Soon the cries of mourning will rise from courtroom drama lovers across the nation: Law & Order is going off the air after 20 years. Of course given it’s success and popularity, plus the fact that NBC really doesn’t want to completely kill the goose that lays the golden egg, there will be a Law & Order Los Angeles even though LOLA as an acronym is somewhat giggleworthy. Also the other spin offs, including SVU, will continue apace.
The last episode will air on May 24th
Workers recently organized a rather novel protest at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco’s Union Square. What do you get when you combine a boycott, Lady GaGa and a brass section? Watch…
The capitol of our nation legalized gay marriage a couple of months back and despite a lot of ruckus and predictions of doom D.C. is still standing and in fact is experiencing something of a marriage boom:
Same-sex marriage has only been legal in the District for about two months, but the city is on track to set a record for marriages this year.
The D.C. Superior Court has already issued more than 2,000 marriage licenses.
“To put that in perspective,” Judge William Jackson says. “All of last year was about 3,000.”
At $45 a pop, that’s tens of thousands of dollars going to a cash-strapped local government. Though at this rate I’m sure Armageddon will hit in July.
In a sign that former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin(consider that phrase for a minute with me and then feel free to pour yourself a drink as you realize what that implies about the current state of our country) isn’t quite as politically savvy as she seems to believe herself to be there is an uproar surrounding her recent endorsement of Carly Fiorina in the California Republican primary to challenge Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. The endorsement isn’t all that surprising in practical terms, Fiorina was a supporter and spokesperson for the failed McCain/Palin presidential bid and probably has the best shot of defeating Boxer in November – yet it seems the Republican base, and Palin’s supporters in particular, aren’t concerned with practical realities.
In order to understand what’s going on here consider what happened in Utah over the weekend. Utah’s primaries are somewhat idiosyncratic in that they take a caucus approach – a bunch of representatives and delegates from across the state hole in up in a convention center for a a day, gather up the candidates for a particular office then start voting. After the first round the person with the lowest votes gets dropped from the ballot. Then they vote again and the lowest from that round gets dropped and so on until a victor emerges. Enter Senator Bob Bennet, a three term Senator with an extremely conservative track record, who lost in the second round of voting thanks by and large to grassroots opposition to the two or three instances he actually co-operated with Democrats in Congress.
So Sarah Palin catches heat for endorsing the person with the Republican’s best shot at taking a Senate seat in true blue California and Tea Partiers torpedo a three-term deeply conservative Senator who would have cruised to re-election.
A lot of attention is being paid to the issues Democrats are going to have in November. Partly this is because it makes for a good story and partly it’s because the Democrats enjoy a massive majority of historic proportions in Congress that would be difficult to maintain even in a good year, let alone when the economy’s still struggling to its feat and anti-establishment fervor grips most of the nation. However I think it’s worth paying attention to the ways in which that very same anti-establishment fervor affects the Republican party. The Tea Party crowd may tilt conservative but that doesn’t mean they’re lining up behind Republican-backed candidates and both parties may stand to lose a great deal come this November.
It’s amazing what a little sunlight can do.
Finally: in light of the superconservative, anti-gay co-foudner of the Family Research Council George Rekers being photographed with an escort from rentboy.com in Miami airport Stephen Colbert says we should all stop to think “What Boy Would Jesus Rent?”
On Queer Oakland yesterday I posted a story out of Miami about George Reker, co-founder of the Family Research council, being caught coming out of MIA with a young man he apparently found and ‘hired’ off of rentboy.com to ‘carry his baggage’ (which I hereby nominate to join the ranks of ‘hiking the Appalachian trail’ for euphemism of the year). As a follow up to that TPM got this statement from Tony Perkins of Focus on the Family, the modern day incarnation of Reker’s Family Research Council:
In the past 24 hours FRC has received calls regarding Dr. George Rekers and his connection with the Family Research Council. After reviewing the historical records we did verify that Dr. Rekers was a member of the original Family Research Council board prior to its merger with Focus on the Family in 1987.Reports have been circulating regarding Dr. Rekers relationship with a male prostitute. FRC has had no contact with Dr. Rekers or knowledge of his activities in over a decade so FRC can provide no further insight into these allegations.
While we are extremely disappointed when any Christian leader engages in the very activities that they “preach” against, it is not surprising. The Scriptures clearly teach the fallen nature of all people. We each have a choice to act upon that nature or accept the forgiveness offered by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and do our best to ensure our actions, both public and private match our professed positions.
So of course the fact that this guy founded FoF’s parent organization has no bearing on them but also it’s not surprising when virulently anti-gay preachers turn out to engage in the very behavior they preach against? Wait what?! So what would be surprising a Christian leader who actually practices what they preach?
Oh wait, that actually would be kind of surprising….
