This “No mosque at ground zero” backlash has spiraled out of control. Not until all the erroneous, exaggerated and / or hypocritical hype swirling around the issue ceases will anyone be able to have a reasonable debate about the issue. For instance:

• Stop calling it a mosque. The proposed Cordoba House will not be a mosque. It will be a 13-story Islamic cultural center featuring an auditorium, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, theater, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court, 9/11 memorial and an interfaith prayer space which, itself, does not even meet the definition of “mosque.”

• Stop saying they want to put it on ground zero. It will not be on ground zero, it will be near it, which means—it don’t mean nuthin’. The word “near” has as many meanings as the number of people who utter it.

• Stop saying the Cordoba Initiative is offensive to the relatives of the victims of 9/11. The families and friends of the victims are not a single entity. And many are in favor of the initiative, such as the group September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, which feels the best way to honor their loved ones is to stay true to our national convictions.

• Stop saying that Muslims are taking over the country, and that we must stop the Islamification of America. How could we be in danger of being Islamified when everyone knows it’s the Mexicans who are taking over? Or wait, is it the blacks? Puerto Ricans? Eyetalians? Irish? Darn, I forget. Which were the ones that hump like rabbits and leech off the system again? Anyway, the point is, we’re in far more danger of the increased Christianification of America than anything else.

• Unless you’re a deaf, dumb, blind, prematurely born infant living in an opaque incubator, stop saying, “President Obama supports the Cordoba project because he is a Muslim.” Enough already! He’s not a fucking Muslim! And stop saying “Muslim” like it equates him with terrorism.

• Christian conservatives must stop saying that this is not an issue of religious freedom because “the Nation of Islam is not just a religion, but a system of laws and political principles.” They must stop saying this because the same could be said about their age-old argument that, America is a Christian nation and that our laws are based on Christian principles.

• Stop playing “Born in the U.S.A.” at your anti-Islam rallies. “Born in the U.S.A.” is not a jingoistic, xenophobic, rootin’ tootin’ pro-America anthem; it’s a eulogy for the death of America’s ideals—which, hmm, I guess is ironically appropriate after all.

• Stop saying terrorists will use the Cordoba House as a place to plot future attacks. Christ, is Fox News the only thing that gets piped into your incubation chamber? Do you really believe that a group of covert terrorist sleeper cells are going to convene in the building upon which every eye in the country is suspiciously fixed; a place that’s surrounded by people who would accuse you of terrorism if you walked by with a gyro in your hand; a place that will be scrutinized, demonized and spied-upon for years to come? Really? This is the location at which you think the next terrorist plot will be hatched?

• For crying out loud, stop saying, “I believe in religious freedom but….” There is no but in the First Amendment. No asterisks. No footnotes. There is no contingency that says, “Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion except when we’re really, really afraid of that religion.” Ah, but isn’t that the American way? We behold the Bill of Rights during times of peace, but during scarier times of high global tension—when we need them most— we toss our convictions in the trash like a black banana.

Oh well, whaddya gonna do when fear and suspicion take root? Still, if we’re going to be intolerant in terms of religion, then we should at least be consistent. From now on, let’s not allow any Roman Catholic churches near schools, playgrounds or other zones where young, molestable children congregate. Nor should there be any churches near abortion clinics or government buildings, since several Christian terrorists have bombed and murdered the people inside. Don’t build any Christian, Muslim, Mormon or Jewish buildings near gay communities, because those religions have been pissing on homosexuals for centuries. Ditto the YWCA, Curves, Chippendales and any other “sacred” female grounds, as organized religion has been pissing on women for centuries, too.

Look, I hate Islam as much as I hate the next religion. To me, they are all intolerant, idiotic and responsible for terrorism in one way or another. But I love the First Amendment. So how about we take this opportunity—after all our self-aggrandizing talk about America being the greatest country—to show the world what we stand for? Let’s show our enemies they don’t scare us and put that 13story Muslim center smack-dab in the middle of ground zero, like a massive fuck-you finger directed at our enemies, or a welcoming boner of peace, poised and positioned to spread the seed of human rights all over the planet.

In the days after Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional, I futilely scoured the Internet, print, TV and radio to locate just one anti-gay-marriage argument that did not, at some point, display colossal ignorance of our laws and government.

I’m not just talking about those random, dumbass-on-the-street interviewees, but also government leaders, journalists and spokespersons of powerful, national organizations—such as Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America (CWA), who said Judge Walker has “declared his opinion to be supreme and ‘We the People’ are no longer free to govern ourselves”; such as Mascara Palin telling Sean Inanity of Fox News that it was “frustrating to see the third branch of government undoing the will of the people”; such as the dumbass-on-the-street CNN interviewee who claimed that, by ignoring California voters, Walker had turned America into a “dictatorship.”

Frustrating? I’ll tell you what’s frustrating. It’s frickin’ frustrating that so many people—including a frickin’ former vice presidential candidate and potential 2012 Republican nominee—doesn’t understand the most elementary principles of our system.

The third branch Palin mentioned is the judicial branch. The reason it “undid the will of the people” is because that’s its frickin’ job! When the will of the people is unconstitutional, it is the role of the judicial branch to frickin’ undo it. And I hate to break it to the Concerned Witches of America (CWA), but “we the people” have never been “free to govern ourselves.”

It’s called checks and balances, my little dumbasses-on-the-street; checks and balances is the opposite of dictatorship.

Another recurring fallacy in the responses to Walker’s ruling is that he can, and should, be removed from the bench. Take the Family Research Council (FRC), which—after hitting all the buzzwords about a “tyrannical” federal judge “single-handedly” overturning the “will of the people”—instructed its members to urge Congress to impeach him.

Now, one has to wonder why the folks at Family Research Council don’t do any, you know, research. Had they performed one simple Google crawl, they would have learned that there’s no frickin’ way Walker can, or should, be impeached, that the Constitution protects federal judges from retaliation for unpopular rulings and that they can only be impeached for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (such as going commando under the robe).

Also on the list of oft-repeated simpletonianisms is the mantra that Walker defied the rule of law. Redstate.com said the judge “disregarded” it. David Limbaugh wrote that he “thwarted” it. And Robert Knight (of Coral Ridge Ministries) said Walker has “contempt” for it, which is such a neurologically crippled position that it makes you wonder if it wasn’t the same doctor who botched all their lobotomies.

“Rule of law” means the government must obey its own laws. Rule of law protects citizens from abuses of power such as, hmm— let me think now; I wonder if I can come up with an example here, something relevant to the discussion, oh yeah—such as stripping a minority class of its equal frickin’ protections.

And Newt Gingrich, what a piece of work.

He’s been pounding the same twaddle about “judicial tyranny” and “overruling the will of the people” since gay marriage began picking up steam around 2000. Gingrich wrote that Walker’s ruling was “an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution.”

Oh, Newt, if hypocrisy was a donkey, you’d be its asshole. It was you who wanted to amend the Constitution (or should I say, “mangle it with a pry bar”?) to deprive a minority class of its inalienable rights. Accusing Walker of offending the Constitution is almost as amusing as when you say homosexuality offends family values, given that you’ve had three wives, two divorces and a six-year extramarital affair, which you begged your wife to “tolerate” so it wouldn’t derail your crusade to impeach Bill Clinton for being one-tenth the scalawag you are.

Anyway, the list goes on and on. They just keep making the same erroneous allegations over and over, unable to formulate their own ideas—like a giant, singular, lobotomized brain, swollen with inaccuracies and too concussed to look anything up.

“Never in the history of America,” said Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage “has a federal judge ruled that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

Yeah, OK, Mr. Loboto, that’s probably true.

Of course, never in the history of America has a federal judge ruled that there is a constitutional right to eat bananas. Never in our history has a federal judge ruled we have a Constitutional right to breathe air, walk fast, sing show tunes or, for that matter, have heterosexual marriage. The Constitution is not a list of every specific thing we have a right to do. Rather, the Constitution grants the intentionally vague, all-encompassing right to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” unless it can be proved that there is a valid, legal reason to restrict it.

But, ah, you frickin’ fricks—you always have your shit backward. You’re always thinking that individual rights must be earned, that the will of the majority is sacrosanct and that judges should be punished when they don’t rule to your liking. You eat, regurgitate and re-eat each other’s fallacies until they are unrecognizable as bullshit, then try to feed it to the rest of us, and all I’m saying is, do a little frickin’ research before you open your swine-holes next time.

There’s been much controversy about a Pentagon survey that was sent recently to enlisted men and women, seeking their views on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).

The survey asks such questions as how unit morale might be affected under a gay commander and how a repeal might affect willingness to serve in the military. One multiple-choice query asks, “If a gay or lesbian service member was living with a same sex partner on base, what would you most likely do?” with the answer options ranging from “I would get to know them” to “I would probably move off base” to “I would key their car and write ‘F.A.G.’ on their footlocker.” OK, the last one was not an actual option, but it might as well have been. The question is every bit as bigoted as if it had asked, “How would you feel if a couple of Jews moved next door?”

However, as obnoxious as the survey seems, the real question is: Why are we even asking the troops? It doesn’t matter what they think. It wouldn’t matter if every enlisted person, from brigadier general to the grunt who peels potatoes, were to express contempt for the repeal of DADT, because the military works for us. And by “us,” I mean the citizens of the United States, occupants of the land of the free and subscribers to an equality-granting Constitution, which, incidentally, every member of the armed forces took an oath to uphold and defend. It doesn’t matter what they think about DADT because, in the military, it’s Don’t Ask, Just Tell—as in, don’t ask the soldiers what they think, just tell them how it’s gonna be and deal with it.

Proponents of the survey say it’s important to learn how a repeal will affect the fragile egosystem that is troop morale, which is funny because I don’t recall any surveys asking how their morale is affected by crappy medical coverage and inadequate armor. Nobody asked them how they felt about the probability of coming home with a cranium-crushing case of PTSD. I never heard of a questionnaire that asked the soldiers, “How will your morale be affected when your buddy’s head suddenly explodes and his brainbits splash all over your face?” We don’t ask because the military is not a democracy. Neither is America, for that matter. We are, thank Christ, a federal republic

The founders knew there was a problem with democracy, and the problem is majority rule, which sounds righteous except I’ve met The Majority and The Majority blows ass-clarinets. The Majority is arrogant, selfish and stupid. The Majority is a mob without torches and pitchforks. If a survey had been given to the students of the infamous, all-white Topeka, Kansas, elementary school, circa 1951, asking if they wanted desegregation, the majority would have responded, “Are you flippin’ nuts?!” Ditto the general public, which felt integration would damage student morale and disrupt the classroom. But it didn’t matter what the students or the public thought. It mattered what the Constitution thought, and the Constitution thought segregation was fucked.

Still does.

Which is why it’s not important what the troops will say about repealing DADT, although I think I know. I think they’re going to say, “Are you flippin’ nuts?!” as if the moment DADT is repealed, a million gay boners will spring up in barrack showers across the country. And, really, isn’t that what their reluctance is all about? That all these big, bad, gun-toting, macho, combat-warrior types are all wondering, “What if a gay hits on me in the shower? What will I do then?”

C’mon, Army dude. You’re a big, bad, gun-toting, macho, combat-warrior type. Stop acting like a musophobic housewife standing on a chair, screaming hysterically as you whack at rodents with a broom. You want to know what to do if a homosexual makes a play in the shower? You say, “Thanks, gay army dude! I’m totally flattered, but I’m straight,” and continue washing yourself (being cautious not to lather near your sexy parts). If he persists, tell him to knock it off or you will key his car and write “D.O.U.C.H.E.” on his footlocker. Yeah, it’s a shitty position for someone to put you in, but consider it ironic punishment for all your unwanted attempts to steal third base with the unsuspecting club-guppies you pulled at closing time.

Brothers and sisters of the military, I have a dream. I have a dream that you will prove me wrong. I have a dream that you will see this survey, and the repeal of DADT, as your golden opportunity to ditch your meathead reputation. I dream that you will complete the survey in a way that tells the Pentagon, “Queers welcome here!” And then you’ll actually make a point to welcome them: You will be polite and kind. You will familiarize yourself with gay culture, learn how to speak Flamboyish, maybe paint one of the barrack’s walls chartreuse. Call it the Cpl. Klinger Society Wall and Bulletin Board, where your gay comrades can tack up their firemen calendars and Lady Gaga Fan Club announcements.

But if you don’t—if you marginalize and belittle, if you dehumanize or harm your fellow soldiers, fellow human beings—well, then, you are a hypocrite. You talk a big game about defending liberty, but you’re just another tyrant who shoots guns in the air and grunts “oorah” as you masturbate over the Soldier of Fortune centerfold, proving that it’s you, not homosexuals, who should have their military eligibility questioned.

At first, things are going smoothly, and it actually seems as though we’re going to discuss it without ruining any friendships or appetites—until, I make the mistake of revealing my position on the issue.

“I’m on the fence about abortion rights” I say, and as fast as you can blurt, “He’s a witch! Burn, burn, buuurn him!” they’re dragging me outside, tying me to a stake and setting me ablaze.

Naturally, I try to explain where I’m coming from—that most of my life I have been vehemently pro-choice, until about five years ago, when I began to suspect that the complexities of the issue were too massive for my one small brain to comprehend: Indeed, the origin and meaning of our existence lies at the core of the abortion debate, and the answer to such an epic question as “When does life begin?” is unknowable. My friends, however, are not having any of it.

“Only cowards sit on the fence,” snipped friend A.

“It’s the chicken’s way out,” accused B.

“You can’t have it both ways,” insisted C. “You gotta make a choice.”

They’re not alone in this worldview. Just Google the phrase “on the fence” and you’ll discover an ocean of anti-fence-sitting comments, such as this quote from motivational speaker Jim Rohn: “It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions”, which is exactly the sort of myopic, feel-good gobbledygook you’d expect from one of these motivational dorks. Let’s analyze:

1. “You cannot make progress without making decisions”: Well, thank you for that keen bit of insight, Dr. Obvious McObvenstein. The problem is, progress ain’t the goal, because not all progress is good progress. For example, progress on a bank heist is not good progress. Progress on a terrorist plot to blow up an orphanage is not good progress. Progress on another sequel to Blue Lagoon—starring Whoopi Goldberg and Gilbert Gottfried as the stranded lovers, now older, flabbier and bickering over whose turn it is to catch and cook the termites—is not good progress.

2. “What matters most is getting off [the fence]”: Well, no, actually, what matters most is coming down on the correct side of the fence. For example, let’s pretend I’m undecided about the moral dilemma of, say, puppy raping, but, because my favorite motivational speaker told me the most important thing is to get off the fence, I rushed to judgment, came down in favor of puppy raping and, consequently, embarked on a puppy-raping activist’s tour—lecturing about the social advantages of puppy raping, passing out pro-puppy-raping brochures, visiting schools and telling kids they should start puppy raping at an early age—thus making good “progress” for the pro-puppy-raping agenda. I think even Dr. McObvenstein would have to agree that it would have been better for everyone (especially puppies) if I had remained undecided.

So, yeah, I’m a proud fence-sitter. The list of fences upon which my prolific white buttocks sit is righteous and long: I’m on the fence about leaving Iraq. We never should have invaded it in the first place, but who knows what kind of mess our departure would leave behind.

I’m on the fence about immigration. While I tend to be in favor of amnesty and an easier path to citizenship, I understand why people want more control over who comes in.

I’m on the fence about extraterrestrials. The notion that little gray men are zipping around in flying saucers is as unbelievable to me as the idea that we are the only intelligent life in the vastness of these cosmos.

Ditto God. The concept that the universe manifested by chance is as incredible as the concept of it being designed by an omniscient, white-bearded overseer who lives in floating silver city in the clouds and makes public appearances on tortillas.

I’m on the fence about Avatar, as it was the most visually stunning movie of all time but had a screenplay written by a team of lobotomized monkeys who flung their excrement against a wall and used whichever blotches resembled words and sentences.

I’m on the fence about Nancy Grace. Would it be better to shoot her in the back of the head with a shotgun or lock her in a dungeon to endure a life of torture and degradation?

And, I’m on the fence about abortion, which is the reason my lunchmates have been berating me as a coward for the past 20 minutes, causing me to lash back, in a totally lunch-inappropriate volume, “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying I’m the coward when you gang up on me three against one!”

I tell them, “Being on the fence means having no allies, no sanctuary, no protection from the sticks and stones being hurled back and forth.”

I tell them, “The world needs more people who are brave enough to admit when they don’t know something. There are just too many people running around thinking they have all the answers, and you know what? Maybe you ladies do have the answers. Maybe you’re smarter than I am. Well, better that I recognize my stupidity and sit quietly on the fence than think I know what’s what and come down swinging on the wrong side.

Ed Decker
07.21.10

It was 11 p.m., and I was jonesing for some buffalo wings. So I strolled over to my favorite neighborhood bar, The Tilted Stick. Once there, I ran into an old bartender friend, Teddy Ballgame. I hadn’t seen Teddy in a long time, so I delayed ordering the wings, bought a round and started chatting. At one point in the conversation, I joked about a poster that hangs on the wall titled “Tilted Stick Rules,” which I began reading out loud to Teddy and doing a little comedy shtick on the rules I thought were silly. That’s when a stranger interrupted and said, “If you don’t like the rules, you can get out.”

Naturally, this took me by surprise. I was just joking around with Teddy and hadn’t intended to offend anyone, so I pondered his statement, then informed the guy—whose name (I later learned) rhymes with “snotty”—that we were having a private conversation, but “thanks for the advice anyway.”

“This is a locals bar,” Snotty insisted. “You need to leave,” at which point I thought I was at the Improv because this guy—this apparent victim of fetal-alcohol syndrome—was delivering what I considered to be pure comedy gold.

I mean, it’s hilarious that he was pulling this “locals only” nonsense at all, but what made it an absolute scream is the fact that I am an Ocean Beach local. I do live here—I live here a lot! The Tilted Stick is around the corner from my house. I’m friends with all the bartenders, the manager, the owner, the previous owner, and I even know the previous-previous owner—Henry—who owned it back when it was called The Texas Teahouse (an awesome dive punk-blues bar where The Jacks and Tomcat Courtney used to play), where I easily dropped a thousand quarters into the Missile Command game and drank a thousand Genny Screamers at a dollar per can. I’ve been boozing in that building since before Snotty was sucking on his mama’s scotch-sopped titty-milk, and the fact that he’s telling me I have to go because I’m not local enough is making little droplets of beer spurt from my nose and eyeballs.

“This is a locals bar?!” I asked, trying with all my might not to burst into open laughter. “Well, dang, I guess I’ll be moving along then—just as soon as you go fuh-fuh-fuck yourself.”

And so it went, back and forth, nose to nose, until bartender Jesse separated us, which didn’t matter much because Snotty and his snotnose friends continued talking smack, flipping the bird and basically mad-dogging my ass like I was the bastard child of a Klingon crack whore trying to get a drink in the Star Wars Cantina.

“We’re from here,” they kept saying. “Where are you from?”

I should have said, “I’m from Planet Earth, shit-smoker,” because, really, where the hell is “here”? Which arbitrary border defines you as an insider and somebody else as an outsider? Do they have to live on the same block as you to be local? The same borough? The same city, state, country or continent?

Not to mention—and I want all you “locals only” blowhards to pay close attention—you are not doing your neighborhood bar any favors by running off tourists and other non-locals. Newsflash: The bar wants their patronage, and you hurt the business when you roam in packs and start shit with tourists. But isn’t that how it usually is with these territorial “We’re From Here” queers? It’s this chickenshit mob mentality that says “We’re the insiders, you’re an outsider and we will mess you up because we have numbers.”

Anyway, after giving them several opportunities to cut the crap, Jesse and Jimmy, another bartender, kicked them out of the bar. However, instead of going home and being, you know, normal human beings and shit, they found a hiding place and waited—for an hour! So, Jesse snuck Teddy Ballgame and me out the back door and up the alley to another bar, Lucy’s, where we stayed for quite a while, until Teddy decided to go home and I figured it was safe to return to the Stick and order those chicken wings I still craved.

But it was not safe.

As I arrived at the Stick’s front door, Snotty lurched from hiding and connected a punch to my forehead. I charged full steam, took him down to the pavement with me on top, and repeatedly boxed his torso and neck while his crew kicked and punched my head, stomach and back. When Jesse rushed outside to help, one of the guys pinned him against the wall so he couldn’t break it up. Jesse broke the hold, and he and Jimmy pulled us apart. Jesse shoved me back inside the bar and told me to stay there, which I did. But, get this: They waited again, hiding, again, so they could bushwack me, AGAIN! At this point, I just wanted to go home, but the bartenders, wisely, blocked me from leaving. It was another hour or so later when Snotty and his ignoramonauts went around to the back door to catch me sneaking out that way, and Jimmy whisked me out the front and walked me home, where I vomited, cleaned it up, then fried some eggs, having never received my goddamn wings.

Epilogue: Snotty and his comedy troupe, were 86’ed from The Stick. The next day, he returned to argue that I had started everything. Good one, Dangerfield! Because everyone who was there knows you started that fight. We also know you’re “from” New Mexico and have only lived “here” a couple of years. But, best of all, we know you cried when they wouldn’t let you back in the bar. You actually, literally, bawled actual, literal tears, which didn’t change their minds, so you said, “Fine! I didn’t want to come in here anyway,” which is pure comedy gold, baby. Thanks for the laughs.

Ed Decker
06.23.10

Thanks, also, to everyone at The Tilted Stick (4970 Voltaire St.) for their support, especially Jesse, Jimmy and Teddy Ballgame, who put themselves at bodily risk to cover my back. Respect! Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.

First, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way. Fred Phelps is, in fact, a toadfucker. Ditto his family, his friends and all the assphibian followers of his Westboro Baptist Church, who deserve to be repeatedly dunked in the deepest, scaldingest lava pit in Hell if Hell actually existed.

You’ve heard of Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), right? This is the organization that despises homosexuality so much that the URL to its website is GodHatesFags.com. They believe The Lord is punishing America because we “enable” homosexual behavior. They’ve made a name for themselves picketing the funerals of people like Coretta Scott King (a revolting effort), Mathew Shepard (sickening), the victims of the Sago mine disaster (sickening and silly), Mr. Rogers (WTF?!), Ronnie James Dio (well, that makes sense) and Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder—not because he was gay (he wasn’t), but because the WBC believes soldiers, by virtue of their enlistment, further enable America’s enabling of homosexuality, so God smite him.

With picket signs like “U.S. Fag Army” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” WBC has really proven itself to be out of its mother-lovin’ skull! But get this: As gnat-shit crazy as Westboro Baptist Church is, it isn’t one iota more deranged than any other church—certainly not more so than the Roman Catholic Church, nor the United Methodists, the Evangelical Lutherans, the Mormons, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and the rest.

Just check the chatterdome—the TV talk shows, talk radio, Internet and all the other forums in which these WBC pickets are being discussed. Observe how many religious-types are denouncing WBC, saying that the church isn’t representing the word of God, that picketing soldiers’ funerals is against The Lord’s wishes and that Jesus loves and forgives homosexuals—which is every bit as insane as the insanity Phelps is spewing. Because they’re all doing the same thing: They’re all acting as if they know what God wants or thinks. And you know what? It’s actually the Westboro Baptist Church, and not the more mainstream churches, that has the better grasp on what God wants or thinks. A quick look at the Bible will prove it.

“[B]ut the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17

You hear that, people? God murdered every living being in Sodom and Gomorrah (infants included) because some of them were wicked. And, he’s about to do it again—to us! Indeed, The Lord Thy Father is every bit the barbarian Fred Phelps says he is. Check it out: God murdered Judah’s son for no stated reason. God murdered Lot’s wife for committing the terrible sin of looking back. God brought a seven-year famine to the entire planet. God recommends the death penalty for the owners of disobedient oxen. God sends babies to Hell who haven’t been baptized. God drowned everyone on the planet except Noah and his family. God killed Nick Drake, yet Celine Dion lives on. God will let a serially murdering, corpse-dismembering, cannibalistic monster into Heaven if he confesses on his deathbed, yet will send an African aboriginal to Hell for never having heard of Jesus. And, of course, all through the Bible are quotes from God in which he reveals a murderous hatred toward homosexuals. Clearly, if there is a God, and the Bible is his Word, then the Westboro Church is right about what it preaches.

The same is true of extremists in other religions, too. Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, for instance, have correctly interpreted the Koran as being hostile toward nonbelievers of the Muslim faith. “Kill them wherever you find them,” it says, which, I would argue, means you’re not a good Muslim if you’re not running around killing infidels all the time. Ditto the Bible and Christians. Sure, there are plenty of quotes in the Bible about God being the loving Father and protector and all that, but they are rendered obsolete by all his rampaging and city-smiting. Put another way, it doesn’t matter how many blind and crippled people you healed when you have even one apocalyptic plague on your record. Take the Plague of Death to Firstborn Sons, for instance.

“Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.” Exodus 12:29

Wow! God really is an all-round sumbitch. He certainly isn’t very nice to bovines. And while he may condemn abortion, he apparently isn’t all that opposed to killing kids after they’re born. Anyway, the point is, all WBC is doing is parroting the Bible as it’s written. Naturally, I happen to think the Bible—as it’s written—is a pile of oxen shit, which is why I get to call the WBC an insane bunch of toadfuckers, while anyone who believes the Bible to be the true word of God, does not.

This is the first segment from my spoken word performance at San Diego IndieFest 6

The first piece is titled, “Do you Accept Jesus Christ as your Personal Trainer.”

I have to admit, I enjoy surfing all those kooky fan pages and groups on Facebook. Some are hokey, like the “Powerful Blood of Jesus Christ” group (which displays a picture of a dove whose wings have been dipped in Christ’s blood). Some are hokie, like the “Happy Muslim Husband and Wife” fan page . And some are just plain stupid, like “Can This Goat Get More Fans than Barack Obama?”

The types of groups and pages are wide-ranging, but one thing they all have in common is that they crack me the hell up, usually unintentionally. Take the hilarious, “Dear Lord, Kill Obama” page. The real title is much longer and more laughable, but, yes, there actually is a Facebook page that prays for God to kill President Obama, and it has 1,185,299 fans—my sister being one of them! Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. During the campaign, she totally bought into all that “Obama the America-hating, Muslim, socialist, grandmother-murdering, turban-wearing Kenyan” business. Ah, don’t sweat it, Sis. It’s not your fault Mom accidentally put you in the microwave when you were a baby.

I imagine a lot of those fans are also fans of the “People Who Believe In The Power Of Prayer” page (407,854 fans), which means, since those people believe in the power of prayer, they are literally subcontracting God as their own personal presidential assassin.

Of course, the “Dear Lord, Kill Obama” page doesn’t make me guffaw nearly as much as the response group that wants the “Kill Obama” page deleted. That group is called “Petition to Remove Facebook Group Praying for President Obama’s Death” (875,365 members) and wants you to sign the petition to “make Facebook accountable for what they implicitly endorse.”

Yeah, dammit! We’re going to hold Facebook accountable by, um, asking them to remove a page they aren’t affiliated with. That’ll show Facebook!

Oh, you kooky Anti-”Kill Obama” Page members, just because someone has a fan page doesn’t mean Facebook endorses it. If the mere act of allowing a page to exist constitutes endorsement, then, by that logic, Facebook endorses your group as well, which means they are endorsing the Kill Obama page and the Anti-Kill Obama page—a paradox so blatant, so powerful, it would cause the Facebook universe to collapse on itself and vanish, leaving behind only a tiny little “Like” button.

Another page I find utterly amusing is “Take Off Your Damn Hat During the National Anthem” (181,981 fans).  “The United States is the greatest country on Earth!” writes the moderator. “I’m tired of people not… taking off their hat for our National Anthem!”

Then there’s this bit of perfect comedy from fan Ellen Odom: “All of us born of this soil should show complete respect, all others can get the hell off of it.”

Question: If I don’t respect the National Anthem, what’s it to you? Isn’t it enough that you respect it? Because, guess what? Some people might not think this country is all that great. Take homosexuals. What has this country ever done for them except marginalize, dehumanize and criminalize their lifestyle? If I were queer and attending a ballgame, not only would I not remove my lid during “The Star Spangled Banner”—I’d make sure the hat I wore had a giant, foam donkey dick on top, which I would stroke with both hands during the entire anthem, as if to say, “Got your ‘land of the free’ right here, bitches!”

Then there’s the “Ban the R Word” group (3,422 members), which is described as, “a group for everyone who is tired of constantly hearing the word ‘retard’ used as a derogatory term and would like to do something about it.”

OK, fine, do something about it. In the meantime, I’m going to start a response group called “Ban the ‘B’ Word”—a group for everyone who is tired of constantly hearing the word “ban” whenever somebody says something somebody else doesn’t like. Sign my petition to ban the “Ban the ‘R’ Word” group on the grounds that it’s not anyone’s business what words I use!

Here’s one that makes no sense. It’s the “Check American” page. The mission statement reads, “Check American is a national campaign to encourage citizens to write in ‘American’ as their race on the 2010 U.S. Census Form.”

I guess this group is for people who are agitated by words like “African-American” or “Mexican American.”

“Stand against hyphenated Americanism,” writes the moderator.

Yeah man, take a stand against those low-down dirty hyphenators. Write in American as your race on the census form. Only one problem. “America” is not a race, dipshit.

Then there is the hilariously bigoted protest group against the stated plans to build a Mosque near the former World Trade Center. It’s called “People Who Disapprove of Building a Mosque at Ground Zero!” (59,566 members).

“This mosque is a symbol of conquering America,” says the mission statement, after which it has the deliciously comic ’nads to add, “This group is NOT about attacking Islam or Muslims.”

No, no—of course it’s not about attacking Muslims. It’s about attacking their places of worship, sillies.

A quick scan of the page reveals that the members are all retarded.

“If we let them build a mosque then we have the right to wipe out their country,” writes Michelle Feldbauer, who apparently thinks the Nation of Islam is a country.

“This is the land of the free,” explains Marie Montalto, adding, “A mosque at ground zero? Never!”

Ah, Marie, spoken like a true radical racist Facebook fan-page fan. Forget that not all Muslims are terrorists; forget that Muslims also died on 9/11—what’s funny about your post is that the exact same sentence in which you mention a free America, you tell a minority religious group that they have the freedom to take a hike.

Oh, you kooky “People Who Disapprove of Building a Mosque at Ground Zero,” I have to ask. If the 9/11 terrorists had been, say, a gang of disgruntled barbers, would you prohibit hair salons from opening near ground zero?

And last but not least is a fan page that intentionally cracks me the hell up. It’s called “Stupid Fucking Facebook Fan Pages . . . Fuck Off.” All it does is mock fan pages. At the time of this writing it has 970 fans. Actually, make that 971.

Originally published in San Diego CityBeat

Ed Decker
05.21.10

Look, I don’t like this new Arizona immigration law anymore than you do, but it’s really starting to bug me that so many people—who haven’t even read it—are howling to holy Hell on Earth about it being racist.

Sorry, folks. I’ve read SB 1070 and I can say with confidence that, as of today, May 7, 2010, there is nothing racist about it.

For one thing, there is an entire passage (lines 30 to 34 of Section 2) that explicitly prohibits law enforcement from using “race, color or national origin” as a determining factor. The only other part of the bill that identifies when law enforcement is required to investigate the status of a person’s citizenship is this:

“WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.”

Jesus Cristo, I hate legal-speak! It’s almost as though all our laws have to get approved by Jenny Gibberish over at the Office of Redundancies and Gobbledygook to ensure the text and words confusing to people and humans it is. Allow me to rewrite:

“Law enforcement shall attempt to determine a person’s immigration status, where reasonable suspicion exists that he or she is unlawfully present in the U.S.”

The key phrase here is “Where reasonable suspicion exists.” It’s the phrase that proves it’s not a racist law.

I can hear your grumblings now. Oh, what a racist I must be for saying SB 1070 ain’t racist, right? Hell, I’ve already been verbally accosted by my wife, who said the law is “a slippery slope to the Holocaust, jerk!” My friend and colleague, Aaryn Belfer, said, “You won’t see Arizona cops stopping any tall blond Germans, fuckwad!” And CityBeat editor Dave Rolland, blurted, “Hey, assface [his pet name for me], the law gives cops with chips on their shoulders about immigrants a reason to harass Latinos!”

But SB 1070 does not embolden racist cops. The bill clearly gives “reasonable suspicion” as the requirement. Well, think about it. In a state consisting of nearly 1.3 million Hispanic citizens (roughly 25 percent of the population), it is absolutely, undoubtedly, irrefutably not reasonable to assume a person is illegal because his or her skin is brown. And any judge who heard a police officer testify that race was the reason he stopped the suspect, would be required—by the language of this bill—to throw the case out on its backside.

Of course, any cop can lie about why they felt the perp appeared “suspicious.” But that’s the cop’s bad, not the law itself, and saying so would be like saying that our laws against drug trafficking are racist because a police officer can stop a driver for being black, plant some drugs, then tell the judge he pulled him over because he was speeding.

Bottom line, you can’t say the law is racist because future racists might circumnavigate it.

Some have argued that the law is racist because it doesn’t go far enough to protect minorities. I don’t agree. SB 1070 specifically prohibits factoring race and color. However, even if it were true, it wouldn’t make the law racist. Calling 1070 a racist bill because it doesn’t go far enough to protect minorities is like calling our trespass laws homophobic because they don’t go far enough to stop people from walking into gay people’s yards.

Look, there are plenty of valid reasons to oppose this bill. Labeling it racist does a huge disservice to legitimate opposition because, the real problems are swept to the margins—problems like invasion of privacy, extension of governmental powers, erosion of civil liberties and the biggest, most glaring problem of all which, alone, should render 1070 null and void: the problem that it is already a law! Have a look at how the whole thing begins. It’s the premise, the thesis—the raison d’être—of SB 1070:

“NO OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE… MAY ADOPT A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.”

Oh, for crying out loud, can we get a law that’s written in English already!? It’s almost like they don’t want the general public to read or understand it. Again, a quick translation:

“The state of Arizona reserves the right to enforce federal immigration laws.”

There you go. Bam boom bang! SB 1070 gives Arizona the right to enforce federal law. But you don’t need a local law to enforce federal law. It’s already the law! It is already legal and mandatory for police to stop and interrogate people who are “reasonably suspicious” of having committed a crime. It’s called “probable cause” and probable cause is, simultaneously, a tool that law enforcement uses to investigate potential criminals, and a constraint that prevents them from harassing folk for no reason. If SB 1070 is a racist law, then so are all probable-cause-related laws.
Look, I know some of you are outraged over the perceived racial component of this bill. But the fact that you’re outraged proves my point. You’re angry because it’s unreasonable to judge people by the color of their skin. You are angry because it’s unreasonable for a cop to harass a person on the basis of being brown. And if any Arizona law officer acted in such an appalling manner, it wouldn’t be because of this law, it would be in spite of it.

Ed Decker
05.12.2010

Originally published in San Diego CityBeat

Mr. and Mrs. Styles

Read all about the evening at the ever exciting, ever controversial judge’s blog (that’s me).