Monday, July 1, 2013

Should you call for a "culture war" when you have no clue what you are talking about?

Appears Phil Kent, the anti-immigrant extremist appointed by Republican Governor Nathan Deal,  called for a culture war on Fox TV yesterday on the Georgia Gang in response to the DOMA ruling.


Pardon me for rolling my eyes.

The entire "traditional marriage" angry white male shtick played well in the 80's and 90's; but it looks down right silly in 2013 when everyone and their sister has easy access to this newfangled intra-nets thing-y.

Now that we have google all we need to do to learn about "traditional marriage" is check out some of the most recent work being done by anthropologists--you know, the people who spend their lives studying and researching human culture and traditions.

It just so happens within one minute I had located a response to President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage .  Bush like Kent sees gay marriage as a "threat to civilization". The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, the world's largest organization of anthropologists responded to Bush at the time:
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.
In a news article on the AAA's statement  in 2004, Dan Segal, a professor of anthropology and history from Pitzer College noted the "traditional marriage" claim was patently false and that anyone with one semester of Anthropology under their belt would know that.  Segal provided a few examples:
"sanctified same-sex unions in the fourth century in Christianity" and to the Greeks and Romans applying the concept of marriage to same-sex couples, not to mention the Native American berdache tradition in which males married males."
Just type-- donatio propter nuptias--  into a search engine for pete's sake!

This may be a good time to remind you blue state liberals that the state Legislatures in red America is really where all the major action is going to be over the next decade.  Invest your political dollars accordingly.

Here in Georgia we just got redistricted by a Republican controlled legislature with some serious Flat Earth Society credentials; Phil Kent is just the tip of the iceberg, I kid you not.

No matter how silly it is, you haven't seen the last of the culture war flag waving over the DOMA ruling, as it brings up the turnout numbers of the right wing on election day.  A right wing that sadly has a lot of political clout in Georgia.

But nevermind all that, Phil Kent just reminded me I never received a dowry from the Gullege family back in 2008 when I got married.

I want my cattle and land!

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