Another strike against the majority of United States Citizens.
In news just released, a Federal Judge has overturned California's Proposition 8. Here's the story as reported on MSNBC:
SAN FRANCISCO — In a major victory for gay rights advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriage.
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to overturn the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, came in response to a lawsuit brought by two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco seeking to invalidate the law as an unlawful infringement on the civil rights of gay men and lesbians.
Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriages in California five months after the state Supreme Court legalized them, passed with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008 following the most expensive campaign on a social issue in U.S. history.
Attorneys on both sides have said an appeal was certain if Walker did not rule in their favor. The case would go first to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then the Supreme Court if the high court justices agree to review it.
Anticipating such a scenario, lawyers for the coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored Proposition 8 in 2008 filed a legal brief Tuesday asking Walker to stay his decision if he overturns the ban so same-sex couples could not marry while an appeal was pending.
"Same-sex marriages would be licensed under a cloud of uncertainty, and should proponents succeed on appeal, any such marriages would be invalid," they wrote.
Walker presided over a 13-day trial earlier this year that was the first in federal court to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married without violating the constitutional guarantee of equality.
Supporters argued the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing.
Opponents said that tradition or fears of harm to heterosexual unions were legally insufficient grounds to discriminate against gay couples. (MSNBC 04 Aug. 2010)
Here is yet another example of a vast minority imposing their will over the vast majority. The proponents of gay marriage put the issue to a vote; they lost. Instead of continuing their efforts to sway the majority, these folks went to the courts to solve the problem. Now, with appeals pending, the majority of California voters no longer have a say as to what they want. The gay community is seeking to literally force their agenda on everyone else.
I'm not against the gay community from receiving equal rights. I am against them imposing their singular will over the objections of the majority of citizens. The will of the people is supposed to rule the day. The people have spoken; and now the gay community is stomping and crying their way to getting what they want. This is what I don't agree with in their fight.
Thirty years ago the gay community was reviled, ridiculed and harassed. In the years since, people have become more accepting. Over time, the perceptions and fears will ease, and the gay community will end up getting everything they're after.
But, like whining, cry-baby children, they are stomping their collective feet [by way of the Courts] and demanding that everyone else accept them for who and what they are RIGHT NOW! They rail against anyone who thinks otherwise, calling them disgusting names, and spreading words of hatred towards those who oppose them. They cry "Equality!", yet fail to allow open discussion from their opponents. They asked the voters of California to have their say on the issue; then threw a harassing, destructive, demeaning, hate-filled tantrum when they lost.
What's wrong with this picture? If your children acted this way, they'd be put in time out, have extra chores to do, be grounded, etc. Yet the Courts are allowing this childish behavior to continue. So much so, that it's now looking more and more likely that the tantrum of the gay community will result in the forcing of their will upon everyone else. This is just wrong!
Federal Judge Walker has chosen to side with the minority over the will of the people. Because of this, every heterosexual American will soon be forced to accept a thing they are not yet ready to accept. And to the gay community, that is just fine! So long as they stomp their feet in a whining, temper tantrum, childish way, and they've gotten what they want, then everything is just fine. They'll have their equality, in the eyes of the law; but it will be decades before they have their equality, in the eyes of the people.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Civil Rights For Air Travelers--Follow Up
Just about an hour ago, MSNBC released a story about the images from airport body scanners being saved by federal agencies. This policy by the agencies involved goes directly against what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been telling the citizens of the United States. The following is the story:
"Despite claims by the TSA that electronic body scan images "cannot be stored or recorded," some federal police agencies are in fact saving tens of thousands of images, according to a report by CNET News.
The body scanners, increasingly found in airports, courthouses and other places where security is high, use an assortment of technologies. These include millimeter wave scanners in which the subject is harmlessly pelted with extremely high frequency radio waves which reflect a picture back to the device — and backscatter X-ray which measures low-powered reflective X-rays to produce clearer body shots, shots that can reveal alarmingly precise anatomical detail.
According to CNET, the U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had saved thousands of images that had been recorded from a security checkpoint in a Florida courthouse.
The revelation comes at a tense time. Two weeks ago, when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said such scanners would appear in every major airport, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit to stop the device rollout.
The reason? Because the devices were "designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET, adding that this "is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing."
As CNET's Declan McCullagh explains, it's the mystery of the devices' potential that is most unnerving: "This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners — and how they're being used in practice — is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else," he wrote.
The TSA maintains that body scanning is "constitutional" and the CNET report notes that while the machines are built to "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide networked "high-speed transfer of image data," the system are built with filters to "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger."
(by Wilson Rothman, MSNBC.com 08/04/10)
The following is my brief response to the article:
"Why is Congress allowing this to happen? Why is the President NOT putting a stop to this? Why is the ACLU NOT suing the TSA over this? Our Civil Rights, as guaranteed under the provisio of the Constitution of our United States, are being attacked by a Federal Agency--and no one is asking "Why?" Write your Senator and House Rep! Write the President! This HAS to stop!"
Is this alarming to anyone? Are you reading this and say to yourself something like, "I can't believe this is actually going on?" If it is to you, please, please, PLEASE, write to your elected Congressional leaders and let them know how you feel. If the majority stay silent, then we will lose our liberties as guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States. Please, Make your voice heard!
"Despite claims by the TSA that electronic body scan images "cannot be stored or recorded," some federal police agencies are in fact saving tens of thousands of images, according to a report by CNET News.
The body scanners, increasingly found in airports, courthouses and other places where security is high, use an assortment of technologies. These include millimeter wave scanners in which the subject is harmlessly pelted with extremely high frequency radio waves which reflect a picture back to the device — and backscatter X-ray which measures low-powered reflective X-rays to produce clearer body shots, shots that can reveal alarmingly precise anatomical detail.
According to CNET, the U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had saved thousands of images that had been recorded from a security checkpoint in a Florida courthouse.
The revelation comes at a tense time. Two weeks ago, when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said such scanners would appear in every major airport, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit to stop the device rollout.
The reason? Because the devices were "designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET, adding that this "is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing."
As CNET's Declan McCullagh explains, it's the mystery of the devices' potential that is most unnerving: "This trickle of disclosures about the true capabilities of body scanners — and how they're being used in practice — is probably what alarms privacy advocates more than anything else," he wrote.
The TSA maintains that body scanning is "constitutional" and the CNET report notes that while the machines are built to "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide networked "high-speed transfer of image data," the system are built with filters to "protect the identity, modesty, and privacy of the passenger."
(by Wilson Rothman, MSNBC.com 08/04/10)
The following is my brief response to the article:
"Why is Congress allowing this to happen? Why is the President NOT putting a stop to this? Why is the ACLU NOT suing the TSA over this? Our Civil Rights, as guaranteed under the provisio of the Constitution of our United States, are being attacked by a Federal Agency--and no one is asking "Why?" Write your Senator and House Rep! Write the President! This HAS to stop!"
Is this alarming to anyone? Are you reading this and say to yourself something like, "I can't believe this is actually going on?" If it is to you, please, please, PLEASE, write to your elected Congressional leaders and let them know how you feel. If the majority stay silent, then we will lose our liberties as guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States. Please, Make your voice heard!
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