Ohio Senate passes gay-marriage ban

Theocratic double speak never fails to offend:

State Rep. Bill Seitz, a Green Township Republican who sponsored the bill, said he was 'elated' at the prospect of Ohio being the 38th state to pass the Defense of Marriage Act. 'It's gigantic step toward strengthening the traditional view of marriage,' Seitz said.

How do you defend marriage when half of them end divorce? If the theocratic bigots want to "defend marriage," why don't they ban divorce?

What? Hmmm? You say that banning divorce would make half of the conservative politicians look bad with their prior divorces? Well, they can't pass an ex post facto law, so they can force the rest of us to live in bad marriages if they want. What better way to promote marriage by forcing bad ones from ending and preventing certain people from marrying?

Don Quixote

Cheney refuses to give up on WMD search. I think he needs to come clean on the windmills. Dick could take the fall for the President and admit that he pushed him into the war. That would be the honest thing to do, but who in politics does the honest thing.

Miami University Journalism Program

I am pleased to read that Miami will have a specific Journalism Department starting in the Fall. Previously Mass Communication and English were the only things that came close. I had a friend in college who was a Mass Com major and did work at a newspaper for a while. I hope Miami can use the department to beef up the student newspaper.

Cincinnati Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan is one of four applicants to head the department. Gregory Flannery
of CityBeat asks "will Editor Tom Callinan be the next in the ongoing exodus from The Cincinnati Enquirer?" Are the changes the Enquirer has undertaken all Tom has to offer to the paper or does shaping new journalists a new alure for a veteran editor?

Ramos in Sundance 2004

CityBeat's Steve Ramos is at the Sundance Film Festival and has an online daily diary of his misadventures.

Ohio Senate Approves Gay-Marriage Ban

Blah! All that is left is for Tedious Taft to sign it, which he eventually will. Theocracy on the March, with bigotry in tow.

Mockery of a President

When you read this section from Bush's SOTU last night it can be nothing less than astonishment, and nothing better than laughable:

Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq. Objections to war often come from principled motives. But let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We are seeking all the facts - already the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.

First, Bush knows well that everyone in the chamber supports the liberation of Iraq. What many, including me, disagreed with was how Bush went about doing it. He did it by lying to the American public or at least misleading us. He gave the finger to the rest of the world for not doing what he wanted. He failed to plan for both the after-math of victory and for the strain the Iraq war had on the "War" on terrorism.

The most outlandish and greatest SNL moment came from his "WMD-related" quote. He basically used WMD as an adjective to try to link what stuff they found to his trumped up reason for the war. It is laughable to me how people just don't care, or don't notice, how Bush uses language creep to back peddle from his initial claim. First Iraq had WMD, and then they had WMD programs, now they have "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." I guess downloading this from the internet could be called WMD-related program activities.

Ohio General Assembly's Bigotry

It appears that the anti-homosexual sentiment in the Ohio Senate is strong. It is amazing how homophobia drives politicians. They may not be homophobic themselves, but they fear the level of homophobia by voters who would turn on them if they did anything to give equal rights to homosexuals. This movement is led by conservative Republicans, but there are many Democrats who are doing nothing or sitting on their hands. Social Conservative blue collar Democrats and religious blacks are keeping elected Democrats from making the fair and just decision to fight the anti-homosexual bill.

I would like to encourage that people hit the GOP for pushing this, but don't give the Democrats a pass if they don't stand up for the rights of gays. Ask Mark Mallory and Steve Driehaus what they are doing and where they stand on equal rights for homosexuals, including marriage or civil unions.

Driehaus's (D) from Cincinnati prior comments include:

Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Cincinnati, has reservations about the bill, which he said could send the message that Ohio lawmakers are intolerant toward the gay community.

Still, he says he'll vote for the marriage act because he believes his constituency defines marriage in a very specific way.

"My constituents believe marriage is a union between a man and a woman that is held sacred," Driehaus said. "We should respect that."

Nice to know representatives will submit to the bigotry of their constituents.