DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

California assembly bill AB 1967, the California Marriage License Non-Discrimination Act, “would define marriages in California as a civil contract between two persons, allowing same sex couples access to the same rights and responsibilities of marriage as heterosexual couples in the state” (according to the legislation summary from the bill’s author, Mark Leno).

The issue is wildly contested, as you can imagine.

Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for Traditional Values Coalition, said foes of same-sex marriage weren’t taking any chances, despite forecasts that the bill won’t get very far this year.

“We are marching on, ready for a complete showdown,” said Lopez, who missed the hearing in order to prepare a mass mail campaign against the bill. “We’re stopping at nothing to kill it.”

I can only imagine the junk mail piece his group is designing. “Beware the gay invasion!” It will show the US flag, and cite threats to the principles on which America was founded, I’m guessing. God is an American.

Had Lopez attended the hearing on this bill that he’s so hot to destroy, he might have heard the startling new evidence from the Williams Project (which is “the nation’s first think tank dedicated to the field of sexual orientation law and public policy”). According to their new study, titled (apparently by someone who spent more time studying Stats than English) The Impact of Allowing Same-Sex Couples to Marry on California’s Budget:

Allowing same-sex couples to marry in California will result in a net gain of $22.3 to $25.2 million each year, for the State budget.

Lopez, predictably, dismissed the study.

“It’s a matter of who you’re going to believe. Are you going to believe a professor on a liberal campus who wants this garbage crammed down the throats of Californians?”

Well, if you ask me who I’m going to believe, I’d want the choices spelled out:

• a lobbyist with the ethically repugnant “Traditional Values Coalition,” which claims homosexuality has roots in Marxist ideology?! Even more ridiculous, the TVC published a document claiming “many of the strategies used by homosexuals to bring about cultural change in America are taken from Hitler’s writings and propaganda warfare manuals.”
• a Harvard Law graduate and UCLA law professor with a history of donating time to the HIV/AIDS community, working with a “think tank” whose founding principle is to be “independent and non-partisan.”

With all respect to the lobbyist, I’m definitely going to have to go with the “professor on a liberal campus” on this one. I disagree that anything is being crammed down my throat — my mouth is closed, preventing stupid shit from flying out unannounced. Perhaps that’s a lesson lobbyists everywhere can benefit from.

What the heck is a ‘liberal campus’ anyway?