13 STUPID PEOPLE SAY STUPID THINGS ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE

So like a month ago (because I am lazy and haven’t gotten around to writing this), the Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is legal nationwide because any laws preventing it are inherently unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law to everyone. Liberals applauded the move because duh, and conservatives decried it as a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to forced sodomy, bestiality, and having to be nice to other people even if you don’t like them. Dark times indeed.

After the decision, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, said the following stupid thing:

In case you don’t speak asshole, I’ve decided to translate a few key phrases for you.

Following the high court’s flawed ruling [ruling I don’t agree with] on states’ constitutional right to define marriage [not a thing], our next fight is religious liberty [to deny other people liberty]. Today’s ruling marks a radical departure from countless generations of societal law [not a thing] and tradition [other radical departures: women’s suffrage, interracial marriage, ending slavery, secular governance, integrated schools, unleaded gasoline]. Far from a victory for anyone [except the people now treated like people], this is instead a dilution of marriage [what are you even saying] as a societal institution [divorce and adultery notwithstanding].

Despite this decision, I still have faith in America and the American people [but not the gay ones or the ones who support them]. We must be vigilant about our freedom [to be dicks] and must use the democratic process [not how the Supreme Court works] to make sure America lives up to its promise as a land of freedom [but not for gays], religious tolerance [but not for gays] and hope [but not for gays].

In Paxton’s mind, the Supreme Court is defying the will of the people to infringe upon religious liberty and tear down the long tradition of one-man, one-woman marriage, thus undermining society and bringing about the Apocalypse, probably.

In reality, religious liberty means that your religion’s rules do not apply to people who are not in that religion. That’s why Jewish people don’t kill their neighbors for eating pork or working on the Sabbath, and it’s why you’re not allowed to tell other people to live by “Christian values” just because you do.

I don’t pray or go to church, I use contraception, I’ve had sex out of wedlock, I wear mixed fibers, I eat shrimp and pork (sometimes together), and I use God’s name in vain like all the time. And whether I’m cooking, sexing, or yelling “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, HOLD ON TO THE GODDAMN BALL” at the TV, it is none of your fucking business.

Anyway, as you might imagine (because religious people are hilarious and Texans are stupid), the comment section on this post has some real gems. In fairness, most of the comments are explaining to Paxton in reasoned(ish) terms that he’s bound by law and his entire job description to follow the USSC ruling, that popular opinion is against him anyway, and that he’s an asshole, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the crazies.

1) Gerald Doesn’t Understand What Just Happened

Gerald’s profile picture looks like Chuck Norris had a baby with Daniel Boone and a caricaturist drew it. Gerald also doesn’t seem to see the irony in the phrase “educated idiots,” but he definitely thinks that a 9-year-old is better qualified to define “marriage” than the Supreme Court, which is good because that’s not what the Supreme Court did. What they did do is to say that the legal rights and protections afforded by marriage should be available to everyone because that’s what the Constitution says. Gerald hopes that Texas will hold strong because Gerald doesn’t realize that it’s out of Texas’ hands. It’s done. It’s the law. Texas has to follow it like everyone else.

2) James Doesn’t Understand The Concept Of A Federal Government

James’ profile picture is a parody Uncle Sam poster promoting Texan secession, because apparently these people have literally never heard of irony, and he thinks that this ruling is moving toward a trend of “destroying the states.” He predicts that we will one day become ONLY ONE STATE, which apparently would be bad BECAUSE REASONS. He then points out his joke in case you missed it. You guys. Did you see where he said “state” instead of “states”? That’s where the point was that he was making. Because it’s only one state instead of a bunch of them. James apparently doesn’t realize that the federal government is in charge of some stuff too, like determining whether laws comply with the Constitution.

3) Jeri Has Some Platitudes To Contribute

Jeri wants to fight hard (but not too hard, because she’ll get out of breath quickly if you catch my drift) and pray that our country turns back to God. Jeri is also a hypocrite, because her Facebook page is 100% public and I can therefore tell you all that Jeri IS A FAN OF BESTIALITY. That’s right. She took a quiz on which Disney song is hers, and it was Tale as Old as Time from Beauty and the Beast, and she said “I love that movie.” Really, Jeri? A woman falls in love with an animal, and that’s ok with you? Also there is WITCHCRAFT in that movie, because of all the talking cutlery and shit. Checkmate, Jeri.

4) Pam Has A Lot Of Thoughts

There is a lot going on here. The overarching theme seems to be that Pam doesn’t understand that Texas is not the entire US. You see, Texas passed an amendment in their Constitution back in 2005 that marriage was between one man and one woman, and then this year, ten years later, the Supreme Court ruled that all such laws are illegal and unconstitutional. Pam would like to know how these five PERVERTS on the USSC can commit such travesties. I’m going to break it down for Pam.

1. The Supreme Court didn’t make a law. They made a ruling about the legality of existing laws, which is their entire job.
2. No one gives a shit if you acknowledge two of the same sex as a marriage. Just like I don’t acknowledge the Nissan Juke as a real car. It’s an abomination and I don’t want to look at it, but Nissan still makes it and there’s nothing I can do about it.
3. You’re welcome to home-school your kids and teach them that gay people are weird, or that black people smell funny, or that narwhals aren’t real. You’re wrong, but you’re allowed to say whatever you want. This doesn’t affect you.
4. It says a lot about you that you’d rather a child continue to live in an orphanage (or just die) than be adopted by two loving parents, just because those parents have the same sets of bathing suit parts. Especially since the science is clear that kids raised by gay parents have no disadvantages over kids raised by straight parents.
5. Sure, God created marriage between Adam and Eve. We’ll go with that. In that case, he also created homicide, rape, slavery, infanticide, incest, human sacrifice, and a whole bunch of other really unpleasant stuff, so maybe that’s not the best point.
6. Most Americans do want this.

5) Marvin Doesn’t Understand What An Attorney General’s Job Is

Marvin is really upset, guys. Ken knows this ruling is unconstitutional (it’s not) and has the authority to instruct clerks to ignore it (he doesn’t). See, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” Legal translation: tough shit, Texas. Marvin also wants Texas to secede, which is frankly fine by me.

6) David Doesn’t Know What The First Amendment Means

Shockingly, the same kind of people who are normally so quick to ignore separation of church and state, like when public officials use religion to argue legal points, are now clinging to it to defend their bigotry. Here’s the key distinction: freedom of speech allows you to say and think whatever you want, with a few exceptions (libel, incitement, verbal abuse, etc.). Freedom of religion allows you to believe whatever you want, and generally to act on those beliefs, with a few more exceptions (peyote, animal sacrifice, polygamy, etc.) This means that you are well within your rights to hate gay people. You can even tell them that you hate them. You can stand up at straight weddings and give speeches about how glad you are that the bride and groom are different genders. But you can’t keep them from getting married just because you (and even “the Muslims”) don’t like it.

Also, “be a party to homosexuality”? What exactly do you think is going to happen here? To quote Chris Kluwe,

Are you worried that all of a sudden you’ll start thinking about penis? “Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!” Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population.

And finally, “no one in the wedding industry can refuse to provide service to a belief they feel is immoral.” THAT IS EXACTLY THE FUCKING POINT, YOU HALFWIT. Let’s say you make wedding cakes. If a man comes to you and says “hello, purveyor of wedding cakes, I would like a wedding cake for the agreed-upon price,” you are not allowed to decide whether to fulfill that order by asking this man whether he throws parties for the Tony Awards. On a similar vein, you are not allowed to refuse service to non-virgins, divorcees, atheists, or Patriots fans, just because you’re morally opposed to their viewpoints. That is exactly what “equal protection” means.

7) Kenneth Is A Walking Stereotype

Listen, Kenneth. The Supreme Court and US Constitution supersede the Texas Constitution. The Texas AG and governor can’t stand up for Texas in opposition to the US Constitution because they took oaths of office that explicitly forbid them from doing so (and ended those oaths with “so help me God” so checkmate). The Supreme Court isn’t redefining marriage. And your hat looks stupid.

8) Victor Has Us Liberals Backed Into A Corner

SCOTUS doesn’t have the right to change the definition of marriage, because it’s the holy union of one man and one woman in a lifelong, covenantal, unconditional relationship. That’s why atheists aren’t allowed to get married and divorce is illegal.

9) Dianna Thinks That The USSC Is Possessed By Satan, Maybe

Dianna is super bummed out that the USSC have chose to follow their “master,” but doesn’t say who that is. Maybe Satan? Maybe Obama? The ghost of Stalin? Is there really a difference? Either way, she feels betrayed that the people in positions of power have shown their hatred of America by being nice to people who do icky bedroom stuff. She thought they’d do what’s best for Americans, but instead they gave human rights to Americans. They must have sold their souls.

10) TJ Is Ready! For Something!

What do we want? Liberty! And leaders! What does that mean? Who cares! What writing? What wall? America!

11) Paul Has Not Read Any Of The Constitutions

Hey Paul? The US Constitution is seven pages long. You’re wondering whether Texas is to be “ruled” (not what’s happening) by the Supreme Court or by Texans themselves? You think that the democratic process has failed you because the Supreme Court made a ruling that goes against the will of the Texan people, in violation of the Constitution?  Let me fill you in.

The Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution says that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof…shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” That means that the US Constitution trumps the Texas Constitution. Always. If that’s not enough for you, the Texas Constitution also says, in Article 1, Section 1, that “Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.” So Texas is fully on board with the fact that the US Constitution is the foundation of all laws.

Now the question is whether the Supreme Court is authorized to interpret the US Constitution by the US Constitution. Article 3, section 1 of the US Constitution says that “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court,” so that clears up the establishment of the Court itself, and Section 2 says in part that “In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.” That passage was intended by the founders to establish the power of judicial review, as explained by Alexander Hamilton:

The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution, is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.

So I think that covers it. To recap:

• The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, taking precedent over the will of the people or over any individual state’s Constitution.
• The Constitution establishes a Supreme Court and grants it the power to interpret the Constitution itself.
• The Supreme Court has ruled that the intent of the 14th Amendment makes any laws (including Texas’ Constitution) that withhold the right of marriage from anyone unconstitutional, thus making gay marriage legal.
• The will of the people is completely and utterly irrelevant in this case

12) Yosef Thinks About Sex A Lot

I was waiting for one of these. These damn perverts! With their blowjobs and their scissoring! They’re going to make “church leaders” (don’t know why that’s in quotes) perform gay marriages! Never mind that that’s never ever going to happen, and that this ruling only applies to the legal recognition of gay marriage and issuance of marriage licenses. No church official will ever be forced to perform a marriage that they don’t want to, because that’s already the rule.

He’d also like to point out that this is NOT the same as discrimination against slaves and women, because BLTG (bacon, lettuce, tomato, and gay) people can vote and always have been able to, and that’s the only right he can think of. Not hospital visitation or social security or any of the other 1,138 benefits, rights and protections provided on the basis of marital status in Federal law. As long as they can vote, they have nothing to complain about. They’re in the minority, and that means that they don’t get basic legal protection.

13) Christi Is Bad At History

Even if it were true that most Americans don’t support gay marriage (it’s not), this is exactly the point. The complainants in this case went to the Supreme Court to argue their case because the democratic process wasn’t working. The Supreme Court’s job is explicitly not to follow the will of the people, but instead to determine the rights of all people, majorities or otherwise. Some of the most fundamental rights that we have as a nation came not from the will of the people, but from the rulings of the courts. For example:

• Black people can vote
• People who can’t afford an attorney are provided one by the state
• Arrested suspects must be informed of their right to an attorney
• The death penalty can only be applied to treason, espionage, and crimes in which the victim died
• Segregation on buses is illegal
• Racial covenants on real estate are illegal
• Segregation in public schools is illegal
• Interracial marriage is fully legal
• Military schools are open to both men and women
• Laws criminalizing sodomy are unconstitutional
• Contraception is legal
• Evidence acquired illegally is inadmissible in court
• Police can’t search a house unless all residents present consent
• GPS tracking of a person’s vehicle requires a warrant

You’ll recognize that a lot of these are now thought of as pretty fundamental rights, but all of them exist because the Supreme Court made a decision on the legality of existing rules or laws, and in none of these cases was public opinion taken into account. Sometimes the public is wrong. Here’s a major example.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” rendering any racial segregation of public schools illegal in one fell swoop. Just as with gay marriage, this was not a universally popular decision. In Topeka, Kansas, where the case originated, integration was fairly smooth. The South put up a bit more fight.

In Texas, Attorney General John Ben Shepperd organized a campaign to generate legal obstacles in an effort to make sure that desegregation couldn’t be implemented.

In Florida, the state legislature passed an Interposition Resolution denouncing the decision and declaring it null and void. Florida’s governor, to his credit, refused to sign it.

In Mississippi, no one even filed a suit to desegregate schools until 1963, nine years later, when Medgar Evers sued to desegregate Jackson’s public schools. He was murdered by a member of a white supremacist group for his actions.

In Alabama, Governor George Wallace personally blocked the door to Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to prevent the enrollment of two black students. This was a man who, in his inauguration address, stood in the portico of the Alabama State Capitol and said, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

This is a man bravely standing in the face of tyranny, and by “tyranny” he means “having to let black people go to school too.” He stood in the doorway of the school until General Henry Graham of the Alabama National Guard, under orders from JFK himself, told him to move.

But the real winners of the Bigoted Dickhead Olympics were in Arkansas. After the Supreme Court decision, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court’s ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957.

That year, nine students were enrolled in Little Rock Central High. Several segregationist (fancy word for openly racist) groups threatened to protest, but it turned out to be unnecessary because the governor mobilized the goddamn Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school.

It was only after the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army arrived, federalizing the entire 10,000-man Arkansas National Guard and removing them from the control of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, that the black students were allowed to enter the school.

And now, 50 years later, the South is at it again.

Ken Paxton, the walking penis from the beginning of this post, says that county clerks in Texas will be able to turn away gay couples seeking marriage licenses. Technically that’s true, in the same way that I’m able to rob a liquor store with a samurai sword if I want, but obviously it’s illegal and has consequences. Ken Paxton, Walking Penis, is aware that telling county clerks that they’re allowed to both break the law and fail to perform their sworn civic duty is illegal, so he’s going to make sure that “numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs.”

In Louisiana, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell says that because the Supreme Court’s ruling did not include an official order for states to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, “there is not yet a legal requirement for officials to issue marriage licenses or perform marriages for same-sex couples in Louisiana.” Buddy Caldwell, who is somehow able to put pants on every morning without falling down, is seemingly unaware that a ruling from the highest legal authority in the country does in fact constitute a legal requirement.

And in Mississippi, Governor Phil Bryant said the Supreme Court “usurped” each state’s “authority to regulate marriage within their borders” because he is an idiot of scarcely believable proportions. The Mississippi Constitution explicitly states, “The people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof…provided, such change be not repugnant to the constitution of the United States.” Well as of June 26, 2015, your right to regulate such things has officially been overruled.

This is the side of history that these people want to be on. They want us to think that letting black people into their schools is tyranny and that letting gay people get married is somehow a violation of their freedom to be Christian. They want you to believe that this decision will crumble the very fabric of society, just as one 19th-century pastor argued that “Every hope of the existence of church and state, and of civilization itself, hangs upon our arduous effort to defeat the doctrine of Negro suffrage.”

Eventually, these people will be reduced to a fringe minority, like anti-abolitionists and anti-suffragists and segregationists before them, relegated to the more unpleasant chapters of American history. But in the meantime, they’re still here, and they make for some highly entertaining, if somewhat infuriating, reading.