In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent, sweeping refusal to grant a hearing to the bundled, anti-gay marriage appeal of six sanctimoniously misguided states (including, of course, Mormon Utah), I did the following cartoon:
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/bae4bb0b039c8c4e5041bc2c86bb5d5e6ab47e86/c=2-0-1199-900&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/Phoenix/None/2014/10/08/635483251024720274-benson.jpg_____
In response, I received the following from the radical fringe;
--First, from an anti-gay straight couple (with original emphasis):
“YOUR CAPTION SHOULD HAVE BEEN---------SODOMY IS NOW A SACRAMENT HOO----RAH”
--My reply:
“Let me know when what gays do in the privacy of their bedroom destroys your marriage.”
--The Dynamic Duo for Christ's rejoinder (also in all caps):
"Re: 'JUST MARRIED OPINION CARTOON'
"NOW, STEVE. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. I KNOW YOUR RELIGION OR THE PRINCIPALS OF LIFE MUST TEACH YOU THAT NATURAL ACTS CAPABLE OF ENGENDERING LIFE ARE HOMO SAPIENS WAY TO PROMOGATE FUTURE LIFE FORMS. ITS THE PURPOSE VS PLEASURE AXIOM THAT THEORECTICALLY SHOULD BE FOLLOWED TO GIVE MEANING TO THE SEXUAL EXPERIENCE. TO SEEK OUT THE PLEASURE PART OF THE ACT WITH NO DESIRE TO PROCREATE IS NOT IN THE PLAN OF PROCREATION. NOW RELIGION TEACHES US THAT ONE'S POSITIVE ACTIONS MUST OVERWHELM ONES' NEGATIVE ACTIONS TO MAKE THIS THING WORK.-------INDIVIDUALLY OR COLLECTIVELY. WE NEED EACH OTHER. POSITIVITY MUST OVERWHELM NEGATIVITY. SUMMARY----ITS THE BIG PICTURE THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE CONCERNED."
--My response:
"No, we are not all in this together. The U.S. Supreme Court just rejected a six-state appeal against same-sex marriage, thereby allowing previous appellate court decisions to stand in favor of legalization of same-sex marriage. You need to keep up on current events and leave your Bible babble for your Sunday School class."
--The mad straight couple's answer (stil with all caps):
"I TAKE IT YOU ARE NOT YOUR BROTHERS' KEEPER.?
"WHY DON'T WE JUST BAN THE WORD MARRIAGE & PASS A HOUSEHOLD PARTICIPATION ACT THAT ALLOWS 2 PEOPLE OR 2 PARTNERS TO CO-HABITATE TOGETHER AND END ALL DISCRIMINATION FROM THE START.? KUMBYA & ITS A WONDERFUL WORLD
"THE 9TH CIRCUIT COURT HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN BED WITH CONFRONTATION."
--My reply:
"I am not my brother’s snooper. You still haven’t answered my question as to how legalization of same-sex marriages will destroy your marriage.
"By the way, courts have always been involved in 'confrontation' (in the legal world, it’s called litigation). You simply don’t like it when this judicial confrontation results in your side losing.
"And also, by the way, it is the U.S. Supreme Court that has allowed lower-level appellate rulings to stand (or in some cases, to be put on hold while the cases are more fully litigated). Please trying keeping up with the news."
--The readers' comeback (with their all-caps button on overload):
"BEING IN THE MEDICAL FIELD FOR 35 YRS AS A RPH I KNOW FIRST HAND THE EXPERIENCES OF CONTRACEPTION, ABORTION, DISEASE & DEATH. THE ONE WORD---VALUE---PERMEATES ALL THESE EVENTS. SO YOU MAY SAY I AM CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR LIVELIHOOD & HOW THEY SURVIVE."
--My reply:
"You are, in the name of religion, declaring that you should have control over to whom legal-age people can be married, with whom they can have sex and what kind of sex they can and cannot have. If what they do doesn’t agree with your religious view of the world, then damn the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and outlaw all behavior that does not align with your Bible code.
"This is exactly the kind of theocratic 'thinking' that the Founders were determined to keep out of the operations of government when they drafted our nation’s secular Constitution—the first of its kind in the history of the modern Western world."
--The reader's telling admission (with continuing caps):
"MY VALUE SYSTEM IS NOT YOUR OR THEIR VALUE SYSTEM----I DO NOT WANT CONTROL OF THEIRS. AND MY TRUTH IS NOT YOUR OR THEIR TRUTH. SO BE IT
"WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO THE WORD TRUTH. WHAT IS TRUTH.? A SOCIETY WITHIN A SOCIETY. AND WHAT IS THE SURVIVAL RATE? I HAVE TRIED TO KEEP MY DISCUSSION AWAY FROM RELIGION----- CONCENTRATE ON VALUE."
--My reply, with a P.S.:
"You are, in the name of religion, declaring that you should have control over to whom legal-age people can be married, with whom they can have sex and what kind of sex they can and cannot have. If what they do doesn’t agree with your religious view of the world, then damn the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and outlaw all behavior that does not align with your Bible code.
"This is exactly the kind of theocratic 'thinking' that the Founders were determined to keep out of the operations of government when they drafted our nation’s secular Constitution—the first of its kind in the history of the modern Western world.
"(Quote): 'MY VALUE SYSTEM IS NOT YOUR OR THEIR VALUE SYSTEM:” Then this gem: AND MY TRUTH IS NOT YOUR OR THEIR [the American Founders] TRUTH. SO BE IT.'
"Your theocratic value system promotes ideas that, by definition, are unconstitutional under the American system of law, in that that you seek, under your banner of your beliefs, to tear down the First Amendment wall erected between church and state. You are entitled to your value system, of course, but thank goodness you are not empowered with seeing to it that the constitutional precepts of our founding document are protected and preserved. You would not honor that wall and would destroy it if you could.
"P.S.--We are done with this 'conversation,' if for no other reason that you have commenced and continued it throughout with screaming capital letters. In my opinion, you appear to have an anger management problem, which is compounded by a serious Constitution comprehension problem. Good day. "
__________
Second, from an outraged reader who invoked his young granddaughter’s view in his defense:
“Mr. Benson:
“Lady Justice is the allegorical personification of our judicial system. She stands wearing a blindfold and holding a scale and a sword, and she is a singular entity. Your political cartoon today .. . . like most days, left me confused. You have not one, but two Lady Justices. For some reason you have removed their blindfolds and taken their swords. And you have seated them. Now, they hold hands and, apparently, have just married.
“I have no idea what message you are trying to convey to your readers. (Perhaps it is that gay marriage in America is a forgone conclusion? If so, in the words of my six-year-old granddaughter, ‘No Duh!’). Only a fool would believe that gay marriage is not going to be the accepted law of the land in relatively short order. The vast majority of people of 3-digit (and even high 2-digit IQs) already know this. So exactly who do you imagine benefits from reading your cartoon? Who is your intended audience?
“I have read your cartoons, off and on, for several years now. I have thought of writing this letter (or something very much like it) to you on most of those occasions. Just out of curiosity, what do you, a ‘professional cartoonist,’ think the function is of political cartoons? Is it to amuse? Is it to educate? Is it to provide your readership with some sort of insight not completely obvious to them?
“I would humbly suggest that this particular cartoon does none of those things. In fact, I can’t think of one single instance in the past few years when I thought your cartoon was either amusing, educational, or in any way, insightful. Instead, I just find them insipid. Mind you this is not the case with all political cartoons. But it is the case with all of yours. (Maybe you are saving your best work for the days I don’t read the Op/Ed section.)
“So I thought I would ask you this. Would you mind sending me one, just one single previously published political cartoon that you have written at any time in your career that you feel is either a) amusing, b) educational, or c) insightful? Or, alternatively, would you send me one single cartoon from your archives that you are proud of, or that you feel is representative of good work in your chosen genre? Like I say, I’m just curious.”
--My reply:
“The actual Lady Justice statue positioned outside the U.S. Supreme Court building next to its entrance steps is not wearing a blindfold Nor does it have a sword.
[Editor’s note: The Supreme Court statue in question not only features no blindfold or sword, it holds no scale. See
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ewrQZ6pbjUY/UU89uch6_EI/AAAAAAAABCg/ZYjRY13w0xA/s320/lady+justice+usa.png; and
http://www.dcmemorials.com/Img//0000001//00160_0000001490.jpg]
“My job as a professional editorial/political cartoonist is to convey a personal point of view. It is clear that your personal political views do not agree with mine. That is why you are writing to complain. It is worth noting here that it is not my job to draw your personal partisan political perspectives for you.
“Thanks for writing.”
--The complaining reader's response:
"seriously steve? google her."
--My reply:
"Seriously. The Lady Justice figure--on the left side of the stairs--is not one whom you have erroneously tagged with holding a scale, a sword and a blindfold. I did google her--and earlier provided you the links."
**********
So, this is the core of the case that the anti-gay marriage crowd makes:
1. Equal constitutional protection for same-sex marriage will lead to a rampant, sodomized sacrament across this land.
2. Six-year-olds know that equal legal protection for same-sex marriage in America will not be coming anytime soon.
3. Legalization of same-sex marriage runs counter to religious principles which direct the plan of action for homo sapien sex--namely, one of procreation, not pleasure.
4. The government is justly empowered to snoop into the private sex lives of consenting adults in the name of being their "brothers' keeper."
5. Same-sex marriage is a "livelihood" that promotes disease and death (akin to contraception and abortion), so it should be a matter of "concern" (i.e., the target of government banning).
6. Since my cartoons confuse my critics (who openly admit that they don’t understand any of them), I should therefore provide them cartoons from my archives that I think are enlightening, relevant, funny or educational.
To quote from Xtian believers’ own holy book, I don’t “tolerate fools gladly.” (2 Cor. 11;19). Just in case these believers don’t read anything but the Bible, here’s a definition of that phrase: “’not suffer fools gladly’: to have very little patience with people who you think are silly or have stupid ideas.’”
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-simplified/not-suffer-fools-gladlyGeezus.
Edited 30 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2014 01:25AM by steve benson.