For a foreigner, this wondrous country [especially California,] is an endless litany of unheralded joys. Just when you think you’ve got the place tagged, something occurs that resets your whole scale. And today is a welcome example – Despite heated debates and downright lies from its sponsors, the war on Prop. 8 is not as dead as we thought.

Interviewed yesterday on CNN, California’s inimitable and iconoclastic Governor let it be known that his office may soon petition the State’s Supreme Court to set aside the result, and repeal Prop. 8 before it wrecks peoples lives.

Thanks to the freedom it was contrived to destroy, more than 18,000 couples were finally able to celebrate their devotion in the same way as those  whom Prop. 8’s judgmental supporters would no doubt refer to as ‘normal’ people could since the birth of this nation. But according to Arnold, their fetid proposal will have no effect on these new couples’ status or choice. And he advised gay rights groups to stay on the case until it is won.

In the presence of such egalitarian thinking, there’s only one thing to say: Arnold for President!

Photo by SchumakerGirl

Not being a citizen does have its perks. You can’t be drafted, you never have to serve on a Jury, and this endless, three-ring circus of an Election is purely a spectator sport. I have my opinions, but should I try to enact them by pulling a lever I’d probably spend the foreseeable future dressed entirely in orange.

No, thanks.

On the down-side, it means I have no way to actively block legislation that weakens this wonderful country. The most repugnant example of this – in recent memory, at least – is known to us all as ‘Prop. 8.’

If the people against whom Prop. 8 is aligned were black, not gay, the merest mention of such a proposal would see its creators being burned at the stake. The national media would be in an outrage and the indelible infamy bestowed on the guilty would haunt them to the end of their days. But myopic xenophobia against those who are gay is apparently perfectly fine.

A Prop. 8 supporter is basically saying that a man they don’t know, in a town they’ve never seen, can’t marry a friend they’ve never met and share a house they’ll never visit…because that doesn’t meet their approval.

Then they have the disingenuous guile to suggest it’s the gay guys who have all the problems.

If the gay community tried to constrict our lives in a similar way, the howls of protest would be almost incessant. And for those who embody the land of the free to abuse legislation to dictate and limit the lives of their peers would be an indefensible insult.

A gay person’s free will is not the offense, it’s judgmental zealots who hijack the law to serve their own ends that truly need to be banned. Prop. 8, like its sponsors, should be strangled at birth. On the 4th, you have that chance.

After a long and atypical silence from a woman not known for such calm introspection, Ellen has released a PSA on her talk-show website, urging California-based voters to oppose Prop 8, the ballot initiative that seeks to revoke gay people’s access to the dubious joys of engaging in marriage.

Ms. DeGeneres, who married Portia de Rossi in August, had made no previous contribution, either fiscal or personal, to the ongoing fight against this malodorous plot. Her Mother, however [who is not currently a millionaire,] has donated $700 to strengthen the cause.

The ‘Prop 8′ campaign is absurd, and founded on breathtaking arrogance. A small, judgmental and vociferous group, based in a State that has arguably the highest gay residency percentile in the country, are engaged in a battle to restrict and revoke people’s freedoms and rights in a way that would leave them apoplectic with rage if they were the target instead.

If a gay man – or woman – wishes to indulge in a ceremony that proves their depth of affection and emotional commitment to someone who enhances their lives and helps makes them happy, it’s that person’s choice, their partner’s option…and no other living being’s business!

Were the gay community to even dare suggest that our rights should be limited in a similar way, the results would be instant and almost incendiary. Yet in the full scope of history they’ve made no such demand. This beneficent forbearance of those who are different embodies a lesson from which some of their heterosexual brethren could learn a great deal.

As I mentioned before, both Steven Speilberg and Brad Pitt have brought their celebrity presence [and considerable wealth] to bear on this vital campaign. Ms. DeGeneres, however, along with many of her peers who share her choice, seems to happy to sit on her hands. Should she still be unsure of just how to employ them, I offer some simple, well-meaning advice…

Put them into your pocket, or over your mouth.

Photo by Brainchildvn

Brad Pitt is donating $100,000 to help defeat California’s “Proposition 8,” a ballot initiative that would remove the right of same-sex couples to marry; A right deserved by and denied them for decades, and which they were only recently given.

To have committed such an unequivocal insult against not only the Actor [T.R. Knight,] but every gay individual on the planet was unprovoked and inexcusable, but to then attempt to restore your credibility and garner public sympathy by invoking the race card and claiming that you in fact are the victim is imbecilic.

Mr. Washington was not fired for what he is, he was fired for what he said. And ignorance clearly knows no color. As an Actor, his wisest counsel at the moment would be to act like a man and accept the guilt, blame and responsibility that is undeniably his. Then – perhaps – he will regain a small percentage of the public’s former regard.

But their moral indignation is less than convincing. In the past, ABC has condoned the portrayal of gay male characters as either serial killers, mass murderers or suspected deviants in no less than three popular daytime dramas.

In 2000, All My Children’s Bianca Kane ‘came out’ to the world, and instantly shot to prominence in the show’s overall landscape. Sadly, such treatment is something to which her male peers can still only aspire. In 2005, One Life to Live featured a married D.A. who was secretly gay, and who, in order to keep his secret and protect his career, dispatched a positive litany of people with a gleeful sang frois that would leave Bundy positively chartreuse with envy. In the same year, a gay male College student was the focus of unbridled vitriol after being suspected of using the Date Rape drug on two female Freshmen.

And both these stories aired just weeks after GLAAD lauded the network for its portrayals of gay people.

ABC might say these were isolated aberrations from less enlightened times? Not true. All My Children has just wrapped a storyline in which an androgynous, cross-dressing rock star was suspected of having massacred half the female population of Pine Valley. He then entered a clinic, returned as a she, and was immediately confronted by hordes of angry town-folk eager to turn her into a Prada Piñata for these ghastly but unproven crimes.

ABC made no conciliatory statements regarding these plots, nor was anyone even cautioned, let alone fired. And it bears considering who would ultimately make such a call; ABC is a branch of Disney, a corporation not exactly famous for strident homophobia.

With a track record of storylines as disparaging as these, and the pungent hypocrisy implicit in dismissing an Actor for a gay slur, while allowing three major shows to portray the same target group as universal, homicidal deviants, it’s pretty clear Mr. Washington is not the only ABC employee who should be shown the door.