Wedding Planners are Standing By

I said in earlier comment that they strike it down 4-3, but I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, so WTF do I know?

Desert gheyz planning a march this morning as well. It’s only expected to be 7 blocks down one street, though, becuase it’s fucking hot.

I have the Star Trek fight scene music going through my head. March in ATL at 5:30 EDT, allegedly.

@rptrcub: Wrath of Khan?

@blogenfreude: TOS when Kirk and Spock are fighting, “Amok Time.”

CSC site: Network time out. I guess money for more server capacity was also cut from the Kalifoynia budget.

@rptrcub: Clearly part of the gay homosexual agenda.

SF Chronicle: Prop 8 upheld. Let the rioting commence.

Oh well …

@rptrcub: But they recognized the 18000 marriages. Equality, bitchez!

Burn, baby, burn.

@nojo: Turley also supported Clinton’s impeachment. He can’t be right all the time.

Cal Supremes web site crashed. Surprise.

CNN is streaming live video from the Court. I am looking for Her Tallness, SFL.

Oh, and in answer to your alt.txt: http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/newlywed.asp

Seems the Court opted for the Kang and Kodos solution.

“Legalized Homophobia for some, Gay marriage for others.”

@blogenfreude: If I recall, they used the actual tape in the Chuck Barris biopic. He had it all along.

6:1 decision. Called it.

Odd. Per the LA Times: Even with the court upholding Proposition 8, a key portion of the court’s May 15, 2008, decision remains intact. Sexual orientation will continue to receive the strongest constitutional protection possible when California courts consider cases of alleged discrimination. The California Supreme Court is the only state high court in the nation to have elevated sexual orientation to the status of race and gender in weighing discrimination claims.

So strict scrutiny / compelling state interest / narrowly-drawn means applies. Except when the voters say so. Galling.

Oh well. Load up for 2010, y’all.

@chicago bureau: yeah, it makes no sense, but that’s California for ya.

@ManchuCandidate: At least Sulu is still married.

PS: How soon will the right try to tie this with Sotomayor?

25-page PDF, if you can get through to the server. (Link above in post.)

A sad result, though not unexpected. I have a feeling, though, that the next voter referendum to touch on the subject will send prop 8 back to the fundamentalist Mormon septic tank from whence it sprung.

California’s ill-advised experiment in proposition based direct democracy, however, remains a real problem for the state. Even here in Maryland I find it a travesty to be confronted, in the polling booth, with a half dozen voter referenda that I haven’t researched and only know of tangetially, if at all, before steeping behind the curtain. In California, where this process seems to exist on steroids, it’s paved a path for civic meltdown.

rptrcub: I can name that tune in one note.

(Cut to woman reading legal papers: “Lawr–“)

Lawrence v. Texas? (DING DING DING DING)

@nojo: wonder if it was unanimous.

@blogenfreude: 6-1, with Justice Carlos Moreno in dissent.

@Dodgerblue: Hey guys, I’m back, and I’m schvetzing like crazy. Cold all weekend and now 85 degrees?! I’ve got more photos to send to Nojo that I took w/ my camera as opposed to my phone. I am probably going to be on the news tonight because I wound up right in front. I’m the tall chick sweating and crying and chanting SHAME along with a bunch of cute ghey boyz.

@Dodgerblue: Guess that means Moreno won’t be Unicorn’s second SCOTUS choice.

@SanFranLefty: Thank you for your live reports. Please do not get trampled on during a potential riot.

@blogenfreude: Correction: 185 pages — the page numbering shifts throughout the document.

@Serolf Divad:
The ballot initiative was pushed in Canada City by wingnuts till a comedy program showed the stupidity of the whole thing.

See Stockwell Day/Doris Day.

@Dodgerblue: Thanks. I’ll start with the dissent.

The California Supremes are officially un-invited to my Fourth of July BBQ. (And by the way, why do we have a big holiday for the Decalration of Independence but not for the Constitution?)

I can’t wait to see the reasoning that results in equal protection being a matter of timing, allowing my fellow CA gheys who got their shit together last year to be married but not me & Mr. Pedo. But I’ll have to wait until they get their servers fixed or I can find the doc somewhere else.

Some gay married couples are recognized by the state…what kind of havoc will that wreak in bureaucracies and courts that deal with taxes and beneftis and family law and such?

Well, OK Carlos, you’re invited.

Just added SFL’s cellphone vid to the stack above. I’ll probably organize the photos into a Flickr set once the others arrive.

@Pedonator: The whole issue of full faith and credit is a hypocritical mess when it comes to gay marriage. If Mrs. DB and I go to Nevada to cavort in Las Vegas, our marriage is recognized there as it must be under the US Constitution. But states that do not themselves recognize gay marriage apparently can get away with not recognizing my gay friends’ valid-in-California marriages. Hey — I know a Con Law professor we could call and ask: Barak something. Univ of Chicago.

@Dodgerblue: I expect nothing from him but pussing out until 2013.

@nojo: Well, that didn’t take long:

lakitamonita (1 minute ago)

thank you god, thank you for not letting these perverts marry

The Stinque YouTube account has been trolled.

Molotov cocktails for happy hour tonight.

@redmanlaw: I don’t think giving the right further ammo is necessarily a good thing. However, refusal to do flower arrangements and interior decorating is justified.

GAR!!! I’ve just been commiserating with my ghey exmos. So sad. So what’s next? A continuous battle of initiatives, or does this case make its way to SCOTUS? I mean, if 18,000 gay couples are legally married, but everyone else is ass (heh) out, do we have an EP suspect class issue? Man, if we could even get intermediate scrutiny for teh gheys, that would change every law in the country.

@Dodgerblue: You can thank spineless Bubba Clinton for DOMA.

@rptrcub: or hairdos or music arranging at the local church.

@rptrcub: Fine. It’s just the Wolverine side coming out – slash first, light cigar, assess damage. (Fume, fume). I’m just stunned that the voters can decide who can be discriminated against and that the courts will uphold it. So who is next? “Let’s get the Indians and their casinos! Let’s outlaw Mexicans!”

Fuck. I’m going for a walk.

Justice Moreno calls bullshit: “The majority’s holding is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.”

@Dodgerblue: That’s what I’m sayin’.

@Dodgerblue: To wit:

Petitioners, however, cannot point to any authority supporting their claim that under the California Constitution, a constitutional amendment — proposed and adopted by a majority of voters through the initiative process — cannot diminish in any respect the content of a state constitutional right as that right has been interpreted in a judicial decision. As we shall see, there have been many amendments to the California Constitution, adopted by the people through the initiative process in response to court decisions interpreting various provisions of the California Constitution, that have had just such an effect.

Open season!

@nojo: Next, Jews and left-handed people.

@Dodgerblue: The argument they’re making is that “marriage” is a label, and Prop 8 doesn’t affect the underlying right to civil unions — that it’s all cosmetic, in effect.

Fine. Ban marriage.

@JNOV: No SCOTUS if the question was decided solely under CA constitutional law, which I think it was. No federal question.

Dodgerblue: But lefties are useful. Every baseball team needs ’em if they want to compete. You try finding a right-handed first baseperson.

But hey, let’s pull out another one:

We agree with petitioners that the state constitutional right to equal protection of the laws unquestionably represents a long-standing and fundamental constitutional principle (a constitutional principle that, as we already have explained, has not generally been repealed or eliminated by Proposition 8). There are many other constitutional rights that have been amended in the past through the initiative process, however, that also are embodied in the state Constitution’s Declaration of Rights and reflect equally long-standing and fundamental constitutional principles whose purpose is to protect often unpopular individuals and groups from overzealous or abusive treatment that at times may be condoned by a transient majority. Neither the language of the relevant constitutional provisions, nor our past cases, support the proposition that any of these rights is totally exempt from modification by a constitutional amendment adopted by a majority of the voters through the initiative process.

Thus: Despite what they say about marriage-as-label, the argument in support allows for discrimination-by-plebiscite. Or, as we used to call it, tyranny of the majority.

@nojo: Yeah, but the fact that “marriage” means something substantive was the basis for the same court’s earlier decision tossing out the same statutory language that was constitutionalized in Prop 8. How they can turn around now and say that it’s just an empty label is beyond me.

@blogenfreude: Correct. Nobody on our side wants to expose the sexual orientation / fundamental right issue to the current SCOTUS. That sexual orientation is a fundamental right under the Cal equal protection clause is the law, except in one teeny little area: in Cal now, the government can’t refuse someone a dog license because he’s gay, but can refuse him a marriage license.

nojo: thank you god, thank you for not letting these perverts marry

God is not responsible for me not getting married. The reasons are too long and painful to recite here, but I am a fairly unsuccessful heterosexual.

(But also: I am not a pervert. But I can be if you ask really nicely.)

So I’m reading on page 7 of the PDF, and it seems the opinion is trying to make a fine distinction that Prop 8 only applies to the term “marriage” :

but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

So I’m still not inviting them to the BBQ because I don’t believe in the separate-but-equal doctrine. But I’m interested to see what implications this will have. As far as I know, the previously-existing domestic partnership option didn’t grant us all the perks of actual civil marriage…but I’m not totally clear on that. Does this mean the state must offer us a new option, and if so can we just call it “civil gay-marriage”?

Only on page 7, there’s still lots to slog through and I may actually have to get some work done today…

@chicago bureau: Uh, that would be me.

Dodgerblue: [insert man-on-dog reference here]

@chicago bureau: I thought of going there, but chickened out. Nice catch.

@Dodgerblue: Next, Jews and left-handed people.

And, it must be said, African Americans. Particularly those who voted for Prop 8. The court seems to be using some broad reasoning to support a narrow decision.

Another troll at StinqueTube…

RonPaul4Us (22 minutes ago)

They are not able to help it. They have a screwed up gene and with the work with the human genome maybe we can cure them

So much for “libertarians.” (And props to Cub for joining the fight.)

@nojo: Nojo, that was the initial meme on African-American voters. But digging down and analyzing the election data showed that it’s almost all attributable to age, not race. More older black people voted than younger black people, but the yes/no split on Prop. 8 wasn’t that much different than other racial groups.

The bigots are dying off, slowly but surely.

Ugh. I don’t see how reasonably well-educated people can hand down a double-think decision that’s so blatantly self-contradictory, not to mention an insult to the intelligence of sane people who have a coherent value system.

Either you have fundamental rights that can’t be voted away or you don’t.

Either the court protects minorities from the tyranny of the majority or it doesn’t. Looks like a resounding “no” on all counts.

“2 + 2 = 4 sometimes, but other times 2 + 2 = 3.”

“We’re against discrimination, except when it matters, then we’re totally for it.”

One of the reasons I drive a 12 year-old car and shop heavily online is because I don’t want to reward the State of WA with my hard-earned tax dollars, since I was so pissed at the even worse WA State Supreme Court decision from a couple of years ago. Hello $9 BILLION deficit.

I’ll still visit my cousin in Hell-LAy, but I’ll couch surf and I won’t rent a car–take that Cali!

@Dodgerblue: They don’t call us sinister for nothing!

@SanFranLefty: Excellent point. I retract my wild swing.

I’d love for someone to ask those asshole (In)Justices how they’d feel if people banned their marriages.

But the marriages are still valid. That is important as precedent.

Post just updated with the full set of SFL photos.

Remember Michigan v. Jackon, the Supreme Court case that said if you requested a lawyer the police had to stop questioning you? Not anymore.

@blogenfreude: I dunno. Civil liberties is a federal question, and state laws that run afoul of federal civil liberties get cert. The right to marry is a fundamental right, and here we have two groups of people (gays who married before Prop 8 passed and gays who can’t marry now that Prop 8 has passed) who are not being afforded EP. ::shrugs::

AND civil liberties exist to protect minority rights. The Framers (the minority) feared mob rule. Had to protect those landed white dudes from the unwashed masses. Today our definition of minority has changed to include racial minorities, women, and hopefully, teh gheys.

@ManchuCandidate:

It sounds compelling and empowering until you actually sit down and think it through. The you realize it’s sort of like having a “surgeon for a day” contest, where the guy who turned in the winning Captain Crunch box top gets to remove your appendix.

Legislation should be debated and voted upon by people whose jobs it is to understand the legislation and weigh its impact on state governance and finances. Its fine for the voters to point the ship of state in the direction that they feel is best, but the minutiae of plotting the course and reading the weather should be left to the professionals who have the time and training to dedicate to the task.

@JNOV: Generally if a case has been decided under a state constitution the Supremes won’t get involved – they think state courts know how to interpret their own constitutions. Also, I read somewhere that the CA litigants purposely kept federal questions out of the complaint because they didn’t want to risk arguing before the Court given its current makeup.

@Serolf Divad: Fun fact from the decision:

More than 500 amendments to the California Constitution have been adopted since ratification of California’s current Constitution in 1879.

I think there’s a Johnny Cash song in there somewhere.

@nojo: Wait. Is this guy saying that the Human Genome Project can “cure” gayness?

@blogenfreude: Gar! The federal court’s pimp arm is strong! They desegregated hotels and restaurants under the Commerce Clause for Christ’s sake. But, yeah, Warren was the man. Has there been a test case of the Defense of Marriage Act? God I hate these fuckers!

The more that I think about it, the more this seems like the worst possible outcome. If you believe, as I do, that the court’s primary purpose is to ensure equality for all under the law, regardless of the issue before the court, then this decision is a huge fiasco because they’ve endorsed multiple classes of Californians; het Californians, gays married between May and November 2008, single gays or those in domestic partnerships. What a fucking mess.

And now apparently any group can have their so-called “rights” vetoed by their neighbors at the ballot box. Perfect recipe for future disasters.

We don’t know what challenges will face us in the future, but we can rest assured that we’ll fail miserably to meet them.

File that under “Lessons Which Will Be Instantly Forgotten.”

OK, done venting now…

@Dodgerblue: Soon as they’re done curing the Gingers.

@JNOV:

That was a generation ago, before the courts were stacked with middle-aged wingnuts. Not to even mention the craven grandstanding, incompetence and corruption in Congress–ADD and I’m referring to the Demoncrats here, forget about the Repukelicans.

We don’t want this to go federal.

@Original Andrew: You’re overreaching. As long as separate drinking fountains are provided, it’s cool.

Jalopnik has its own take on the protests (parking), but I’m more interesting in the number of people in that photo. Lots of ’em.

I am familiar with an Indian rights case that went to the US America Supremes that was premised upon a theory advanced by a S Ct strategist that ignored a major pitfall identified by high level Indian law practitioners.

Now, was this Prop 8 case the product of a similar state S Ct litigation shop? Could they have gone for declaratory judgment on the validity issue alone and left the question open on the constitutionality of Prop 8?

Also – did the petitioners go into this knowing that Hate would be upheld in order to use an adverse ruling as a rallying point for “reverse 8 ” initiative? What’s the political climate for that, Cali Stinquers?

@Pedonator: At least you and Mr Pedo have Iowa to fall back on.
@rptrcub: There should be a general strike against “opposite” marriages by gay caterers, florists, musicians, stylists, and event planners. Let’s just see the fuckers try to get married then.

BTW, the two female clergy in albs with rainbow stoles? Dollars to donuts they’re Episcopalian.

I’m thinking of suing the state of Oregon for the right to register with Mr Cyn as domestic partners, an option limited here to gay couples. Why should I have to get married? What about my right to avoid the whole stinking institution and to be treated as a second class citizen, huh? Get me the ACLU.

@Mistress Cynica:

We have the same unfair rule here in WA. Only het couples over 62 can register as DPs, which pissed off a lot of otherwise supportive het people, who just don’t want the connotative baggage that comes along with marriage.

@Mistress Cynica: And a black (male) Episcopalian, and quite a few UU ministers and rabbis.

@Original Andrew: The more that I think about it, the more this seems like the worst possible outcome.

Yep. And Justice Moreno’s dissent totally calls them on the convoluted position they have taken. “The majority’s holding is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.”

ADD: Must.Not.Get.Sucked.Into.Fights.With.Friends.of.FB.Friends.On.This

Oh. I already did. With a guy whose profile pic includes him wearing a cowboy hat. Yee fucking haw, y’all.

@SanFranLefty: As to the FB proxy wars: it’s on like Diddy Kong:

Asshole A:
just keep putting it on the ballot, it will eventually go through, in the meantime gay marriage supporters need to stay quiet and humble and ask for their rights in a rational manner.

Cub Response:

So, [redacted], the answer is shutting up and getting to the back of the bus?

and

Asshole B:
[redacted]…regardless of where one falls on this issue, isn’t it a relief that the people’s voice was heard and not overturned by the courts?

Cub Response:

So, can I vote on your relationship, [redacted]?

Hay everybody! What’s going on? Did I miss anything?

@Also sprach Tommmcatt:

Trust me on this one, Tommmy. Just give Mr. Catt and Thor a hug, and try not to read the aneurysm-inducing opinion handed down by the kangaroo Court.

@Original Andrew:

I’ve been bracing myself all weekend. I have to say, though, that given the arguments that were put before them I am not surprised. We need better litigators on our side, plain and simple.

Don’t worry, my doves. This will not stand, for the arc of human history curves toward freedom and equality. Mark my words, we will be full citizens yet.

@Also sprach Tommmcatt: Mrs RML was asking about you today and how you were doing after the decision came down.

@redmanlaw:

If only there were some kind of document that promised us equal protection under the law…

@Original Andrew: . . .that previous management had not turned into rolling papers and ass wipe . . .

@redmanlaw: With the help of a compliant federal judiciary.

@Original Andrew: @redmanlaw: @Dodgerblue:

“Quaint.”

@redmanlaw:

Okay. I didn’t have very high hopes. Also, when you’ve had to eat shit over something daily your whole life you get used to the taste of shit; One more mouthful isn’t going to break me.

Sad, huh? Trying to be hopeful, though. Despair is a grave sin indeed.

Somewhat funny feedback from the tubes:

‘Californian democracy is like two wolves and hen voting on who’s for dinner.’

Interesting gloss on this from the GOS.

@Also sprach Tommmcatt:

same-sex couples, as well as opposite-sex couples, enjoy the constitutional right, under the privacy and due process clauses of the California Constitution, to establish an officially recognized family relationship.

Proposition 8 reasonably must be interpreted in a limited fashion as eliminating only the right of same-sex couples to equal access to the designation of marriage, and as not otherwise affecting the constitutional right of those couples to establish an officially recognized family relationship.

I’m still detecting a whiff of water fountain. To the common practical questions: does this include rights of inheritance and hospital visits?

Excellent analogy:

Karl Manheim, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, called the decision a “safe” position written by justices who can be recalled by voters. The change wrought by Proposition 8 was anything but narrow, he said, and claiming that the word marriage was essentially symbolic was like telling black people that sitting in the back of the bus was not important as long as the front and back of the bus arrive at the same time.

@Also sprach Tommmcatt:

That’s the kind of yoga-esque semantics that only a lawyer could love (no offense intended, Stinquey law crew).

The fact is that words matter. Gay and lesbian Americans–and this does greatly effect people outside California–have been told that we are less than, that we don’t deserve the same rights as everyone else even though we pay into and contribute just as much to society as everyone else. That we’re different and meant to be socially ostracized.

In tandem, it’s affirmed the knuckledraggers’ views that ‘those gawdam preverts should be illegilized from gettin’ married.’ Also, that so-called fundamental rights are essentially meaningless, and that minorities should be forced to go through the reprehensible process of begging majorities that hate them to grant them equality.

While the writer may indeed be correct on the actual legal implications of the ruling, all Joe and Jane Cul-de-Sac hear is ‘Caleefurnya hates fags.’

The CA SC had plenty of perfectly valid legal reasons to rule our way and take the high road, but they didn’t. To paraphrase another comment I read online “this is exactly what you’d expect from a California court these days: A ruling that infuriates everyone, pleases no one and solves nothing.”

P.S. Tey cn suk my thik kahk kthnx.

More than 100 No on H8 protesters arrested in SF today. And the official protests don’t start for another thirty minutes. This could get really ugly really quickly.

I’ve been thinking about the Tom Robinson Band today. “2-4-6-8 Motorway” was a rocking good tune, for the uninitiated.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT SPEAKING OF FB WARS:

And may the ban continue to hold!! Everyone has the RIGHT to CHOOSE who they want to be with. But no one is above God and same sex marriage goes against everything the bible stands for!!! I think they need to null and void those 18,000 marriages that happened before the ban was passed!!

And this is an alleged “friend” of a gay friend of mine.

@SanFranLefty: I really hope and pray no violence occurs, because if it does, we will never hear the end of it from the usual suspects.

@rptrcub:

Tell your friend’s “friend” they’re ah-gonna fry in hay-yell for that shrimp cocktail they ate at Dead Lobster last week since that also clearly goes against evrathang tha bibel standz 4!!!!

@SanFranLefty: Karl is an old friend of DB’s.

@Dodgerblue: Well if you talk to him, tell him that I thought that his analogy in the New York Times was spot-fucking-on and I plan to use it often.

@Original Andrew: Relieved?

@rptrcub: The Bible stands for plural marriages, mister, and don’t you ever forget that. Now go grab a gaggle of girls and get to impregnatin’.

@blogenfreude: Oh, there is more than a whif of drinking fountains here, its “seperate but equal,” there is no distinction. The anti-gay marriage creeps, most of them are even more absolutist, its only the “moderates” among them that even argue for ‘seperate but equal,” and even many of them are not very careful, they use almost exactly the same arguments used to support “seperate but equal.”

@Jamie Sommers: Hell, the bible stands for taking on your sister-in-law as an additional wife if your brother dies. Its not just permissable, its mandatory.

@Promnight: So let’s say I married my girlfriend. Both of her sisters are, um, unacceptable. What do I do?

Signed,
Anxious

@blogenfreude: You must bite the bullet, and fuck them; God says so. Unless you have brothers, can you pawn them off on them?

Helicopters have been flying over the Castro for the past 35 minutes. The march has hit Ground Zero. Meanwhile the helicopters are droning out my Senator on Rachel tonight.

@Promnight: No brothers, one sister (happily married). I am on my own.

Reading through Moreno’s dissent, and this made me weep:

Even a narrow and limited exception to the promise of full equality strikes at the core of, and thus fundamentally alters, the guarantee of equal treatment that has pervaded the California Constitution since 1849. Promising equal treatment to some is fundamentally different from promising equal treatment to all. Promising treatment that is almost equal is fundamentally different from ensuring truly equal treatment.

There are now three helicopters flying over my place filming the protests in the Castro. I hope the gheyz are raising hell. If I didn’t have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning I’d be down there with them.

@SanFranLefty: Stonewall, baby.

The LA Times’ Q & A certainly isn’t very comforting:

Can voters decide to reinstate slavery or make murder legal? If not, why can they take away the right of gay couples to marry?

California voters could, if they wanted, repeal all of the state’s anti-murder criminal laws, the same way they decriminalized marijuana use for medicinal purposes, UC Davis law professor Vikram D. Amar wrote in an e-mail response to a question from The Times.

But voters would not be able to reinstate slavery because that is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. “We really have two backdrop safety nets: the U.S. Constitution, and the general, common sense of the people not to do anything too stupid or mean, Prop. 8 notwithstanding,” Amar wrote.

I’m already seeing several flaws with that strategy.

California Constitution toilet paper is gonna be selling well tomorrow.

@Original Andrew: He’s so adorable. How’d that 14th Amendment safety net work out today?

@Original Andrew:
so the constitution is shredded, we have our other safety net!
“The People not doing anything too stupid or mean.”
vikram, you slay me!
we’re so fucked.

@nojo: Speaking of wholesale ignoring of Constitutional principles, Nathan Deal from my home state is totally for getting rid of a key principle of the 14th, namely, jus soli. This might have something to do with the fact that he is one of many douchebags in the Georgia GOP Goobernatorial Follies vying for the chance to stomp all over the Democratic sacrificial lamb in 2010.

If the U.S. Constitution could be amended like the California Constitution, and if the “people” had their way, the First Amendment would have been repealed in order to prevent the libruhl media to spread its propaganda. Hell, most of the Bill of Rights would have been thrown out, save for the Second Amendment.

@baked: “The People not doing anything too stupid or mean ….”

George W. Bush’s second term. QED.

@rptrcub: You got this right: “most of the Bill of Rights would have been thrown out, save for the Second Amendment.” Oh, where are Plato’s philosopher-kings? Not on the Cal Supreme Court, except maybe for Carlos Moreno.

@SanFranLefty: One of the clergy (not in your picture there, but in the middle here and all over the news yesterday apparently) is an old friend of mine from high school and college in South Dakota, and a Lutheran pastor. No kidding!

I noticed last night she’d changed her FB profile picture to one of her being handcuffed in her rainbow stole, but I don’t think that was from yesterday, heheh. (I know a lot of people did get arrested, but she indicated she was not among them.)

@finette: Awesome! Do you mean this photo? Because the one you linked to didn’t seem to show a pastor in it.

@SanFranLefty: I do indeed mean that one, don’t know what happened with that link. She was the harpist in my HS orchestra and always a riot, but I hadn’t heard from her since college until she friended me on FB a while back. Can’t say I’m surprised that she’s a totally kickass radical social-justice-crusading pastor, though. :)

@finette: I have a sort of fuzzy photo of her and the other pastors singing “We Shall Overcome” that I didn’t send to Nojo for the photostream. The group of them was awesome – see my 9:56 a.m. message posted by Nojo up top.