Why does it take a straight man to say it most succinctly?

KEITH OLBERMANN'S SPECIAL COMMENT ON PROPOSITION 8


Keith Olbermann delivered an amazing "special comment" this evening devoted to the passage of Proposition 8.

And my personal note on this... I still can't understand why so many people refuse to make the connection between (first) slaves not being allowed to marry and then (secondly) mixed racial marriages being illegal. You can talk all you want about the color of your skin has nothing to do with gay this or gay that. Fuck that and listen up. It's about a group of people writing discrimination into our Constitution. This is horrible and this is anti-American. It's happened before to blacks and Asians and it's happening again to gays. Whether you like gays or not, you cannot deny this is the same discrimination, now allowed by you.




***TRANSCRIPT***

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.

This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.

If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

---

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.

"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

"So I be written in the Book of Love;

"I do not care about that Book above.

"Erase my name, or write it as you will,

"So I be written in the Book of Love."

---

Good night, and good luck.

The Unprotected Americans

I am utterly baffled and disgusted to think that religion, which is purely a choice, is a protected class in these United States of America. Yet sexuality in all it's wide-spectrum, from homosexuality all the way to heterosexuality, which is a natural born trait of all humans is not a protected class.

How can this be? How can religion be protected and not the human trait of sexuality? This has to CHANGE and should be written into our Constitution.

Just as all peoples have the right to freely practice any religion, all peoples should be free from religion as well. I know there is the alleged separation of Church & State, but that seems to have disappeared. There should never be a referendum, law, amendment, etc that imposes religious beliefs on any group or class of people.

Campaign to revoke the tax-exempt status of hateful meddling churches

There is a campaign to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Church of Later Day Saint (aka the Mormon Church or LDS). They funded the campaign for California's Prop 8 passage and have thus violated the separation of church and state. They should be fined and should have their tax-exempt status revoked!

The original email follows and includes an attached PDF (or click link of this title blog entry to download) that merely needs your signature and to be mailed to the address provided.

Thanks for getting involved!


ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS:

If it upsets you that a church can meddle with another state's political statutes, here's something simple you can do:

To report the LDS Church to the IRS, simply take 5 minutes to print these articles out and any others you can find:

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10839546

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10842051

Then print, sign and send the attached form (already completed) or download a blank and fill it out yourself at:

Info and pre-filled form in PDF at this link

http://alankleincommunications/noon8


Blank form if you wish to fill out yourself

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3949a.pdf

List the taxpayer as:

Thomas S. Monson, et al
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150

List his occupation as: President and the business as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Check the boxes for: False Exemption and Public/Political Corruption.

Then in the Comments section demand that the LDS Church be fined and their tax-exempt status revoked for repeated and blatant violations of the IRS's separate of church and state rules, and for conspiring to interfere with a state's political process.

Check Yes under "Are books/records available?" and write in "campaign finance records."

You don't have to provide any of your own personal info. Mail the form and the printed articles to:

Internal Revenue Service
Fresno, CA 93888

Please pass this on to as many people as you can.

Tax the Church and not the Gays

As US Citizens, we should all have equal rights, the right to marry the person we love and want to spend our lives with should be one of them. If a group of US Citizens want to take away a fundamental right from those who are part of the LGBT community, then why should the LGBT community be required to pay taxes in a nation where we don't have the same rights as everyone else? The argument that its about religion and what is 'traditional' does not hold true, as a US Citizen, we have the right to freedom of religion, by denying the LGBT community the right to marry the person of their choice, that is violating our freedom of religion and forcing the religion of others upon us. Prop 8 passing is just another sign of how much prejudice still exists in our great nation. Thank you to those who voted NO on 8 [in California].

And I am here to say... No, I am here to DEMAND that the US Government revoke tax exemption to all Churches because of their political involvements. There is something fundamentally wrong when Churches are tax exempt, yet American citizens are denied equal rights under the Constitution.