(Click on image above to find out.)

The Chronicle has a vicious screed (a week late, I’d like to note) concerning the passage of Proposition 2 — the gay marriage amendment. Let’s fisk it, shall we?

The hopes of gay rights advocates to stop the addition of a ban on same-sex marriage to the Texas Constitution ended last Tuesday. Texas voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 2, the constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Among Harris County residents who cast a vote on the issue, 72 percent favored the ban. Across Texas, 76 percent of voters approved.

However satisfying this amendment is to its many supporters, its passage is no victory for Texas. Its presence on the ballot was as unnecessary as it was mean-spirited. Texas law already defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and Texas does not recognize same-sex unions recognized in other states.

Yes, the Chronicle just said that 76% of Harris County residents voted for a “mean-spirited” constitutional amendment. They have this level of disrespect for their own readership, and they question why they continually bleed customers. One wonders how they stand living here in Texas, rather than on the East or West Coast. After all, they apparently think we’re all just a bunch of bigoted rednecks.

Even then, though, their logic here simply fails. Simply because Texas law already doesn’t recognize gay marriage doesn’t mean that Proposition 2 didn’t accomplish something in the fight against gay marriage. A statute is more easily changed, and a constitutional amendment has more impact in the courts — state or federal (recall that US Supreme Court death penalty cases often do “a poll of the states,” which supposedly impacts the outcome). Moreover, Proposition 2 accomplishes a great deal in simply conveying popular sentiment on this issue. Constitutions express shared values, and judging by the returns, preserving marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution is a shared value. If the Chronicle views this as bigotry, that’s something they need to resolve themselves, rather than blustering at three-quarters of Texans.

In their zeal to prevent gay partners from enjoying any government recognition of their union, the drafters of the bill added language that prohibits any legal status similar or identical to marriage. Isn’t marriage identical to marriage? What have Proposition 2 supporters wrought?

The courts no doubt will provide the answer.

The argument that Prop 2 will ban all marriage is stupid. The people who believe it are either disingenuous or ignorant. First of all, there’s the matter of extrinsic evidence. If courts consider one iota of outside evidence — whether it be newspaper articles and editorials concerning the amendment, or the legislative history — the intent and meaning of the amendment becomes perfectly clear. Even those who generally eschew using legislative histories (i.e. Justice Scalia) generally accept some very limited use of extrinsic evidence. The alternative would force absurd results.

Moreover, even if no outside evidence is considered, it would be ridiculous to read the amendment as banning all marriage. The word “identical” can mean the exact same thing, but it can also mean something highly similar, but still separate — as with “identical” twins. Given the structure of the amendment, and given the cannons of interpretation, it would be utterly foolish to read the amendment as using the primary definition of “identical” Otherwise, why would the amendment be broken up into two provisions? Why would it say that “marriage shall consist” if no marriage is to exist at all? Again, this would be stupid and ridiculous.

Supporters argue that the amendment is needed to keep Texas from having to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state. However, if the U.S. Constitution required Texas to do so before the election, it requires Texas to do so today. The U.S. Constitution cannot be overridden by an amendment to a state constitution.

First of all, I haven’t heard this argument prominently raised. Secondly, the Chronicle’s argument isn’t entirely accurate. Although a state constitutional amendment cannot override the federal constitution, the courts do, as I noted earlier, give weight to the laws of the states in certain determinations. I dare say that the more states pass anti-gay marriage amendments, the harder the time the courts will have in trying to force gay marriage down our collective throats. It adds one more legal argument against the recognition of gay marriage, which is valuable regardless of what the Chronicle thinks.

Not only was there no legal or practical need to elevate current state prohibitions to constitutional writ, but doing so came across as a direct attack on gays and on their struggle for a measure of legal equality. Besides being an embarrassment, the amendment sends the wrong signal to businesses that thrive on intellectual capital and creativity.

Most businesses could care less. I don’t think Proposition 2 was a blip on the collective radar screen of corporate America. Besides, where is the Chron’s logic coming from here? Is “intellectual capital and creativity” somehow linked to homosexuality? I don’t get it. Nobody — not even Richard Florida with his “Creative Class” nonsense — has shown a clear link between corporate innovation and buggery. Surely such a link isn’t intuitive…

Inner city black voters in Harris County, many of whom have long experience with the denial of civil rights, favored the marriage amendment by an even higher majority than the general Harris County voting population. Black discomfort with homosexual marriage is rooted less in conscious discrimination than in religious belief, but support for the amendment brought blacks into incongruous accord with members of the Ku Klux Klan, whose members rallied in Austin in support of Proposition 2.

Guilt by association doesn’t work. Sorry. This is a non-argument.

Surveys show that younger people are more comfortable than older people with the fact of homosexuality. That bodes well for a day when a majority of Texans come to realize that legally recognized homosexual partnerships pose no threat to heterosexual couples, but merely extend to same-sex partners and their children the rights and protections that Texans clearly value.

Surveys in the 60’s, which showed very liberal views among the young, proved an inaccurate predictor of their views as they became older. These are the people who elected Ronald Reagan, after all. Just because they’re socially liberal now, doesn’t mean they won’t change their minds. Also, you have to keep in mind that Texas is becoming more and more Hispanic, which tilts the scales against acceptance of homosexuality. The Chronicle may hope that gay marriage will be the norm in a few generations, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

What have the braniacs at MIT been doing lately?

Well for starters, they have been using a $250,000 network analyser to study the efficacy of aluminum helmet designs, i.e. Tin Foil Hats.

Yeah, you read that right, they studied how effective tin foil hats are at deflecting radio frequencies:

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Sooooo, the Government started the tin foil hat craze in order to gain access to your thoughts or enhance the mind control they are using on you……..

It isn’t paranoia when "they" really are out to get you!

Um, what are those black helicopters doing in front of my window?

Every few years a rate hike in the price of stamps seems to come along, and it appears we will have another one for the new year. First class mail will go up to $.39 per stamp on January 8th, 2006. The reason for the increase is rather interesting as well.

The increase fulfills a requirement, passed by Congress in 2003, that the Postal Service establish a $3.1 billion escrow account. Congress is to determine later how to spend that money. The Postal Service said without the mandate it would not have had to raise rates next year.

What is all this business about an escrow account? A 2004 article in Government Executive sheds some light on what is going on.

The first involves an escrow account created when the Postal Service discovered several years ago that it was overfunding its pension obligations and could reduce payments by almost $3 billion annually. The Postal Service was allowed to use the first three years’ savings to pay expenses and reduce debt. After that, the money was to go into escrow until Congress approved a plan for the funds.

How about using the money to build some bridges?

E-mail the author or leave a comment below.

LST reader Chris Vyvial has tipped us off to some nifty parody work over at Sacred Cow Burgers. Subjects of ridicule include Republicans ignoring the border issue, putting the “choice” in pro-choice, and French negotiating skills among others. Take a look at the red-meat offerings and tell ‘em LST sent you.
(Tip: Liberal or very politically correct readers may wish to skip this one.)

E-mail the author or leave a comment below.

It’s Tuesday……

Please go read Michael Yon’s newest dispach.  If you don’t shed a tear or two (or have that "manly" lump in your throat), you have no heart……..

Further down on Michael’s page, he mentions how Bruce Willis has been very supportive of the troops as well as him (Michael).  We are always reading about how Hollywood types are bad mouthing the USA and we respond by saying we won’t see movies they are in.  May I suggest that we (as consumers) support Bruce Willis however we can?

Please don’t forget to say a prayer for our troops and a prayer of thanks for Michael Yon.  Without him, we would be getting much less of the truth.

And it’s Good Bye to MSM

Lone Star Report Senior Correspondent James Bernsen recently identified the great chasm between the people of Texas and the newspapers that report to them. Citing the landslide victory of proposition 2, the Texas Marriage Amendment, and the nearly unanimous opposition to prop. 2 by editorial boards, Mr. Bernsen opined:

“But the real loser is the media. This was the Kentucky Derby, and they put their money on ‘anybody but Secretariat.’ A more humiliating display of their powerlessness is hard to imagine. …”

Indeed, when it comes to humiliating displays of powerlessness, I’d put the Texas media in the same league as the Maginot Line. Furthermore, Mr. Bernsen rightly points out the paucity of conservative ideas or writers amongst Texas media elites. He goes on to recommend a solution.

“Maybe it’s time that we took journalists at their word. How often have the editorial pages called for political representation that “looks like Texas.” How often have they demanded that businesses hire more minorities? How often have they called for more diversity?

Perhaps they could illustrate this sacred principle by taking the lead themselves…

When was the last time a paper hired a white male from Abilene? A suburban woman from The Woodlands?”

Greater diversity of thought in the halls of media power would be nice. However, I would not spend a lot of time banging on the door of the local newspaper office demanding equal representation of ideas on the editorial board or in the paper’s news copy.

They do not think they are biased and they do not see a need to change. They think their declining circulation is their audience’s fault, not theirs. So, I do not expect more intellectual sophistication and ideological diversity from the MSM in the near future.

Instead, I recommend a bolder vision. Using relatively inexpensive technology like blogs, streaming video, and podcasts to do an end run around the legacy media and develop a media product for the obviously underserved, conservative masses of Texas.

Already there are many competent, right-leaning Texas bloggers developing stories or angles to stories that the MSM refuses to address. Some that are already doing great work include Urban Grounds, Rick Perry vs. the World, BlogHOUSTON, KeathMilligan.net, and, of course, Lone Star Times. Many others also exist. Alternative media models also exist, assuming there is a business case to support them.

Of course, the fact that 76% of the state opposes nearly all the state’s editorial boards does not itself make a business case. But it shows there could be an unfulfilled market need for a conservative, alternative mass media offering in Texas and suggests that a critical mass of customers may be willing to pay for it. I would like to join other conservative, Texas bloggers [hint] [hint] in questioning, fleshing out, and sharpening this idea.

Note: I have yet to figure out the WordPress "click here for more of the story" thingy. So, click here to see the more detailed version of this post in a new window.