For some reason, National Organization for Marriage founder Maggie Gallagher’s not at all weird or arcane explanation of why she won’t attend your diabolical gay nuptials (because Satan!) reminds me of The Onion’s timeless classic, “Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?”
I’m not really sure why Gallagher’s screed reminds me of The Onion piece. Maybe it’s Gallagher’s tired-of-it-all tone, as if she and her fellow butt-hurt champions of “religious liberty” are just soooo fucking weary of explaining to you people over and over why they can’t come to your gay wedding. As if Gallagher, Douthat, Rubio, Pence, et al, are in greater demand at gay weddings than Lady Gaga and both Indigo Girls.
Personally, Gallagher has nothing against you people. She just doesn’t want to be there when Jesus decides to turn on the hellfire and brimstone spigot. So just stop asking her, okay? Thanks, perverts!
PS: Open thread!
Zinsky
Seems like people that do shit like that are marrying to make a statement, rather than committing to a life together with the person they love. It would be interesting to track how many couples that invite Maggie Gallagher to their wedding end up divorced within five years.
Going to a “symphonic rock” concert tonight at the local performing arts center. Not sure if it will be way cool or suck badly. We shall see….
NotMax
TB;DR
(Too Bigoted; Didn’t Read.)
OzarkHillbilly
If I saw her in a restaurant I would be sorely tempted to walk up to her table, turn my face to the sky and dare God to strike me dead with a bolt of lightening right then and there. Unlikely seeing as I have no idea what she looks like and even less interest in finding out, but it is nice to fantasize about.
Tommy
I had to Google Maggie Gallagher. Sure she’d be unhappy with my brother’s wedding. He married a lady, but on a beach. We had no connection to Destin, FL but they just wanted to get married on a beach. He and his wife said they wanted no mention of God in their nupes. Just wanted to get married, keep it short and to the point, then run into and jump in the ocean. Then go a Michelin Star restaurant and “feed bag.” Act like straight up heathens!
My brother is nine years my younger but if and when I get married I will steal everything he did that day. No church. No priest, they found the lady that married them out of a phone book. Just to make it “official.”
You know that is how I’d like to get married …..
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Repeated from below, since I always post to threads just as they die:
All right! I have a website. There’s not much to it just yet, just one page with the Prologue on it. Comments welcome here; the comments there won’t show up until I approve them and I’m debating whether or not I’m going to allow comments at all on the excerpt pages.
The Kickstarter is probably going to start Monday as I won’t be getting any sleep today. (Other reasons; nothing to do with Phoebe.)
NotMax
@Ozark Hillbilly
CARPP* button, activate.
*Hat tip to Steeplejack.
NotMax
And… bad linky. Try again
CARPP button, activate.
raven
@Tommy: I caught this sucker just up the road from there!
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: I hate to stereotype but I Googled her. I have to say she looks about exactly as I thought she would. Just mean. Years ago after her parents passed an openly gay cousin of my dad moved in around the corner from my parents. My brother and I, much more liberal than my parents were not sure how that would work out.
They are now best friends. My parents, not liberals, will fight for LGBT rights 24/7. Funny how a little perspective changes things isn’t it ….
NotMax
Razzle frazzle.
Third time’s the charm
‘
CARPP button, activate!
(No edit function available.)
Baud
@raven:
He looks kind of pissed.
Hal
The New Yorker has a funny piece up about all the gay events Marco Rubio would go to:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/gay-events-that-i-marco-rubio-would-go-to?intcid=mod-most-popular
Also, I find it supremely ironic that conservatives are attacking Tim McGraw for playing a Sandy Hook benefit concert because according to them, he is supporting gun control. Screeching online about the 2nd amendment, but not a single word on the 1st amendment. I guess that only applies to pizza place owners.
This is gun culture in America now. Massacred children do not matter to the NRA. Only mah gunz!!! Maybe Obama, who according to Wayne Lapierre is only demographically-symbolic, will go to support McGraw once the country music radio ban kicks in.
raven
@Baud: It’s fun to watch them cruise up and down the sandbar. It’s a cownose ray and I he hit my live shrimp and when I set the hook it came our of his mouth and, as you might see, it set in his wing. It was a hell of a fight and I have no idea why the small hook didn’t bend straight. The nice thing abut them is that they kick up stuff off the bottom and the redifish like to cruise behind them!
NotMax
@raven
Some favorite pix of rays.
raven
@NotMax: I love those shots!
delk
Maggie says:
On your happy day you should be surrounded by people who can honor your vow and help you keep it. I can’t do that.
My reply:
Maggie, knowing each and everyday I am married hurts you so much, I can’t think of a better way to keep my vow.
Tommy
@Hal: I had no idea Tim McGraw was an Obama voting liberal. Look I am a far left card carrying liberal. I HATE guns. Fired one once. I have never thought “hey let’s take guns away from people.” I mean not a single second. There are many things that piss me off but to assume I want to take your guns away is close to the top of the list.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@NotMax: How about pictures of Rays?
OzarkHillbilly
@Tommy: My mother’s favorite cousin, the sister she didn’t have but grew up with, was a lesbian living with another woman in Texas during the ’60s (and ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, ’10s). Us kids didn’t think anything unusual about the arrangement just, “Oh Boy! We’re going to Bobby June and Maxine’s!”
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: MC Escher anyone?
Baud
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Nature is so beautiful.
Cervantes
She did not say that she keeps getting asked. She was (1) making fun of people who (allegedly) keep asking the likes of Rubio; (2) remarking upon the kindness of his responses; and (3) offering what she thinks is a more effective response.
I don’t agree with her, obviously.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Oh. Well, in that case, my bad! Because I was TOTES serious! Any fool can see that!
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Yes, I was sorry I clicked on it. But she wouldn’t have been able to attend my straight wedding either (Congregational church packed to the rafters), because we married for reasons other than having children.
Barney
Maggie Gallagher is the kind of person who elects politicians on looks – she opens “Senator Marco Rubio, one of our most attractive and charismatic leaders in the rising generation…”. I’m not sure what is more irrelevant – Rubio’s handsomeness, or Gallagher’s opinion on gay marriage, or, indeed, anything.
Professor
Has this Maggie woman ever been married? Has she ever been in a long term relationship? Why does she bother and kvetch about other people’s relationships and happiness? I can’t stand these people.
Schlemazel
@raven:
I caught a small one while living in FLA, that must have been a heck of a fight! I let it go but later people were telling me that the wings have the taste & texture of scallops, any idea if that is true?
Here is a picture of a ray that always makes me laugh http://i.imgur.com/vsnRFok.jpg
Iowa Old Lady
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Your site looks great. Good idea to have an engaging excerpt too.
Schlemazel
@gogol’s wife:
We didn’t get married to have kids either. But one of the reasons we did get married ended up causing that!
OzarkHillbilly
@Professor: Well if they just stopped having gay sex in the front seat of her car, on her kitchen counter tops, on the couch, the dining room table, the settee in the parlor, out by her rose bushes, in her pool, in her shower, in her underwear… Really, it’s all their fault for making it her business.
debbie
Jackals:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ron-johnson-king-burwell
Shorter version: “He knew we were bullshitting, and now he’s going to make sure everyone in the whole wide world knows it too! Waah!!”
tybee
@Schlemazel:
anyone who tells you that ray wings taste like scallops is either ignorant of the matter or a liar.
or both. :)
rays aren’t bad, they just taste like shark, not scallops.
(info from one who has experience in the matter)
Schlemazel
@tybee:
I thought it was weird. Thanks.
WereBear
What a bizarre blend of good wishes and literal go-to-hell that thing is.
BruceFromOhio
Amy Ray and Emily are simply awesome.
@delk: And, lo, there is balance in the universe!
@Professor: Because busybody God-botherers like Gallagher are unhappy, and they want to make sure you know that they are unhappy, and they want you to be unhappy, too. And because this makes them poo targets, it makes them even MORE unhappier, and the downward spiral continues. Oh, and it nets a paycheck – yes, you too can make a living on being an unhappy busybody God-botherer. Misery loves company!
Aleta
That friendly little talk is an open invitation to the gods (or Bugs Bunny, depending on your religion) to place Maggie G at the wedding of a gay family member, perhaps to someone named Porneia.
More likely it’s another piece paid for by Dick Cheney, foretelling Liz’s smoothed over entry into the ring. Backed by “the full support” of her ‘loving family,’ of course.
Cervantes
@Professor:
She got pregnant in her senior year at Yale. Not sure how long the father was, or remained, in her life, but it was not more than three years. She has been married to someone else for since the early ’90s.
MattF
Shorter Gallagher: “I’m a hater. Deal with it.”
gelfling545
Oh, Maggie! They were only asking you (and Marco, too) because they have better manners than you and wanted to be polite. They didn’t really want you to be there. All you have to do is check the little regrets box on the response card; nobody cares why.
RSA
Maggie Gallagher:
But that’s pretty strange, isn’t it? No one is threatening her with death because she believes gay marriage is wrong. In fact, historically, quite the opposite is the case. Some comfortable conservative Christians so want to be martyrs!
Aleta
@Schlemazel:
These days scallops are sometimes replaced by circles punched out of ray wings, or shark. In that case they could well taste the same :)
FlyingToaster
@Professor: Yep.
She had one child on her own (as in the father declined to marry her); she became crazy Catholic while a single parent.
She then married someone from (I assume) the Balkans and had another kid. There’s no mention of a divorce.
courtesy Wikipedia
Karen S.
@WereBear:
Yes, it is. Of all the people like her who would say something similar, I wonder how many of them have any idea how awful it sounds. They probably believe that they’re being as charitable as they can be to the icky gays and lesbians, but it’s like they can’t help being insulting and patronizing.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
You’re missing the point. It’s not that I thought you were being serious. It’s that cheap shots based on distortions are not particularly edifying.
Ironically, it seems you were trying to say that she wasn’t adding anything useful to the discussion.
Cervantes
@FlyingToaster:
How odd. Why would you assume that?
(He’s an Indian, and not as in Native American.)
Cervantes
@tybee:
Yes, they are closely related cartilaginous fish.
MattF
Since I’ve mentioned my cataract surgery here previously, I’ll note that it is now over. The right eye was done Thursday morning– vision was cloudy in that eye for the rest of the day, but is now clear and healing.
For anyone who’s been given the option, my free advice is to do it. You lose the visual artifacts (halos, blurriness), colors become brighter and deeper, no more yellowish cast to white things. This sort of surgery has become quite common– three million annually, and the success rate is 99%.
forked tongue
@RSA:
IK, R? If that’s what you’ve staked your life on, you must hold your life pretty cheap.
SuperHrefna
@MattF: Fantastic, congratulations! I’m so happy for you. A friend of mine is halfway through her cataract surgery too – one eye done, one to go- and is also enjoying the benefits. It’s just wonderful, the intricate surgery they can do now.
One of the organizations I like donating to is Seva, who perform eye operations in places like Nepal, Guatemala and Native American reservations in the US. http://www.seva.org
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Ironically, it seems you are laboring under the delusion that I was attempting edification. Or else you’re awkwardly trying to backtrack from pedant fail. Either way, it’s a tiresome shtick.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve said what I wanted to say. Do carry on.
Aimai
@Betty Cracker: the worst thing about that article were the meanspirited, hate filled, comments from her followers. How can they sleep without drowning in their own bile?
WereBear
@MattF: I’m so pleased it all went well for you. Especially since it started in such a frightening way.
My grandma said her two surgeries, two decades apart, were like night and day in the difference and the advances.
WereBear
@Aimai: Their conception of “god” is that he is cruel, vengeful, capricious, and will torment them forever if they displease him.
They are simply following in those footsteps.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel: Skate wings are sometimes used to make fake scallops. But they’re a poor substitute.
Joey Maloney
@Professor: She got knocked up in college and the dad split. This seems to have put a serious kink in her power cord.
Johannes
@RSA: yeah, Rod Dreher over at the American Conservative is on a multi-day freakout between “the end is nigh” and damning godless liberals (which is pretty rich, because it was the conservatives in Employment Division v Smith that overturned Warren Court precedents allowing for accommodation for Free Exercise).
God forgive me, but it’s pretty amusing reading.
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel: Skate wings are great eating. One of my favorite fish-type items.
chopper
love it, Betty.
delk
These organizations and people swore up and down that they have no animus towards gay people, just that they believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman.
And yet, now that they are losing their cause, and their money streams are drying up (thanks to all the folks giving all their money to the pizza mopes) they have effortlessly moved to the RFRA fight. No animus there.
Cervantes
@Aimai:
Did not read the comments; did read the article (as well as the caricature above) and find it easy to believe the comments were worse than the article.
But enough about that.
In the wake of recent events, I was re-reading this book the other day, particularly Chapter 5, “in which we see the moral and material sources of Israel’s strength.” Written in 1948-49, it offers quite a contrast against the author’s thoughts not twenty years later, as here:
That was in 1964. The following is from 1967 (after the war):
MattF
@SuperHrefna: @WereBear: Thanks.
Stella B
@Tommy: We got married on the beach too. No talk about gods and goddesses. For an extra $50 the County Recorder will designate a deputy for the day and you can just have a friend perform the ceremony. All perfectly legal (although back in those days we were required to be of opposite sex, but that’s been fixed now). We have lots of nice beach to chose from in San Diego County, too.
Ruckus
@Hal:
Yesterday there was a large gas line rupture from a construction worker’s tractor, in Fresno. It was at the sheriff’s gun range, which was so noted in the news. The first comment was from a gun nut who was pissed because he read it as a gun set off the explosion. Not having being a gun nut as one of my many faults allowed me to actually read the plain english language and notice that no where did it say anything about gun fire, only the location. So we now know one more moron by name on FB. He joins an illustrious group.
Tenar Darell
post elsewhere too.
@Betty Cracker:
There are two possible ways to fix this, depending on what browser you use. Non-browser specific: There should be a link option at the bottom of the page. Scroll all the way to the bottom of a comment thread. It should say “Mobile Theme” some such, select “Off.” Browser specific: Chrome options button looks like three vertical dots. Select that Button, then select the menu item “Request Desktop Site.” (Not sure where this option is in Safari).
dogwood
I’m sure Maggie’s only attends hetero weddings when she can share in the joy of the couple as well. Give me a break. I don’t much like weddings I general, but I especially don’t enjoy the ones where you’re pretty sure the couple shouldn’t be getting married in the first place. It’s funny because the other night I had some friends over for dinner and we were talking about one of our closest friends who is gay and talking marriage. One guy was honest in saying that he felt selfish because he wanted to be excited about attending his first gay marriage and this wedding will be a bummer. And I’ll say here what I said then. It is a mistake to over-romanticize gay marriage. Being supportive and excited about the idea of gay marriage in general will not always translate to excitement about every specific gay marriage. Our friend lost his terrific partner of 25 years to cancer a couple of years ago, and his new relationship seems to be a reaction to loneliness and depression. Marrying a condescending, narcissistic asshole probably won’t work out so well, but we’ll go to the wedding because we love our friend more than we disdain his partner.
J R in WV
Ms. Gallagher seems to be composed of pure evil to me. Or perhaps hate, although at her level there is probably no difference.
I note that her article only speaks about gay men, and not gay women at all. Before I looked her up even, this made me think that she could only have male children, which turned out to be the case, thankfully.
Having looked up some bio, I see that she has no moral or ethical compass, and is willing to either lie about her beliefs or can’t be bothered to keep them straight when discussing them.
She was willing to take Federal (In George Walker Bush’s administration, which says even more about republican ethics!) money for
workingwriting about the religious argument against freedom, which seems so wrong to me just on the face of it, but she didn’t even think there was any need to disclose her payroll issues when writing about her religious beliefs, if she has any.Why do these folks think it is OK to use the government as a big stick against other people’s religion? Even though the founding documents make it as plain as the nose on your face that the nation was founded on the absence of religion is government!
No one will ever really want her to attend a Gay Wedding. Really! (Unless one of her sons…) Rather have the Grim Reaper at my gay wedding! More friendly and stylish…
It’s spring! We’re going to plant plants and lop invasive autumn olive starts in the sunshine. Whee!!
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV:
assuming your question wasn’t rhetoric, it’s because they are authoritarian assholes.
Woodrowfan
of all the professional haters she’s the one I kind of feel sorry for. She’s got lousy judgement, and lashes out at the world because her own poor choices have made her life less than what she hoped it would be. She’s really very pathetic and sad…
Aimai
@Cervantes: thanks for posting that.
Cervantes
@Aimai:
It’s been on my mind.
And you’re welcome.
Brachiator
Since this is an open thread… I am looking for a budget friendly portable device to do substantial word processing and some web browsing while out and about and during a long commute where I usually have access to a tray table. A good keyboard and good battery life is essential. Screen display should be at least decent. I have been hearing good things about Chromebooks, but some reviews seem to just love the idea of the device more than its actual utility. The new Surface 3 or Pro is not a good value. I have a couple of tablets with external keyboards, but am curious to see what other options might be out there.
FlyingToaster
@Cervantes: The name looked Croatian/Serbian/Montenegran to me.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, yeah, it was rhetorical, but your answer is also correct, authoritarian and sadistic assholes. They will use anything as a tool to force their opinions into law, so that they can punish people for disagreeing with their terrible opinions.
Anti-American, too, even though they attempt to steal the flag to wrap themselves. How stupid does a nazi look wearing an American flag?! That stupid!
Oops, have I violated some innertubes rule? Gotta call ’em as you see them rule overrides most other rules!
Bobbo
Did you know that Sister Maggie has “staked her life” on opposing gay marriage? I for one did not!
Goblue72
She looks like a cow. A fugly hideously obese cow. She’s full of vinegar and hate because she’d have to pay a million dollars to a desperate one-eyed, gap toothed gigolo just to get laid. And THAT is the truth.
She hasn’t had sex since the 90s and she’s trying to take it out on the rest of us.
Cervantes
@Goblue72:
Allow me to quote someone:
Cervantes
@FlyingToaster:
Thanks for explaining.
Tree With Water
As you all are probably aware, the cost of housing rentals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area has skyrocketed to obscene levels. I’m curious if rents anywhere else in the country have escalated as dramatically (NYC excluded). Nowadays I couldn’t afford to rent in San Francisco, and that includes neighborhoods I once avoided, and where until recently rents were historically low. What are rents like in your neck of the woods?
Felixmoronia
@Brachiator: I recently purchased an ASUS Transformer 2 in1. A notebook/tablet with Windows 8.1 which might work well for your needs. Mine has 32G SSHD, USB, HDMI, microSD slot and audio jack. I like that I can use it as an E-reader or a notebook.
MattF
@Tree With Water: Here’s a recent WaPo story on DC-area rents.
ETA: Article contains a link to national data.
Cervantes
@Tree With Water:
As of February 2015, figuring on a month-over-month basis, rents in the three most expensive cities — SF, NY, and Boston — changed as follows: +1.5%, 0.0%, and -4.2%, respectively.
Brachiator
@Felixmoronia: Thanks for this info. I will check this out.
Brachiator
I didn’t know much about this organization before, and still don’t care. Picking on Maggie Gallagher is too easy. She is just the low hanging fruit of a shitty little bunch of bigots. Another group that “defends” marriage, but is obsessed with hurting gay people and which doesn’t have much to say about adultery or divorce, which, you know, kinda affects marriage. Checking out the background on these dopes, I was not entirely surprised to see that the bulk of their donations comes from a few anonymous jerks and that Mormons seem to have a deep connection to the organization. Lots of men on the board, many of whom are probably closeted gays who spend their evenings sleeping with the enemy. Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card was once a board member, a sad but not unexpected twist.
Tree With Water
@MattF: Thanks for that link. I was especially struck by a remark by a young, professional grasshopper of a guy who is not concerned about the price of rents down the road, or, apparently, his ability to afford them month in and month out for the rest of his life. I know a lot of people, maybe most, are in that boat. But this is a guy who could (seemingly) plan to secure his own roof eventually, and seems darn cavalier about optioning out.
“..Despite their financial hurdles, these young people are still willing to pay a big chunk of their income for proximity to friends and fun…They’re achievable because often, the demographic they’re going for isn’t interested in spending that money on a mortgage instead. “I just believe in not having debt,” says Friedman…”.
RSA
@Johannes:
Thanks for the pointer; that was interesting reading.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I find it hard to understand why that asshole thinks anybody gives a red fuck about whether she’d go to a satanic gay wedding. Also, this was, well, I don’t know what the fuck it was:
If she thinks that guy is either attractive or charismatic, then the Republican Party is in even worse shape than I thought.
Cervantes
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’ll just note here that the article was published in National Review.
Barry
@Johannes: “..(which is pretty rich, because it was the conservatives in Employment Division v Smith that overturned Warren Court precedents allowing for accommodation for Free Exercise). ..”
The right never has and never will believe in religious freedom; they believe in ‘religious freedom’, which is for them only.
Heck, read Scalia’s opinion, which paraphrases Justice Tanney’s opinion in Dredd Scott.
Ben
I have one question for Maggie, that vile cunt… if she is so pro marriage and family, how on earth does she think that the fact she is 5 feet tall and pushing 4 bills on the scales is either pro marriage or pro family? Sloth. Check. Gluttony. Check. Lust. Check (kid out of wedlock). Greed. Check (she took money to kiss shrub’s ass and didn’t disclose). Pride. Check (pride is the common denominator with the jesus freaks who pass judgement on everyone else with hubris being a close second). Go fuck yourself Maggie.
S-Curve
My wife and I (a woman and a man) were married almost 18 years ago. We knew well before we were even engaged that we wouldn’t be having kids. So I guess our relationship is outside God’s plan and therefore sinful “porneia,” and Ms Gallagher wouldn’t be able to hold us to our vows either. Which is such a shame. (Is that really what she thinks witnesses are for?)