In Service to the Lurid

A lot of years ago, I kept company with a woman prone to superlatives. Everything was the most something -- best, sweetest, tallest, smartest, biggest...

She was one devil of a lot better looking (and much, much brighter) than Article 8/MassResistance's Brian Camenker. Yet, I think of her when he holds forth. He too seems to have a real adjective jones. Not only does he often lie or misstate; he tends to describe everything related to politics and particularly gay people in the extremes.

[Numerous pix of him floating around the Net always seem to have him tilting right. Hmm. Tic, geometry, or coincidence?]

We here had been hoping for a superlative tirade this morning on his conservative talk show. It turns out that their description of "News you won't hear anywhere else" is also news you won't hear even here. It quickly became apparent that the pre-taped show did not receive tweaks to accommodate yesterday morning's dismissal of the federal suit to try to force the Lexington school system to agree to anti-marriage-equality parents.

Schadenfreude aside, I anticipated a hyperbole/superlative fest this morning. There should have been high dudgeon, no, highest dudgeon, at the U.S. District Court decision. Following that should have been rallying cries, banner unfurling, and the inevitable call for donations.

Not Internet Time

Lackaday, the show started just after 10 this morning on 1150 AM with non-news. Brian said he awaited a ruling on the case. He also incorrectly claimed a couple of times that the judge had asked the head lawyer for the defendants to provide a rebuttal document in response to amici briefs from the ACLU and others. In fact, that lawyer, Robert S. Sinsheimer, claimed that he had not gotten a chance to rebut the brief and requested that the judge give him time to do so. Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf granted him a week.

The result seemed pretty weak to me and apparently did not change Wolf's mind. By the bye, in that same week and change, Wolf had the three books that the plaintiffs allege are sex-education materials, books he admitted as exhibits. I would not be at all surprised if he went through the early readers and slapped his thigh in amusement at the allegations about them.

Apparently, Bud over at MassResistanceWatch has a much higher tolerance for the MassResistance radio show. Searching for radio on his site produces numerous hits about the show.

So, instead of the railing and fulmination,this morning we got:

• That a failure of Wolf to dismiss would be "a huge possible threat to the homosexual agenda in the schools."
• Those picture books showing the reality that some homes may have two moms or two dads were "teaching elementary school kids homosexuality."
• That the defendants were promoting "the bizarre idea that a majority should trump a minority." (Don't tax his brain with comments about the current anti-same-sex-marriage amendment effort.)
• That telling kids things like SSM is legal is "brainwashing."

Facts and reason have never been plants in his garden. Also how mentioning something becomes proselytizing for it seems to be a mystery to all those outside that peculiar patch.

Waiting for Purple Prose

While Brian and likely his sidekick Amy Mann load up their rhetorical weapons with sufficient adjectives, we must wait to see how florid and torrid the display will be. Meanwhile, his immediate reaction to the Boston Globe following the dismissal was disappointing. He reused some of his chestnuts.

The Globe has been overly generous in letting him promote his anti-Willard Romney screeds. Their reporter must have been sad that there were no new slogans or insults. Instead he pulled out two of his standard slurs, calling the ruling "unbelievably odious and horrific."

Note to myself: I tend to use odious to describe efforts to take away other people's rights. I must find new terms.

He did expand this to tie his recurrent anti-gay theme again. He said of the ruling, "It reinforces the rights of schools to normalize homosexuality without parents' knowledge and consent."

Website Teasers

The plaintiff parents feign that they are not anti-homosexual. Brian make no such pretense. He was at his best when his self-defined analysis of Wolf's decision stated, "This bizarre ruling is every parent's nightmare. But more than that, it's a complete abandonment of right and wrong, civil rights, or even common sense."

Other gems from that page include:

• Judge Wolf makes the absurd claim that normalizing homosexuality to young children is "reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy." This means teaching "diversity" which includes "differences in sexual orientation." This is lunacy...
• Wolf claims that the flawed and badly argued Brown decision is now the "law" of the United States. Did Congress pass this? No, it didn't. It's merely a ruling in a case. This ruling is full of use of "case law" from obscure decisions, as if it were real law.

That wheezing argument that courts cannot interpret law goes beyond an intentional misunderstanding of their role in our branches of government. In fact, interpreting law is their mandate. They make sure disparate laws work together and they interpret laws when folks like these plaintiffs ask them to do so.

Much as Goodridge is the law of the land following a Supreme Judicial Court interpretation of the commonwealth constitution and equal-rights laws, the referenced Brown case in yesterday's decision is law because federal courts say it is. The confused little groups who insist that only legislatures can determine our effective laws need to get with the program or at least read a civics text or even the U.S. Constitution.

Regardless, surely before next Saturday at 10 AM, the blog and Website will get some new, improved hyperbole. There is so much promise there now, such as:

• September 2006: Parker's lawyers file GREAT rebuttal to motion to dismiss.
• August 2006: Defendants file blistering 57-page motion to dismiss Parkers federal lawsuit.

Surely, Brian can't just leave such loaded lingo lingering.

Diversification

Fortunately for Brian and Amy, they are already marketing a new product line -- that anti-Romney stuff. In fact, because of the hooha nationwide about the 2008 election, they got much longer than their 15 minutes of fame and have fared much better than they have with the Mad Dad case.

In fact, when they accept that this is a lost cause, this will be a wee pony they stop riding at all. Then, we'll look to see a flurry of bluster about this case, dribbling off to silence.

It suddenly comes to mind to wonder how the Mass Family Institute/VoteOnMarriage and Catholic Citizenship folk will take it when their amendment and related anti-marriage-equality efforts eventually fail. I haven't seen a second product line like MassResistance's. Yet surely they must have other mean-spirited tricks in their dark bags.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, same sex marriage, MassResistance, public schools, parental notification