.

Yep.

Love,
K-B

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Crossposted at the Progressive Post and  Soulforce.