In an appearance on yet another right wingnut talk program, Ricky Sanctimonious played his oh-so-tired homo card.  Again.

This time he was on Janet Parshall's America (I wish I had my own America), a nationally syndicated talk radio program. I picked this up from the Raw Story. 

Read what Ricky has to say this time ...

It is. If you think about it, Janet, from everything from Brokeback Mountain to, you know, all the TV shows that you see promoting and affirming alternative lifestyles -- I guess to put it nicely -- you would think that the culture would eventually just move in the other direction. But I think these kind of debates are the chance for a public discourse to counter what Hollywood is purveying to our young people. Not just what Hollywood is purveying to young people, to all people. And it's an opportunity for us to get beyond, you know, 'We should treat everybody nicely.' I'm for treating everybody nicely, but that doesn't mean that we need to change the law to recognize a form of marriage that is harmful to our country.

Hey, hey --- I wonder if Santorum spokesfag Robert Traynham gets treated nicely when he's asked to spin yet another stupid lie to cover Ricky's ass?  You could say he's the right man for that job, but that would be an overly obvious joke. 

And, of course, there are still no details on how gay marriage will hurt the country.  Perhaps Ricky left that document in Penn Hills when he moved?  

I missed this, but on Thursday the Trib published a column by Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute (limited government, free markets, etc). 

Powell explains how federal regulation of marriage proved to be a bad conservative idea back in the days of Theodore Roosevelt. 

Polygamous families were producing more children than monogamous families and TR feared that polygamy would sweep the nation. He recommended a constitutional amendment banning polygamy. He came close to suggesting that there ought to be a law making it mandatory for monogamous families to have children.

Aside from the characters on HBO, do you know any polygamous families?  

Powell continues:

One big problem with the idea of federalizing everything is the assumption that the "right" people will always be in control.

<snip>

Mindful of historical reality, one has to consider the possibility that if the marriage amendment is ratified, it will strengthen precedents for the federal government to find new ways of interfering in people's personal lives. At least some of the interference will likely be abhorrent to the religious right.

All very excellent points.  But Powell fails to carry his argument to its logical conclusion -- its not so much federal control of marriage that's abhorrent as government control period.  Why should the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania exert that latitude of control over marital and, by default, nonmarital relationships? 

We've already seen examples of the damage that the amendments can do vis a vis blasting domestic violence convictions out of the water for unmarried couples.  People of faith should rethink this because its not just the great unwashed sinners who run into this wall of control.  If your engaged virginic daughter is beaten by her fiancee, she may have no legal recourse.  If he waits until they are married to beat her, she's all set.  That makes no fucking sense.

Powell wraps up with a call to the conservative faithful to live up to their own ideals rather than imposing them on others:

If they really want to promote traditional marriage, conservative people of faith should do two things:

First, they could marry someone of the opposite sex and set an example of how beautiful such unions can be.

Second, rather than working to close off the rights of gays, they should use their political efforts to abolish the obnoxious marriage tax penalty. Then all people of every sect and philosophy would owe them a debt of gratitude.

I'd go a bit further.  If the conservatives want to preserve the institution of marriage and protect families, they should put down their fetus signs and sign up as a foster family.  It is the best way to help put a family back together.

Soulforce is hoping to put up 16 of these billboards in June in opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment.  You can help. 

The anti-gay forces are making another attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage in such a way as to exclude the families of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee is their agent for putting the Federal Marriage Amendment before the Senate.

During this summer's fight to defeat the FMA, these billboards will serve as a powerful reminder that Coretta Scott King called for legal protections for same-gender families. And we are placing them in Senator Frist's hometown.

It would be nice to see some in Pennsylvania.  Senator Santorum's former hometown.

While he deftly minces closer to his own heterosexual-style wedding to the lovely and talented Roberta, our good friend and lesbian-lover John McIntire gave gay marriage a big old shout out in his local blog, MacYapper.com. 

In spite of his fondness for large-fonted bold-faced type (I always wondered what his type was), McIntire adroitly dissects the bigot-fawning behavior of Arlen Specter, Dubya and pretty much the entire Republican party (plus Democrat Ben Nelson).

Not to mention members of the general public who like to pussy-foot around their homophobic principles (type faced reduced for non-yelling like reading):

*To those who ask, "why, just because I'm against gay marriage, does thatmake me a bigot or a homophobe?" I extend my sympathies.
You're not necessarily either of those.*You could just be an imbecile.