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Politics : PRESIDENT JOHN FORBES KERRY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (909)	3/14/2004 1:24:34 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1017

( A scene at City Hall in ________ ) "Next." "Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license." "Names?" "Tim and Jim Jones." "Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance." "Yes, we're brothers." "Brothers? You can't get married." "Why not? Aren't you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?" "Yes, thousands. But we haven't had any siblings. That's incest!" "Incest?" No, we are not gay." "Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?" "For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other. Besides, we don't have any other prospects." "But we're issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who've been denied equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman." "Wait a minute. A gay man has the same right to marry a woman as I have. But just because I'm straight doesn't mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim." "And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just because we are not gay?" "All right, all right. I'll give you your license. Next." "Hi. We are here to get married." "Names?" "John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson." "Who wants to marry whom? "We all want to marry each other." "But there are four of you!" "That's right. You see, we're all bisexual. I love Jane and Robert, Jane loves me and June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and me. All of us getting married together is the only way that we can express our sexual preferences in a marital relationship." "But we've only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples." "So you're discriminating against bisexuals!" "No, it's just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it's just for couples." "Since when are you standing on tradition?" "Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere." "Who says? There's no logical reason to limit marriage to couples. The more the better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!" "All right, all right. Next." "Hello, I'd like a marriage license." "In what names?" "David Deets." "And the other man?" "That's all. I want to marry myself." "Marry yourself? What do you mean?" "Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return." "That does it! I quit!! You people are making a mockery of marriage!!" What do you think? It probably will come to something like this, huh? .

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (909)	3/14/2004 1:38:23 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1017

California: What are Bush's prospects in the state? Zip, zero, nada: No way after 24/7 war he and his oil cronies waged on us Since then, things in the case of Bush v. California have only gotten worse. The whole relationship got off on the wrong foot when, just days before his inauguration, Bush mouthed off to a national television audience, saying the energy problems California was experiencing were the state's own fault and there was nothing he could do to help. President Clinton tended the Golden State like a prized vineyard, spending more time here than any president except Ronald Reagan - who, of course, actually lived in the state. It took Bush four months into his presidency before he journeyed to California, and his subsequent trips have been few and far between - mostly quick fundraising jaunts, like the one earlier this month. In fact, it's a standing joke among Democrats that Bush thinks California is a foreign country because of the word "republic" on our state flag. (You know how he is with geography.) On that first trip to California as president in May of 2001, former oilman Bush wagged his finger and warned us of the evils of energy price controls - even while his cronies and campaign bankrollers at Enron and other Texas-based energy companies were, as we now know, robbing us blind. Since then, the catalog of Bush administration transgressions against California is thick -and growing fatter by the day. We still have extracted only a pittance in refunds - courtesy of the industry-friendly, Bush-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - from those piratical energy companies that manipulated electricity prices and made a killing off of us. On the environment particularly, Bush has battered California from all sides. The president's Justice Department sided with big oil companies in going to court to deny the state the right to stop new offshore drilling in federal waters if it poses a threat to the environment. The administration also ganged up with the big auto manufacturers to sue California over our innovative zero-emissions-vehicles policy. In fact, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has publicly complained that his office is spending so many millions defending the state against Bush's legal predations that it is diverting money from fighting pollution. (This is the same Bush who's against frivolous lawsuits - unless, I guess, his own administration is filing them.) What's more, Bush has proposed opening up the old-growth groves in the Giant Sequoia National Monument to logging - and that right after he made a much-publicized visit to the Sequoia National Park to stare at one of the ancient trees. He has advocated allowing oil-and-gas exploration in the fragile Los Padres National Forest. He's moved to exempt from federal clean-water laws the state's seasonal ponds used by migratory birds. His pal over at the Defense Department, Donald Rumsfeld, wants to declare military bases safe harbors from the state's strict environmental laws. Bush himself badmouthed California's adoption in 2002 of the nation's first law banning the gases that contribute to global warming. And the sins go on. Bush's trigger-happy attorney general, John Ashcroft, last year threatened to slap criminal charges on the state's chief firearms-control official if California continued to use a federal databank to hunt down those who are barred from owning guns. sacbee.com