[Hollywood, May 26. Image via Getty]

A message left by demonstrators besides cartoon character Bug Bunny's Star on the Walk of Fame during a Gay protest rally in Hollywood on May 26, 2009. California's Supreme Court upheld a referendum that outlawed gay marriage, but said 18,000 same-sex weddings carried out before the ban would remain valid. Gay and lesbian activists had sought to overturn the result of a November referendum, known as Proposition 8, which redefined marriage in California as being unions between men and women only. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

[San Francisco, May 26. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - MAY 26: Helaine Gawlica stands with a spray painted message on her body during a march and rally following the California Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Proposition 8 May 26, 2009 in San Francisco, California. The Court voted 6-1 to uphold proposition 8 which makes it illegal for same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. More than 18,000 same-sex couples that wed before prop 8 was voted in will still be legally married. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

[Los Angeles, May 26. Image via Getty]

[San Francisco, May 26. Image via Getty]

SAN FRANCISCO - MAY 26: Kerri McCoy (L) and her partner Erin Carder embrace following the California Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Proposition 8 May 26, 2009 in San Francisco, California. The California State Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold proposition 8 which makes it illegal for same-sex couples to marry in the state of California. More than 18,000 same-sex couples that wed before prop 8 was voted in will still be legally married. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

• New day, same rumor: The "doc" is a diva. So. Did Katherine Heigl get dropped from the cast of cringe-inducing flick Valentine's Day because she wanted too much cash? Her rep says:

"The story is ludicrous." And: "Katherine walked away from this project for multiple reasons." Hmm. Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Shirley MacLaine and Bradley Cooper are still in. [Page Six]

• Celebrities are speaking out about the gay marriage ban in California: Melissa Etheridge says: "So, will anyone be sleeping better tonight? Those full of hate and fear will surely be disappointed that 18,000 same sex couples will be living in wedded bliss, kissing their spouses goodnight, checking off those little 'married' boxes on all those forms we fill out nowadays. That's really going to drive them crazy." Lance Bass says: "The decision to uphold Prop 8 is deeply disappointing. I can only hope to one day live in a country that grants equal rights, opportunity, and freedom to all citizens." [Radar Online]
• George Clooney says of the ruling on Prop 8: "This just should invigorate people to get it back on the ballot in 2010 and 2012 and every two years until all people are allowed a basic civil right." [E!]
• Twitterholics Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are threatening to quit Tweeting if Twitter goes forward with its plans to launch a TV show. [NY Mag]
• More Demi Moore: She will make the trip to the UK to watch Susan Boyle in the Britain's Got Talent finale. Simon Cowell offered her (and hubs Ashton) first-class plane tickets. [The Sun]
• This video clip may or may not be footage from the new Amy Winehouse documentary Saving Amy. One thing is for sure: It's boring. If you want to see Amy's dad talk about the villa in St. Lucia for 10 seconds and then see Amy say something unintelligible for about 2 seconds, then go ahead and click. [ONTD]
• News you cannot use: Someone somewhere says of Jesus Luz: "Leave it to Madonna to find the only Jew who's a hot Latino with an uncut penis." Brazilians aren't Latino, though, right? [Village Voice]
• Speaking of Madonna: Artist Peter Howson has created an oil painting of her Madgesty in the nude with her ex, Guy Ritchie, touching her thigh. Honestly? It doesn't exactly look like her. But it's up for auction this week, if you have £22, 000. [Mirror]
• Oh! Jesus Luz speaks! He and Madonna bought jewelry together, but it's not because they're getting married: "I received these pieces of jewellery because they are inspired by Kabbalah," he says. "If I want to present them to somebody, it could be my mother or a friend of mine. I don't have any marriage plans or any wedding present." [Mirror]
• Hugh Jackman's nine-year-old son uttered the following: "Hey dad, 2 o'clock, hot chicks." And, apparently, the kid, Oscar, went up to the girls and said: "Hey, you know that my dad's Wolverine?" [Mirror]
• Michael Lohan was arrested last month when he threatened to kill his fiancée and himself when she tried to dump him. Not good. [Page Six]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are moving to a bigger house in preparation for the twins. [Daily Mail]
• It's not a Mariah Carey gossip item without hairdresser drama and diamonds! [Page Six]
• Robert Pattinson may or may not have hooked up with a blonde chick when he was in the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival. Star spoke to the lady in question, who says: "We had a great time together! Rob's very sweet." Scintillating. [Star]
• If you see a "parade of rats," follow them! You might find Gisele Bundchen, Michael Cera, Rupert Everett and NBC news anchor Lester Holt, who are all experiencing a serious rat problem on their street in the West Village in NYC. [Page Six]
• Russell Brand, who hosted the MTV Awards last year, has advice for Andy Samberg, who's hosting the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday: "Do not jokingly criticise the Jonas Brothers — you will receive less-threatening death threats. There's nothing worse than opening a letter and then seeing in it a death threat. You think, 'Hold on a minute. I wasn't looking forward to the letter particularly. Now I fear death. Ruins a perfectly good read.'" [Mirror]
• Hey, Page Six: This item is called "Kelis & Nas Celebrate Their Baby," yet they're in the middle of a bitter divorce! [Page Six]
• Kevin Kreider, brother of Kate of Jon & Kate Plus 8, says the kids are being exploited and viewed as commodities. Sigh. [CBS News]
• Kirsten Dunst is selling her L.A. home on Nichols Canyon Road; it's got 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, exposed beams in the living room and cute outdoor spaces. Kiki is accepting offers starting at $1,700,000. Go! [Real Estalker]
• Kim Kardashian is not engaged. She doesn't know when she will get engaged. And yet. She is picking out rings. "It's just easier," she explains. "Isn't it easy if someone's like, 'This is exactly what I want.' It'll make your life so easy." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Breaking news from Lady GaGa: "I like boys that look like girls." [Fox News]
• Gavin Rossdale is on the road touring to support his new album, and little Kingston is with him! "Sometimes we'll go to museums of modern art so he can see a big splash of color on the walls… I found a way to kill some time in New York by asking him to look out the window and tell me every time he saw a yellow taxi," says Gavin. "He was so into it. We had a really good time." [People]
• Kelly Osbourne's fiancé saved her dog's life! Little Goldie was bitten by a rattlesnke and Luke rushed the pup to the vet. Kelly Twittered: "Thanks to Luke we got her there just in time. Luke was amazing, if he was not there I don't know what would have happened!" [The Sun]
• "Lifetime Movie Network Tuesday announced plans to air two fashion-themed murder mysteries this summer." LOL. Maggie Lawson stars as Lacey Smithsonian, a Washington, D.C., fashion reporter whose beat turns deadly. LOL! Mark Consuelos, Mario Cantone, Finola Hughes, Mary McDonnell and Victor Webster will be cast in the flicks, titled Killer Hair and Hostile Makeover. LOL. [UPI]
• Jodie Sweetin — aka Stephanie Tanner — has penned a book, UnSweetined, which details her past as a meth, coke, ecstasy and booze abuser who finally straightened out after she discovered she was pregnant. [Page Six]
• James Gandolfini, Will Ferrell, Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway and Kevin Spacey will be presenting at the Tony awards. Fingers crossed that they'll all do a musical number together! [Variety]
• James Brown died Christmas 2006, but legal battles over his estate have lived on. Yesterday a judge ruled that half of his assets will go to his charitable trust; a quarter to his wife and young son, and the rest to Brown's adult children. [USA Today]
• Ed McMahon's lawsuit — regarding slipping on a ramp-like staircase at a mansion and hurting his neck — has been settled. [TMZ]
• The promoter who sold tickets to see a fake Toni Braxton sing says that the Braxton impersonator was unaware of his scheme; she thought that everyone knew that she was an impersonator, and didn't find out until later that people purchased tickets expecting to see the real Toni Braxton. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Starting today, fans who visit Graceland get to go in the stables. [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which beauty now going through a divorce told a pal over lunch four years ago, 'I've had several abortions. If my husband ever found out, he'd throw me out of the house?' Looks like he found out." [Page Six]
• "It's all about history. What we as mothers are doing is creating history with our kids that we can look back on. When they're adults I want my kids to say 'Mom worked so hard, but she was always there for us.'" — Britney Spears, who says she was encouraged by Madonna to take her kids on tour. [The Sun]
• "Playing a bad guy is always a freeing experience - because you don't have the same envelope of restrictions that you have playing a good guy." — John Travolta, who plays a bad guy in The Taking Of Pelham 123. [Mirror]
• "You want people to talk about you, because once they stop talking about you that's when you're really in trouble! I'm happy to have people talk about all the craziness they want to talk about, whether it's things like every year we're getting divorced or we're an open family or Will's gay, or I'm gay." — Jada Pinkett Smith, who graces the new cover of Ebony. [Just Jared]
• "I was on my way to a festival [in Chicago], I was on the street and he (a police officer) stopped me. He said 'put your ass up against the fence,' there were kids around so I guess he wanted me to cover up my butt — quite a bit was showing. But it was quite an epic moment for me, I was up against the fence going ‘it's fashion, I'm an artist!' I signed his ridiculous piece of paper and left. I was being wildly disrespectful to him, he looked like some park ranger on a bike." — Lady GaGa. [Fox News]
• "I had a gentleman turn up on my doorstep all the way from Peru. He said he'd seen my clip on YouTube and had to come congratulate me. That was pretty weird." —Susan Boyle. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I met Randy Jackson, and he asked me to sing on American Idol. I was like, 'Um, I'll stick to dancing.'" —Shawn Johnson. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I've always approached this from the place where I don't compete with other girls. I don't compete with other people in the industry, I compete with myself. If I looked at every other girl in the entertainment industry as competition, my life would be really lonely. I wouldn't have some of the coolest friends that I'm so glad I've gotten to know over the last couple of years. ... It's really awesome to get to hang out with those girls [Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez] and to call them friends." — Taylor Swift. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "I'm home from the hospital and feeling great. Thanks for all the love and support!" — Elizabeth Taylor, via Twitter. [Reuters, Liz Taylor's Twitter]
• "I couldn't marry John Mayer, it'd be so intense. I'd definitely shag the shit out of him though. I'll go on record saying that." — Katy Perry. [The Sun via Complex]

Lyon explains that she and her partner of about 50 years, Del Martin — who died last year — never planned to get married. Instead, "a day or so before Mayor Newsom announced that San Francisco would allow marriages, we got a call saying we were going to be the first couple." Lyon and Martin agreed — "luckily," says Lyon, "each of us had just gotten a new pantsuit." Of their youth together, Lyon explains,

We never even thought about getting married back then. It didn't become an issue for a long time — in fact, it never was much of an issue for us. The gay rights movement was new, and there were so many other issues. We wanted a law that would keep people from getting fired because they were gay. We wanted a law that made it illegal to throw people out of their houses because they were gay. We were feminists, and a lot of the feminist movement was opposed to marriage because the institution gave men power over women. We hadn't really thought about marriage, and we'd certainly never thought about getting married ourselves. It wasn't an option.

Now, though, Lyon is hopeful for the future of gay marriage. She says,

It may not be while I'm alive, but eventually it will work out that if two people want to get married, they can get married and it won't matter to whom. We went through this before with people of color. It will be OK.

'It Never Was Much Of An Issue For Us' [LA Times]

Challengers have leveled two major legal criticisms at Prop. 8. The first is that the proposition is not merely an amendment to the state constitution, but a more severe "revision." Amendments can be made through the proposition system, but revisions can only be enacted by the state legislature or by constitutional convention. California Chief Justice Ronald George seemed to find this argument dubious, asking anti-Prop. 8 lawyers whether they felt that the right to gay marriage could be given by a proposition, rather than taken away. "Are you saying it is a one-way street," he asked, "that you can extend rights by way of initiative and take them away only by revision, the same rights?" And Justice Joyce Kennard argued that to call Prop. 8 a revision was to underestimate the legal power of California voters. "I think what you are overlooking is the very broad powers of the people to amend the Constitution," she said.

The second criticism of Prop. 8, advanced by State Attorney General Jerry Brown, is that the proposition repeals an "inalienable right" without sufficient justification. But justices countered that there was no obvious way to identify such inalienable rights. George mentioned the right to amend the state constitution, asking, "is that an inalienable right?"

Protesters from both sides gathered in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza for the hearing. One supporter of Prop. 8 carried a sign reading, "Those who hate real marriage should not have the right to pollute it." On the other side were messages like, "The gay agenda . . . our hope . . . our prayer . . . our dream" and "The gay agenda: 1) Equality. 2) Shopping. 3) See #1." But if Prop. 8 is upheld, the real next step for its opponents will be campaigning for the recognition of existing gay marriages — and perhaps trying to get the state "out of the marriage business" entirely.

On the first point, it's hard to tell how the Court feels. Kennard said that Prop. 8 "said that only a marriage between a man and a woman would be recognized regardless of where or when performed," but that this requirement "was buried in the middle of the rebuttal argument." George said the language of the proposition might have been intentionally vague. And Justice Ming W. Chin questioned the ethics of revoking once-legal marriages, asking, "Is that really fair to the people who depended on what this court said was the law of the land?"

The second point, supported by an editorial in the LA Times, hinges on questions also posed by Chin:

What if the state merely licensed or just recognized private, contractual civil unions with all the benefits of marriage, and couples went to the religious or private institution of their choice to sanctify their vows? Would that resolve the legal differences between Proposition 8 and the state Supreme Court's 2008 ruling that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the same marital rights as heterosexuals?

The Times thinks it would, and that since marriage is changing for both gay and straight people, it's time for the state to reevaluate its role. However, the editorial notes that such a reevaluation wouldn't be easy: "by the time Californians are ready to embrace such a seemingly novel idea, they will probably also be ready to vote for same-sex marriage."

California Supreme Court Looks Unlikely To Kill Proposition 8 [LA Times]
Loudly And Colorfully, Opposing Sides Debate Proposition 8 [LA Times]
A Way Out Of Prop. 8 [LA Times]
Gay Marriage: Is California's Supreme Court Shifting? [Time]

• A new study shows that children with contact lenses feel better about their looks than kids who wear glasses. • Horrible news: over 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year. Officials say that many of these deaths were tied to domestic abuse. • Proposition 8 is back in court. The court's decision is due within 90 days, so here's hoping that the 18,000 same-sex couples wed in California are not forced to give up their rights. • Four years after being honorably discharged, Lisa Pagan, mother of two, was recalled for duty. She reported with her children, and is now waiting to hear whether her appeal - on the grounds that she must stay in the country to take care of her kids - will be approved or not. • According to a study from the University of Warwick, modern women are ill-equipped to deal with motherhood because of their newfound geographical mobility. • New strains of drug-resistant gonorrhea have been detected in the US, UK and Australia. • The kidnapping trial of Kumari Fulbright, former beauty queen, has been pushed back until at least August. • Toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were kidnapped and put up for adoption. Years later, Spain is facing pressure to investigate the "lost children of the Franco regime." • The Belfast Rape Crisis Center is facing harsh criticism for its burlesque show fundraiser. Academic Fionola Meredith is among those opposing the show: "Forget post-feminism and irony - Northern Ireland remains an old-fashioned sexist's paradise where women's rights are very far down the political agenda." • More than 15,000 tapes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Christian talk show, the 'PTL Club', are up for auction. • Excerpts from Josef Fritzl's psychological examination have been released, and the details are terrifying. Fritzl claims that he "actually led a completely normal family life" and that he was a "good provider." • According to UN officials, the women's prison at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan, is probably the best in the country. The "humane" prison allows children to stay with their mothers, and offers classes for the prisoners in English and computer science. • British teachers worry that forward-facing strollers may be to blame for the recent decline in the linguistic abilities of many children. • Artist Christian Faur assembles amazing portraits entirely out of whole crayons. Check them out here. • A new study has found that sexual dysfunction among women may have more to do with the brain than with the body. • The world's first pink dolphin has been discovered living in an inland lake in Louisiana. • The Japanese have invented a new weight loss tool: expensive toe rings. • Women are less likely to go into debt and work harder for financial independence than men, according to a new study. • Mariachi classes are gaining young followers, as second and third generation Latinos reconnect with music of their grandparents. 14-year-old Maureen Sanchez has been taking Mariachi classes since she was five, and has already recorded three CDs and appeared on national radio and television. • A recent survey shows that women are more religious than men. Analysts speculate that this may be caused by - what else? - motherhood. • For the first time, researchers have established a link between estrogen and fat storage, which may explain why women store fat differently than men. • The New York Times has a short, but important, documentary following an 11-year-old girl on her last day of school before the Taliban closes it down. • 

[Image via Florida Times-Union[

He totally has gay friends, you guys! "I have many gay friends. I've eaten dinner in gay homes," Warren says, "No church has probably done more for people with AIDS than Saddleback Church." Warren also cites a "wonderful conversation" and a signed cd from Melissa Etheridge as a means to boost his "But I love gay people!" credibility. You know what, Mr. Warren? I have "gay friends", too. Though when I go to their houses to eat dinner, or hang out and watch a movie, I don't leave a note saying, "Be back soon, off to a gay home!"

Warren seems a bit taken aback by the hostility he's encountered since getting the Inauguration nod. "The hate speech against me is incendiary," he tells NBC's Ann Curry, "Tolerance used to mean, "I treat you with respect even though we disagree." Some people want tolerance to mean now that all ideas are equally valid. That's nonsense. There are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong."

As a librarian, I felt a need to correct Mr. Warren, who seems to have gotten some bad information. A little reference for you, sir:

Main Entry:
tol·er·ance
Pronunciation:
\ˈtä-lə-rən(t)s, ˈtäl-rən(t)s\
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century
1: capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance , fortitude , stamina
2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b: the act of allowing something : toleration

The act of allowing something, you say?! Like, perhaps, allowing fellow citizens their basic rights to marry and live how they choose, even if it conflicts with your personal religious beliefs, which, if I'm not mistaken, have no place in a Constitutional setting?

The line that you'll most likely hear all over the news today is this one: ""You don't have to see eye to eye to walk hand in hand." But when he sits down with a major news organization and gives quotes detailing how even if it was scientifically proven that being gay is biological and not "a choice", he would still consider homosexuality to be wrong, Warren's "Let's all be friends," rhetoric rings pretty hollow.

Warren compares being gay to being immature and slutty, and tries to tie the idea of biological homosexuality to the urge of a straight man to sleep with multiple women. "I've had many gay friends tell me, "Well, Rick, why shouldn't I have multiple sexual partners? It's the natural thing to do." Well, just because it seems natural doesn't mean it's best for you or society. I'm naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. And why should I reign in my natural impulses and you say, "Well, because I have natural impulses towards the same sex, I shouldn't have to reign them in." Well, I disagree. I think that's part of maturity. I think it's part of delayed gratification. I think it's part of character."

You know what else is part of maturity and character? Love. Open-mindedness. Tolerance. And not "Everyone should agree with the Bible or else" tolerance, Mr. Warren, tolerance for people who do not see the world the way you do, who just want to live and love and marry and have the same rights as everybody else. Because the world is not made up of "gay friends" and "gay homes", Melissa Etheridge signatures do not excuse you from your hateful statements masked as "tolerance", and millions of people are raising their hands to you and saying, "Hey, we just want to be treated as equals," and you, Mr. Warren, are the one who is refusing to look them in the eye and take that walk with them.

President-elect Barack Obama has weighed in on the controversy with this: "During the course of the entire inaugural festivities, there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented. And that's how it should be, because that's what America's about. That's part of the magic of this country ... we are diverse and noisy and opinionated."

Yes, President-elect Obama, we are diverse, noisy, and opinionated. And you can let Rick Warren say his prayers and complain to Ann Curry about the reactions, and you can quietly sidestep the real issue at hand here, but that noise is only going to get louder, and louder, and louder, until you can't avoid it any longer. And maybe then, we'll really see what America is about.

Rick Warren: Pastor In The Political Spotlight [MSNBC]
Warren Defends Obama Inauguration Invite [HuffingtonPost]
Warren Supports Program That Seeks To Cure Gays of Same-Sex Attraction[ThinkProgress]

Brown, who once said he would dismiss challenges to the measure, has apparently made a dramatic turn-around. "Upon further reflection and a deeper probing into all the aspects of our Constitution" Brown said, "It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative. Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitution, I concluded the court should protect the right to marry even in the face of the 52 percent vote."

Yes on 8 supporters, including Attorney Kenneth Starr, were urging the Attorney General's office to uphold the measure by invalidating all gay marriages that took place before the ban, an act that Starr claims would be "about restoring and maintaining the traditional definition of marriage." Brown disagreed, noting that the Proposition itself did not have any language in it that specified invalidating marriages performed before the election.

In the end, Brown declared, in what is potentially a very important step towards overturning the measure: "Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification."

California Attorney General Jerry Brown Urges Repeal Of Proposition 8[Huffington Post]
Brown Asks State High Court To Overturn Prop. 8[San Francisco Chronicle]

(Click on any image to begin gallery)

You might wonder why these women remain Mormons, when they disagree with so much of what others see as fundamental to the church. A blogger called "The Faithful Dissident" tries to explain:

I know that some of you out there are going through the same sort of struggles as I am. Perhaps you’re tired of having to constantly defend your personal political convictions to other Mormons. Perhaps you’ve had it up to here with the whole Prop 8 issue. Perhaps you are tired of trying to convince fellow Mormons that Barack Obama is not the Antichrist. Perhaps you are feeling really disillusioned by the hypocrisy of Mormons. Perhaps you are gay. Perhaps you are married to a non-member. Or perhaps you are a Mormon misfit, for whatever reason, and feel like the Church doesn’t have a place for someone like you. And yet, if you’re reading this right now, there is a reason why you’ve decided to stick around. For me, it’s all about Jesus; the simplicity and the purity of His message, which inspires me to require more of myself and less of others.

Another woman in the comments says, "It’s my ancestry, my family, my backbone. I may think my church is annoying or crazy or senseless at times, but the thought of not having it there seems so wrong. I don’t know who’d I be without it." And here's the thing: in a way, these women are much braver than we are. It's very easy to exclaim my pro-gay marriage beliefs in a web community like Jezebel, to an audience of like-minded people. These women are expressing their feelings to a community that is largely hostile to their message, and instead of just finding another church that is more in line with their social beliefs, they're struggling to make a place for themselves within Mormonism. While we can't get behind the Mormon Church at large when they promote intolerance, It's important to remind yourself that there are individual Mormons with their critical thinking skills intact.

Strollerderby Playdate: Feminist Mormon Housewives [Babble]
Why Are You Still Here? [Feminist Mormon Housewives]
Mormon Church On Prop. 8 [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Letter To California: Hate Won't Solve 8

Related: Hundreds Of Mormon Moms Rally Against Prop. 8 In Salt Lake City [The Advocate]

There has been a lot of talk on the blogosphere about how African-American voters are supposedly to blame for the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Yes, as Ta-Nehisi Coates acknowledges, 70% of African-American voters in California reportedly voted in favor of the amendment (according to a CNN exit poll). Given that African-Americans are one of the smallest minorities in the state of California and the margin of loss is something like 500,000, there's simply no way that African-Americans were the "cause" of the loss. Alex Blaze over at Billerico points out what should (otherwise) be blindingly obvious: ace is not the biggest factor in whether a Californian voted against same sex marriage. In fact, religious affiliation, current marital status and party identification were all bigger factors — and bigger pools of voters from which to draw yes votes.

So how does dropping n-bombs and blaming every African-American in the state of California (including the 30 percent who voted against Prop 8) help? It doesn't, and it's blind, racist, disrespectful of people's religious values, hateful, ignorant, and a convenient way to scapegoat a much-abused minority group that did not push, fund, mislead voters about its implications or herald, as a community, the passage of Prop 8. That dubious distinction belongs to, among others, the Mormon Church and the Knights of Columbus, groups in which African-Americans have little high-level participation. So people can either read posts like Shanikka's on DailyKos, Alex Blaze's on Bilerico or Pam Spaulding's on HuffPo and recognize that this scapegoating is based in false assumptions and poor statistics, or they can keep shouting racial epithets at African-Americans in Los Angeles and others can allow it to happen without shouting down the bigots in the LGBT community. Because that will make everything better, obviously. No need to work together, to learn together and educate one another when you can just yell and scream and carry on...because that's how you obtain civil rights.

Calif. Gov.: 'We Will Maybe Undo' Prop 8 [UPI]
Black Homophobia [The SLOG]
The N-Bomb Is Dropped On Black Passersby At Prop 8 Protests [Huffington Post]
Prop. 8 And Thinking Before We Write [Ta-Nehesi Coates]
Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8 [DailyKos]
Race, Sexuality, and Proposition 8 {The Bilerico Project]

• Barack Obama has picked a theme for his inauguration: "A New Birth of Freedom." It comes from the Gettysburg Address, so it's not quite as cheezy as it sounds. [Huffington Post]
• Besides Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs has reportedly accepted an offer to be the White House Press Secretary and David Axelrod has accepted a slot as Senior Adviser. [Politico, ABC]
• In the most intriguing appointment speculation, though, former Senator and Vietnam veteran Max Cleland — who lost to never-done-served Saxby Chambliss in 2002 when Chambliss ran ads calling veteran and amputee Cleland unpatriotic — may be appointed to be the new Army secretary. In other news, Chambliss will likely face a runoff in December to hold the Senate seat he doesn't deserve anyway. [Politico]
• Bush is also going to make sure (supposedly) that the Obama camp has a say in who gets the permanent staff positions overseeing the Treasury's bailout of our economy. [Politico]

• The Associated Press has finally called North Carolina for Obama. North. Fucking. Carolina. [Washington Post]
• And the Oregon Senate race has gone to the Democratic challenger, Jeff Merkley. Joe Lieberman is really sweating now. [Politico]
• And it looks like even the White House press corps — which is normally white enough to justify the name of the building — will be getting more diverse as white bureau chiefs recognize that maybe, just maybe, diversity can have actual benefits in terms of bringing multiple points of view into one's news coverage. [Politico]
• Everyone in Illinois, Delaware and D.C. are jockeying to put forth candidates to fill the soon-to-be-vacant Senate seats there. [NY Times]
• In what will likely become quite a bit of Republican jockeying, Republican Minority Whip Roy Blunt is putting down his whip and walking away from House Republican leadership — and so is Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam. Expect retirement announcements some time in 2009, once htey make sure Republican lobbyists can still make money. [Politico, Reuters]
• Spencer Ackerman thinks that part of the Republican jockeying will be neocons seeking to fill the (reportedly very) empty vessel of "Sarah Palin" full to the brim with all their foamy, war-loving anti-intellectual spooge. Only it sounds less porn-y when he says it. [Washington Independent]
• Los Angeles police vow to be prepared today for the protests by the LGBT community and its supporters over the fact that half the state thinks it is a good idea to rescind some of their civil rights. I guess they've decided to exercise one of them while they still have it. [LA Times]
• Eliot Spitzer will not be charged with the crime of whoremongering across state lines since he didn't sue campaign funds to pay the sex workers he employed. Somehow, we think this is probably cold comfort to Silda Spitzer, if she actually wasn't rooting for an indictment. [LA Times]
• And, apparently, the whole "peaceful transition" in Russia was just a ruse for Vladimir Putin to snap his fingers and change the law so he can be back in office next year. Oh, that's gonna work out well. [NY Times]

MOE: Well, at least we still have The Corner

MEGAN: Aw, too bad SUCKAH. Go drink you bitter juice in your bitter house and cling to your God and your guns and your false idea that this country belongs to you and yours and always has and always will. We won, square and fair despite everything your guys tried to do to keep Americans from voting — and it was the biggest turn out since women got the right to vote.

MOE: What's there to agonize about here?

MEGAN: Four years in a WH, which he's already done, vs. the rest of his life in a House seat, with increasing power. I don't know, I'm a big believer in the legislative branch, I want some big guns in it. Every President tries to increase the power of the Executive at the legislative's expense, and look where it's gotten us. We should also talk about the end of gay marriage in California, the dark cloud on an otherwise sunny day.

MOE: I guess, but this WH, elected by much wider margins than his last, occupied by a much more historically significant holder than that administration, versus 434 other guys, no precarious minority to try and hold on to, etc. etc. So…where do we begin? For some reason I woke up this morning thinking of the moment when he thanked his two sisters by name and then addressed all his other brothers and sisters, and I thought not of that new illegal immigrant guy but the guy running a small business in Shenzhen. I bet that guy had a pretty good party this morning.

MEGAN: I think most people had pretty good parties, from the looks of things. I was actually sort of fascinated last night, flipping channels, Juan Williams, Eugene Robinson and Roland Martin (Fox, MSNBC, and CNN, respectively) were all crying. I mean, these are men who, while not anchors, are literally quite close to the tops of their professions, and yet it took this to make them feel actually accepted, was the sense that I got. It was kind of amazing.

MOE: Seventy four million dollars spent Proposition 8, oy. In a state flirting with default with an awe-inspiring foreclosure rate where 30$ of car purchases in 2007 were financed with home equity, someone has seventy four million dollars to spend on this stupid thing. I'm actually not that sad about it right now. It's a "Yup, still America!" moment. Hundreds of thousands of people in that state voted in the first black president while simultaneously voting to exclude gays from an exponentially more quotidian "institution," an "institution" one associates in much of that state with Vegas. What is the divorce rate in California anyway? Oh god, whatever.

MEGAN: The Institution of Straight Marriage, brought to you by the Knights of Columbus and the Church of Latter Day Saints.

MOE: One of my favorite discoveries in the context of researching Barney Frank was an Orange County former congressman named BIll Dannemeyer who sponsored a bill to expel Barney Frank over his whorescandal.

MEGAN: Please tell me he was a client.

MOE: No no no, he was one of those rare rabid homophobes who just seemed to me to be indiscriminately obsessed with everything he finds to be "outrageous."

MEGAN: You mean "one of those rare rabid homophobes" that isn't self-loathing and obsessed with other men's penii, right?

MOE: Right one of those rare rabid homophobes that isn't a self-hating homo I guess? I called him up; at this point he is a lot less fascinated by gay sex — he did maintain it was an unhealthy lifestyle that had no doubt taken a toll on Barney Frank's rectum — than he is by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Council of Foreign Relations, which control everything.

MEGAN: Angelina Jolie is part of the cabal?

MOE: Look, I should probably not make generalizations about these right-wing people.

MEGAN: Also, isn't Barney a top?

MOE: Well, his whore was a bottom, but that was in 1985. I am not going to speculate, again I am not actually that interested in this topic, and like I said I am pleased to report Bill Dannemeyer has moved on as well.

MEGAN: To blaming the vicious CFR and Federal Reserve cabal.

MOE: Now he is outraged by the myths of Western medicine and agribusiness — he is a vegan pronounced veGANNE — and also the European laws against Holocaust denial.

MEGAN: So, did he vote for Bob Barr or John McCain?

MOE: And Alan Greenspan. He has been advocating a return to the gold standard for some time. IN ANY CASE, I am just telling you that California is an odd place, with a perspective permanently warped by an overabundance of beauty, sun, space, time spent in cars and optimism but nevertheless permanently changing, And I'm pretty sure he wrote in Ron Paul, for whom he had much esteem.

MEGAN: Oh, well, if you had said gold standard I would have known. If you watch enough Fox News, you see a lot of gold commercials, it's pretty humorous, though I doubt a return to the gold standard is what Nicolas Sarkozy meant when he said he wanted us to all rethink Bretton Woods.

MOE: Another happy discovery I made in the course of reporting this was Paul Kanjorski, congressman from Scranton, PA, who held onto his seat in the face of a formidable challenge from the rabidly anti-immigration mayor of Hazelton, PA last night. Kanjorski is a dead ringer for my late grandfather, who also happens to be from Scranton, although my grandfather was Irish and Kanjorski does not strike me as a particularly Irish name, but the point is none of this stuff matters and what really endeared me to the guy was his testimony on the Finance Committee, where his skepticism toward the Federal Reserve Board of Governors will surely make Bill Dannemeyer proud. But hey, this election was about other folks than old white guys.

MEGAN: Hazelton is a weird place that I drive past every time I drive home and have attempted to avoiding stopping in because of said mayor. I don't want to give him the tax revenue. So, congrats Kanjorski!

MOE: I hear Philly was totally awesome last night.

MEGAN: Hell, I heard D.C. was awesome last night, but I was too busy working and then too tired to go check it out.

MOE: Ha, I love this: McCain lost because he pandered insufficiently to the base.

MEGAN: Crazy Michelle Bachmann won, by the way, if you wanted to be bummed by something other than Prop 8 in California.

MOE: OH Jesus Christ SERIOUSLY?

MEGAN: Right, independent voters didn't vote for McCain because he wasn't right wing enough! Keep thinking that, GOP!

MOE: But no, here's my public service to you guys: McCain lost because voters changed their minds. They turn out to have them.

MEGAN: Shhh! Don't help! Let them keep thinking that the way to win independent voters is be more right-wingnutty, more against immigration, meaner, more anti-Muslim, more cutting taxes for the wealthy. Obama will need 2 terms to not be GHWB.

MOE: Also, it looks like that guy's numbers are off. Also bummed about Al Franken losing. But whatever, VIRGINIA. Not since Pocahantas had I really pegged you as a beacon of tolerance and inclusiveness.

MEGAN: I know, I almost feel like I could maybe stop apologetically telling people I'm from upstate New York now despite the fact that I've lived almost my entire adult life here (in Virginia).

MOE: Which brings us to: John McCain. Such a great speech. Such a poignant moment. Such despicable fans. I was blown away! I wonder what he was thinking looking out at all those douchebags. I was also surprised to see all his weird rage toward Obama seem to melt so thoroughly away. "Extraordinarily gracious," yes; wow.

MEGAN: I couldn't believe that either! I was watching here going, well, who the fuck wrote that speech, and, damn, am I glad that he didn't write the other ones. Because that was the 2000-era John McCain that Democrats used to swoon over. And, yeah, those people last night, like, damn. Do you have to have a political operative come out and be like, "Hey, people, the eyes of the world are upon us like they have been for the last few weeks, so could you please try showing everyone that Republicans and McCain supporters are a gracious lot?" Hell, maybe they did.

MOE: What else do we have to say? Lehman Brothers died so hope could live. Thank you Hank Paulson for the random little policy inconsistency that sealed the election. And thank you by extension Dick Fuld for being such a uniquely unsympathetic character that not even Hank Paulson your white megawealthy brother in plutocratic whiteness did not want to help you.

MEGAN: Thanks, GOP, for delivering such bad candidates (Jim Gillmore) and hate-filled campaigns (Elizabeth Dole) that even your own voters rejected your candidates. We couldn't have done it without your hubris and incompetence.

MOE: I cried. I cried the whole way up on the train. I even cried reading Vibe's idiotic "election issue" which also explains the five variables you need to choose a good Cognac, one of them being "region," which is not actually a variable if you have already decided to go drink cognac, but whatever. yes, I cried reading about Will.i.am. Yeah what the fuck, Liddy Dole?

MEGAN: Apparently, it's okay to hit below the belt if you are losing. Did you know it's the first time since the 50s that neither a Bush nor a Dole is serving in elected office? It's true!

MOE: That's insane. See, those names I guess I always equated with a sort of moderate conservatism I guess I should have equated with an entrenched and amoral power it would defend by any means at any costs

MEGAN: I don't think that those things are mutually exclusive. I think moderate conservatism is, in fact, the way to defend entrenched and amoral power.

MOE: My head hurts. Is this over? I think I need to shower. I lost my wallet again last night.

MEGAN: It's lower taxes, higher spending, foreign wars to distract the populace but not really dangerous ones that would shift the balance of power, it's keeping the government out of your lives as long as you're not gay or don't wish to use birth control or have an abortion.