Well, both groups do use hate, violence, and intimidation to forward their personal agendas in the face of a contrary majority view. Yes, there's a difference in beating women with their own religious items and blowing people up, but it's certainly open to being called a matter of degree.

Not saying I agree with Pat-I think he's minimalizing real terrorists- but just because you agree with the goals of one group doesn't excuse their actions.

Hate is hate? Of course. I can't deny hate. I also hate, on a regular basis, some people. Right now, I am hating Robert Mugabe a lot. What he has done against the White minority and the black majority of Zimbabwe is unspeakable.

Yet, this doesn't make me a rampaging monster, running amok in hotels and shooting people randomly. I am just living the emotions linked to the disproportionate rift between the events and my values. I see it as healthy and proving me that I am not a progressive, carpet-loving hippie refusing to use his judgement.

If Mr. Boone can't see the difference between peaceful demonstration and a terrorist action, I will simply suggest to him that he take his favorite fiction book and shove it inside a chosen place. We don't need such hate mongers in a civilized society.

I don't think he was talking about peaceful, was he? Most of the protest in CA have been anything but. People are getting beat up. Things are being burned.

You can hate whoever you want. The way you demonstrate this makes you a rampaging monster, or not.

I'm confused - so this person is saying that homosexuality is a form of hatred? Against whom...straights?

Sorry, I am a little dense and don't get it. Can someone explain the parallel Pat is attempting to create?

I have a question I ask repeatedly: if you think "due process" is necessary and a wonderful thing when it goes your way, why do you insist it be changed when it doesn't?

The process isn't wrong. Prop 8 failed because of simple public opinion, that's all. That's what has to be changed.

Short-sighted people are so eager to throw away things when they don't work for them. For instance, the idea that a police state is a bad thing was everywhere just recently, and for good reason due to abuses, but Obama supporters want a national police force now, apprently thinking he's magic. A "special prosecutor" was a necessary thing to deal with Richard Nixon, according to Democrats, but useless and wasteful when dealing with Bill Clinton. The War Powers Act was needed to let the Commander-in-Chief do his job, even though Congress has the explicit duty to declare war.

Don't be an idiot. Don't throw away a process that actually protects you because it's inconvenient today.

Amy, you're harshing Pat Boone.

"The process isn't wrong. Prop 8 failed because of simple public opinion, that's all. That's what has to be changed."

Changing public opinion is not how slavery was destroyed, and it's not how segregation was destroyed. As GEN Westmoreland pointed out about the Viet Cong "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will tend to follow."

Sometimes the only way to get people to change their minds is to get them on their knees and get them to say they have repented. And then shoot them in the back of the head, because they are lying anyway.

Sometimes the only way to get people to change their minds is to get them on their knees and get them to say they have repented. And then shoot them in the back of the head, because they are lying anyway.

Are you suggesting fighting a shooting war over gay marriage?

Dude. Check your head. The "right" to government goodies is insignificant compared with the right to not be someone else's property.

Amy, a few weeks ago, just about every Mormon, Evangelical, & Catholic in the country sat in front of their TV or computer and watched the spectacle of a huge crowd of outraged gays surrounding a little old church lady, screaming hatred & threats at her, and grabbing a cross out of her hands & stomping on it:

http://malcontent.biz/blog/?p=1804

Yes, Boone's attempt at moral equivalence is insane. And yes, much of the Prop 8 campaign was built on paranoia about gays. But by their own actions, many gay protesters are making religious Prop 8 supporters believe that their paranoia is entirely justified. In WestHo, some gays did in fact go out into the streets screaming "Nigger!" at the top of their lungs and threatening any blacks who happenned to stray into their neighborhood. In Sacramento, the artistic director of the California Musical Theater was blacklisted & forced to resign for supporting Prop 8. And some crowds of Prop 8 protesters did indeed get ugly & violent.

If Prop 8 could be voted on again today, it might pass by an even wider margin than last time. If gays think that screaming "Nigger!" and threatening to lynch blacks is OK, then most Americans will be on the other side. If gays think that blacklisting anyone who dares to oppose them is OK, then most Americans will be on the other side. And if gays think it's OK to threaten and violate little old church ladies who stand up for their religious convictions (however wrong they may be), then most Americans will be on the other side.

Boone's gibbering is indefensible, but also irrelevant. The actions of gay protesters who think that any tactic is justified because their cause is righteous will have a much greater influence on public opinion.

Ooops. The link I posted above at 11:20 seems to have gone dead. Sorry about that, folks. You can watch the protest in question here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1VS3Us-TRU0&NR=1

I'm not lumping all Prop 8 opponents together. Just saying that the actions of some will be used to put all gays in the worst possible light, and to convince Prop 8 supporters that they were right all along.

Off-topic, but I have to interrupt and mourn the passing of an American icon:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/12/bettie.page.obit/index.html

I had to get to nearly fifty before agreeing with this comment about Page from Greg Beato. It takes distance to see that her allure wasn't eroticism: Page's figure was almost plain. (It calls to mind what Etcoff said, that beauty is what we call the one who represents the average of the gene pool. And the sex play in those photos is all sort of imaginary.

But she was just freakishly pretty.

Note also that in most pictures, Page's handsome teeth are receptively parted in the style now seen on the default smile of the Governor of Alaska.

(By the way, did the daughter marry that guy yet?)

Maybe because Page was never at the forefront of public attention, she had to die before I recognized why Lala's playful allure always seemed so familiar. (episodes 1-10 are best)