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Wendy and the boys (Gail Collins, New York Times)

The Texas filibuster rules are suitable for a place that regards steer wrestling and bronco busting as the official state sport. We made a big fuss when Rand Paul stayed on his feet for 13 hours in the U.S. Senate to filibuster over drones. But that was a walk in the park compared with what [State Sen. Wendy] Davis went through. Paul got help from his friends, who orated while he rested his voice. And U.S. senators can speak about anything when they filibuster. (Paul read from Alice in Wonderland.) Davis was supposed to stick to her subject.

The crowd was reasonably quiet until Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst ruled that Davis had to sit down because she had gone off topic by referencing a state law requiring that women who want abortions must show up a day earlier for an ultrasound.

A wonderful read today by Gail Collins. Of course. Don’t miss this.

Game over

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The old joke used to go, “I have no problem with gay marriage unless they make it mandatory.”

The old joke stands.

I’m straight. Can’t help it, I was born that way. But some people aren’t, and they were born that way, too. And whom they choose to love, and whom they choose to be their sex partners, is none of my damn business. And it most definitely is not my government’s business.

Opponents of gay marriage are adamant that their god intended marriage to be between a man and a woman. But that argument makes marriage a religious ceremony, and that has to be decided within their religion. Those opponents don’t have to morally accept  a marriage between two men or two women. But now they have to accept it legally. It’s the law.

As long as the government chooses to sanction marriage — and as long as it authorizes government employees such as judges and mayors and justices of the peace to engage in the act of marrying people — then it has to be fair. Same-sex couples are entitled to the same civil rights as opposite-sex couples.

Years ago, an editor at my workplace ordered that these unions be referred to as “same-sex marriages,” and not “gay marriages,” because he said it wasn’t about sex, it was about marriage. I disagreed. It was all about sex, I said. Opponents of gay marriage  wouldn’t give a damn if those married gays weren’t having sex.

I doubt you’ll find a single opponent of gay-marriage who is fine with gay sex outside of marriage. It is homosexuality that sets their hair on fire, not the notion of homosexuals getting married.

So today was a good day. The Supreme Court got it right. I would have preferred something more sweeping, something on the lines of Loving v. Virginia, but today’s rulings forbid the United States of America to discriminate against gay couples, and they make it much easier for gays to get married.

Thirteen states allow gay marriages now, and California’s addition to the club means 30 percent of Americans live in those states. And gays who don’t live in one of those states can travel out-of-state, get married, and be entitled to all federal benefits.

A majority of Americans now support gay marriage. Most polls show that young Americans overwhelmingly support gay marriage.

That sound you hear is the sound of dominoes falling. Another pillar of bigotry is crumbling at our feet.

Good.

This isn’t atheism

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Some nonbelievers still find solace in prayer (Washington Post)

My friend Mark sent me this piece because he knew I’d find it interesting. Boy did I ever.

The caption on the photo above reads:

(Linda Davidson/ The Washington Post) – Atheist Sigfried Gold, his wife Galia Siegel, and children Beatrice Gold, 2, and Solomon Gold, 8, say a serenity prayer at dinner at home Tuesday in Takoma Park, Md. Gold launched a regular prayer schedule to comply with a 12-step program for food addiction.

And the story goes on to say . . .

Each morning and night, Sigfried Gold drops to his knees on the beige carpeting of his bedroom, lowers his forehead to the floor and prays to God.

An atheist, Gold took up prayer out of desperation. Overweight by 110 pounds and depressed, the 45-year-old software designer saw himself drifting from his wife and young son. He joined a 12-step program for food addiction that required — as many 12-step programs do — a recognition of God and prayer.

Four years later, Gold is trim, far happier in his relationships and free of a lifelong ennui. He credits a rigorous prayer routine — morning, night and before each meal — to a very vivid goddess he created with a name, a detailed appearance and a key feature for an atheist: She doesn’t exist.

While Gold doesn’t believe there is some supernatural being out there attending to his prayers, he calls his creation “God” and describes himself as having had a “conversion” that can be characterized only as a “miracle.” His life has been mysteriously transformed, he says, by the power of asking.

And then the story goes on to talk about all these atheists who pray.

It’s a fascinating piece . . . and I’m really happy for this guy Gold, who apparently has found a successful way to lose weight.

But he should stop calling himself an atheist.

If you want to believe in a big invisible man in the sky or a “vivid goddess” whom you’ve actually created with a name — fine with me. Knock yourself out. Whatever floats your boat.

Just don’t go calling yourself an atheist.

Among other things, it’s insulting. And more than a little condescending. It’s like calling yourself a Christian and telling everyone that you don’t believe in God and you don’t believe Jesus ever existed, but they should nonetheless consider you a Christian because you say you are. It belittles what true Christians believe.

Same as saying you pray every day and you’re an atheist. That’s baloney, which this guy Gold must know is fattening.

I welcome your thoughts.

How is this murder?

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Mom Charged with Murder After Daughter, 5, Shoots Self (ABC News)

A New Orleans mother has been charged with murder after her 5-year-old daughter shot herself in the head while home alone in a locked bedroom.

Laderika Smith, 28, was booked Sunday on charges of second-degree murder, after the girl was taken off life support hours after her mother returned home to find the girl dead, police said.

“[Smith] locked her daughter inside the residence for a short period of time while she went to the store,” New Orleans Police spokeswoman Hilal Williams said in a statement.

While her mother was out, the girl discovered a loaded .38-caliber revolver and shot herself.

This is horrible beyond belief, but . . . Murder?

American Heritage Dictionary:

noun
the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Merriam-Webster:

the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.

AP:

Murder is malicious, premeditated homicide. Some states define certain homicides as murder if the killing occurs in the course of armed robbery, rape, etc.

I’m hardly defending a woman who leaves her kid alone with a .38, but . . . Murder???

Do they have some sort of unique definition in Louisiana that I’m not aware of?

Sam needs a time out

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Justice Samuel Alito’s middle-school antics (by Dana Milbank, Washington Post)

The most remarkable thing about the Supreme Court’s opinions announced Monday was not what the justices wrote or said. It was what Samuel Alito did.

The associate justice, a George W. Bush appointee, read two opinions, both 5-4 decisions that split the court along its usual right-left divide. But Alito didn’t stop there. When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench, Alito visibly mocked his colleague.

Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court, was making her argument about how the majority opinion made it easier for sexual harassment to occur in the workplace when Alito, seated immediately to Ginsburg’s left, shook his head from side to side in disagreement, rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

His treatment of the 80-year-old Ginsburg, 17 years his elder and with 13 years more seniority, was a curious display of judicial temperament or, more accurately, judicial intemperance. Typically, justices state their differences in words — and Alito, as it happens, had just spoken several hundred of his own from the bench. But he frequently supplements words with middle-school gestures.

This guy needs to go to the principal’s office. Sam is a big boy now and really should know better.

Shame.

R.I.P. Bobby (Blue) Bland

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Bobby (Blue) Bland, Soul and Blues Balladeer, Dies at 83 (New York Times)

Bobby (Blue) Bland, the debonair balladeer whose sophisticated, emotionally fraught performances helped modernize the blues, died on Sunday in Memphis. He was 83….

Exhibiting a delicacy of phrasing and command of dynamics akin to those of the most urbane pop and jazz crooners, his intimate pleading left its mark on everyone from the soul singers Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett to rock groups like the Allman Brothers and the Band. The rapper Jay-Z sampled Mr. Bland’s 1974 single “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” on his 2001 album, “The Blueprint.”

Heaven done called another blues singer back home.

The old bluesmen were such a treasure, and one by one they are vanishing.

The New York Times posted this photo of Bobby Blue with B.B. King, taken in 1992.

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B.B. is 87 now, and we can only hope he lasts forever.

R.I.P., Bobby Blue.

And why are we here, exactly?

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In the Bible Belt, Offering Atheists a Spiritual Home (New York Times)

BATON ROUGE, La. — It would have been easy to mistake what was happening in a hotel ballroom here for a religious service. All the things that might be associated with one were present Sunday: 80 people drawn by a common conviction. Exhortations to service. Singing and light swaying. An impassioned sermon.

There was just no mention of God.

Billed as Louisiana’s first atheist service and titled “Joie de Vivre: To Delight in Being Alive,” it was presided over by Jerry DeWitt, a small, charismatic man dressed all in black with slick, shiny hair.

I’m always happy to see people who are happy, but this just seems ridiculous to me.

“Atheist church” is an oxymoron. And congregating with other like-minded people to sing songs and celebrate your communal disbelief in an imaginary man in the sky is just . . .

Well . . . silly.

I’d much rather go to the ballpark.

Get the government out of the marriage business

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The Supreme Court is going to rule very soon on the issue of gay marriage, and right now we can be certain of this much:

Roughly half the country is going to be very upset.

And understandably so.

If gay marriage is illegal, then it’s discrimination against gays. And discrimination is wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.

But if gay marriage is legal, it’s an affront to a lot of people’s religious beliefs. And that’s wrong, too.

I am willing to accept the notion that marriage is a religious vow, and every church, mosque or synagogue has a First Amendment right to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Religious bigotry is none of the state’s business.

But once I accept that notion, I have to ask why the government is officially recognizing a religious rite.

How about we settle this dilemma once and for all by getting the government out of the marriage business?

You got married? Good for you. Have a ball. But your government doesn’t care. None of its business.

You want the legal rights of a couple? Get a civil union certification. And the government will not and cannot discriminate on issuing them. Two adults, legally united. Anyone may apply.

Get the married checkbox off the 1040. Require hospitals to allow visitation privileges only to blood relatives and persons in civil unions. Marriage does not give you the rights of survivorship. That requires a recognized civil union.

And there you have it. If gay marriage violates your religious beliefs . . . Fine. Don’t recognize a gay marriage. But you DO have to recognize a gay couple’s civil union. And their civil union will be the exact same one that straight couples must get in addition to their marriage certificate if they want to have the legal rights of a couple.

Basically, it’s time to end the marriage between church and state.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? Next crisis!

Yoo-hoo, Yahoo! Anybody home?

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I’ve seen a lot of bad editing over the years, but Yahoo! News raised the bar on awful to a new level yesterday. How on earth could a writer begin a piece with . . .

President Barack Obama makes the first extended trip to Africa of his presidency next week — but he won’t be stopping in the country of his birth. [Boldface is mine.]

. . . and have such a dumb mistake make its way onto a news website?

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post asks three questions, two of which are well worth repeating here:

1) How on earth?

3) Any editing over there?