Karl Rove's TV blitz for der Fuhrer's re-selection campaign put me in mind of the old Monty Python movie; Monty Python And The Search For The Holy Grail. You know the scene where Eric Idle is out collecting the dead on a cart and comes up to John Cleese who has an obviously alive old man over his shoulders. The cart is already full and Eric can't hang around waiting for the old man to die as the Robinsons have lost nine to the plague already today. When suddenly King Arthur and Patsy ride by and Eric recognizes him as King and John asks him how he knows this and Eric reasons he must be a king, 'Because he hasn't got shit all over him!"

You remember Smirky's photo op pictures with the real heroes; the fireman, standing amongst the ashes of the WTC? Just like King Arthur you could tell instantly who was king and who the peasant. Like King Arthur the crusaders brought the Black Death back to Europe and were responsible for the death of 1/3 of the population. Our glorious prairie monkey was forewarned about 911 and let it happen. 911 like the plague didn't effect the kings or queens nor did 911 effect the Bush Junta, just the common men and women. At least King Arthur didn't stand in the plague filled streets of London and pretend to be the peoples savior like our beloved King George did in Manhattan. Bad enough the scum let those people die as a pretext to the Afghan and Iraqi invasions but to pretend to be a hero standing deep in the blood of those folks is just a bit too f-cking much, is it not? If it's the last thing we do as a nation we must bring the Junta down, if not for our own sake or for even our children's sake but for the sake of all mankind. So when you see those commercials for Bush with the 911 backdrop call the TV station and raise a little hell about it won't you?

Some days this job just plain sucks and Monday was one of those days. You've no doubt noticed our Uncle Bam cartoon has been replaced. I've been a fan of Gus St. Anthony's brilliant cartoon Uncle Bam since I first found it last summer and after getting Gus' permission it has graced our page as our opening carton ever since. Not only is Gus a very talented artist but his ability to transform reality to a black and white image that tells it like it is, is truely amazing. This is coming from a guy who can't draw a straight line with a ruler. And as far as his rhyming ability goes I stand in awe. I find it easier to write a 800 page book than a 28 line poem and try as I might, even after sweating blood, my prose still sucks! So what would possess me to pull Gus' art from the magazine?

Gus has another calling other than leftist artist. Gus is also the Rev. Gus St. Anthony DD ULC of The Celestian Church of Universal Life. Here's where the problem lies. Now while this magazine is news and views, and sometimes mostly views, we pride ourselves in dealing strictly with the facts. You can debate on whether or not our analysis is correct or not but the facts themselves, are indisputable. The Internet is awash with various conspiracy theories and such and all it takes to ruin a good reputation is to get caught up in what for the most part is fraud. If you think various statements you've read in here are wild you should see what we don't print. I've got a couple of stories which I believe to be true that if I could get a little proof for would bring the Junta to it's knees in various prison cells through out the land! And don't you know you're wicked old Uncle would drop a dime on these scumbags in a New York minute if I only had the proof.

Gus crossed that line that you've all heard so much about and came out to his Uncle Bam mailing list of which I am a member. Although we are for the most part Atheists and Agnostics, our policy has always been live and let live i.e. we won't ask and don't you tell! Now it's not that Gus' religion is any crazier than the rest as you would have to go a long way to beat the Mormons 'magic underwear' or the Scientologist orange juice can on a string a.k.a. the 'e-meter' or anything that the Baptists are into. No it's all about perceptions and we are after all just a tiny slice of the body politic trying desperately to awaken our sleeping Sheeple brothers and sisters to the danger all around them. It doesn't help matters that all this murder/treason and mayhem is being brought to you in the name of the son of some obscure god of barbarian sheepherders, all by the seditious son of the Crime Family Bush who is only after all doing his god's will. So having a top official of a religion contributing to a political newsmagazine was walking on very thin ice to begin with and as Bush proves religion and politics shouldn't mix in a democracy or even in a former republic. We've had to let a couple of writers go for similar problems over the years, it's not something I look forward to doing folks but c'est la guerre! Please note the links to Gus' sites and bookmark them. I know I'll be a frequent visitor there.

By a very, very strange and puzzling coincidence our sponsor for this week is the Church of Reality. Org. This is the "church" for everybody, even old Atheist sinners like myself and if you're a thinking person it's the church for you too! Yes I know, church and thinking are generally an oxymoron which is why this church just may be the one for you? Check it out and see if I'm lying to ya? Go ahead Methodist and make my day!

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Rocker David Crosby wins our, "One toke over the line" award for his recent arrest in New York City. While a couple of knives, a gun and a bag of weed have all the makings of a fun filled week-end in Detroit, Detroit is after all a far cry from New York! Must have been some really good weed, eh David? No sense of humor, those New Yorkers! Would someone please remind me not to stay at that hotel?

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So how do you like the coup d'etat so far?
And more importantly, what are you planning to do about it?

Until the next time, Peace Y'all.
(c) 2004 Ernest Stewart ... Issues & Alibis

The New York Times and other major media outlets are at it again: parroting Bush-Cheney campaign themes against a Democrat while turning a blind eye to equal or worse offenses by Republicans. This new case of protecting Bush-Cheney is built around the theme that Sen. John Kerry is a flip-flopper, while ignoring examples of George W. Bush's own flip-flops.

The media's eagerness to adopt this "conventional wisdom" on Kerry follows the pattern of Campaign 2000 when the Times joined the media pack in portraying Al Gore as a liar while buying into the image that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were straight-shooters, despite an abundance of evidence that they weren't. Even four years later - after the deceptions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and disclosures about the abuse of scientific research to make it fit Bush's agenda - the national news media clings to this precious notion that Bush is no liar.

Now, the pattern repeats itself. On March 6, in a lengthy front-page Times article entitled "Kerry's Shifts: Nuanced Ideas Or Flip-Flops," reporter David M. Halbfinger dissects Kerry's statements on issues such as gay marriage and "defines" Kerry just the way the Republican National Committee drew it up: a waffler who takes both sides of issues. No where in the piece is there any reference to Bush's history of flip-flopping on issues of grave consequence to the world, such as his promises to curb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases; his pledges to maintain a balanced federal budget and keep his hands off the Social Security trust fund; and his assurances that he would run a "humble" foreign policy that wouldn't stretch U.S. forces with "nation-building" tasks.

No Context

Bush's inconsistencies are ignored even in a context, such as Bush's direct personal attacks on Kerry's credibility, when Bush's own record and hypocrisy would seem especially relevant.

As in Campaign 2000, the Times and other publications seem determined to apply double standards that effectively give Bush and Cheney a walk. The logic behind this pattern is that it buys journalists protection from right-wing press attack groups, which have long proven that they can damage or destroy the careers of journalists who get tagged with the "liberal" label.

It is far safer and more lucrative for journalists to protect their right flanks by putting on blinders on their right side, so they don't see certain facts that might require courage to report. That way, they can tout their tough anti-Democratic writing as proof they're "not liberal," knowing there is no serious threat to their careers from the left.

The careers of virtually all the journalists who made a mockery of Campaign 2000 continue to thrive, while there are many examples of journalists whose reporting angered the conservatives - the likes of former San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb - who paid a steep price. [For details, see Robert Parry's Lost History.]

Next Chapter

And, as surely as night follows day, the next page in the "Kerry-as-flip-flopper" script will be that Kerry "failed" to prevent the Bush-Cheney team from defining him as a flip-flopper. That will give the talking-head pundits another opportunity to reprise Kerry's alleged offenses while leaving out Bush's and, of course, never mentioning the news media's role in creating this unbalanced impression. Soon, it will seem like bias for anyone even to suggest that Bush's flip-flops, too.

So, as aspiring star reporters head off into another career-making presidential campaign, it is worth reflecting on three previous stories published by Consortiumnews.com: One is "Protecting Bush-Cheney," an account of the double standards in Campaign 2000; the second is this year's "Kerry & the 'Special Interest' Hit Piece," an account of the Washington Post's deceptive reporting on "special interest" donations; and the third is "Bush's Great Debate - With Himself," which details some of the momentous flip-flips of Bush's first term.

This time it really is a fir tree. A gentleman called Elhanan Tannenbaum. He was a prisoner of Hizbullah. In order to bring him back home, together with the bodies of three soldiers, Ariel Sharon released several hundred "terrorists". Since then, the whole country has been in uproar, day after day, week after week.

Why did Sharon make the deal? This week the terrible secret has come out: this fir tree is the former son-in-law of somebody who had some business with Sharon 30 years ago, when an American Jewish billionaire helped a poor army officer by the name of Ariel Sharon to acquire the biggest private farm in the country.

Did Sharon release hundreds of "terrorists" to help a former son-in-law of a former business associate? Is this a giant scandal? A most terrible case of corruption?

Even if it were so, I can answer only with two Hebrew words, which translate literally as "the delight of my grandmother". Or, in American: "big deal!"

As usual, the media do not pose the right questions, because the right questions might annoy some important people. For example: the security chiefs.

This Tannenbaum is a colonel in the reserves. In this capacity he was party to one of the most secret military projects in Israel. According to leaked hints, this project is no less secret than our nuclear activities (see Mordecai Vanunu, below.)

Now it transpires that Tannenbaum was, in civilian life, a professional crook, compulsive gambler, with an irregular family life, steeped in debt and closely connected with Lebanese drug dealers. How did such a person become a party to the most top secret project?

Well... Nobody knew what he was doing. Nobody inquired. He did not mention it to the chief of internal security of the defense establishment, a certain Yehiel Horev. And if nobody tells Horev, how is he to know?

When Tannenbaum went to Dubai, and then found himself in Hizbullah-land in Lebanon, the security establishment was shaken to its very foundations. A person who carries with him such awesome secrets is in the hands of our enemies? What has he told them, and what is he going to tell?

Because of this, the security establishment was ready to pay any price to get him back as quickly as possible: 50 "terrorists"? 500 "terrorists"? 5000 "terrorists"? Doesn't matter. The main thing is that he be returned at once.

That is understandable. If Tannenbaum had told what he knows, he would have caused "irreparable damage" (as official sources emphasized) to national security. In such cases, it is essential to find out if he did spill the beans or not. Therefore he was bought back for a high price, and since then he is being investigated, investigated and investigated.

The former son-in-law of the former friend does not come into it. The connection is intriguing, but not important.

A more significant question is: How did a person like Tannenbaum become a colonel? How inefficient must a security apparatus be for such a fiasco to become possible? And how come that Horev, one of the best-paid civil servants in Israel, was not kicked out?

Furthermore: if hundreds of "terrorists" can be released for one living crook and three dead bodies, perhaps their imprisonment was not really necessary for the security of the state? Perhaps the continued stay in prison of 7000 more of them is pointless? And if so, why were they not released in the cause of peace, to strengthen the position of Arafat in 1993 or Abu-Mazen not so long ago?

Horev and Co. are angry with Tannenbaum because he has revealed their incompetence. They are also angry with Mordecai Vanunu, for the same reason.

Vanunu was a minor technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor, a site so secret that for a long time it was forbidden to mention its very existence. When it became impossible to deny its existence any longer, the government pretended that it was a "textile factory". At this site, the most highly guarded in Israel, Vanunu freely took pictures. Then he went abroad, became a Buddhist, converted to Christianity (or the other way round) and passed his information and photos to a British paper. On the basis of this information, scientists decided that Israel has 200 nuclear bombs.

The disclosure was credible but unofficial. Thus it strengthened Israel's deterrence, without the government being obliged to confirm it. This was so convenient for the government that, at the beginning, many people believed that Vanunu was really a Mossad agent.

But he was not. On the contrary, he represented a catastrophic failure of the security structure that was - and still is - headed by the above mentioned Horev. The reaction was drastic: Vanunu was kidnapped in Rome and brought to Israel in a box - just as Tannenbaum was kidnapped in Dubai and brought (apparently) in a box to Beirut. Vanunu succeeded in conveying this to the media by writing it on the palm of his hand and waving on the way to court.

This infuriated Horev and Co. even more. For many years they kept Vanunu in prison in total isolation. Now that he has completed his whole sentence, they do not want to release him. And if the court does no allow them to keep him in prison, they want to prevent him from going abroad or speaking to journalists.

Why? The argument is that even now, 20 years later, he may be in possession of information that could endanger the state.

By the way, a similar argument is used by the American security agencies for refusing to release Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel and received a life sentence. They believe that Pollard knows the identity of an Israeli mole in the highest circles of the American administration, who told Pollard which documents to steal and transfer to Israel.

Tannenbaum, Vanunu, Pollard - all these are intriguing stories, useful for increasing the circulation and ratings of the media. And, more importantly, they distract attention from the real dangers that threaten us: the building of the monstrous wall in the occupied territories, Sharon's plan to annex more than half of the West Bank, the ongoing effort to destroy the Palestinian Authority, the daily bloody cycle of targeted killings - suicide bombings - assassinations, murder and revenge, and the destruction of all chances for peace.

Who wants to think about that? Who wants to deal with it? It is much more pleasant to sing and dance around the fir tree: "O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum..."
(c) 2004 Uri Avnery Gush Shalom

How perfect the irony, how sordid the scam. The president, who ignored the Al Qaeda threat before Sept. 11, 2001, who diverted public attention in that horror's aftermath to the nonexistent threat from Iraq and who has stonewalled the investigation of 9/11, now seeks to exploit that tragedy as a reelection gimmick.

George W. Bush avoids being photographed with the dead and injured from his folly in Iraq, but hey, those flag-draped coffins of 9/11 victims make great TV ads. What a grisly low in political exploitation.

That's why the ads were condemned by a firefighters union and many of the 9/11 victims' relatives, whose various websites contain an impressive list of the unanswered questions concerning the tragedy. As Bob McIlvaine, whose son was killed in the Twin Towers disaster, put it: "Instead of playing on people's emotions with images of that day, the president would do right to cooperate more with the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks so we can learn the truth about what happened on that day and why."

But uncovering the truth about 9/11 has never been Bush's intention. Instead, the president has used that tragedy for his own political ambitions - to draw attention away from his lies about Iraq, the unprecedented national debt, the disappointing jobless recovery and the attacks on civil liberty. What's mind-boggling is the cynicism of Bush's electoral ploy when one considers that he never showed any interest in terrorism before 9/11. He had focused instead on the war on drugs and trying to one-up his father on Iraq. His abysmal failure to heed the Clinton administration's warnings regarding the threat posed by Osama bin Laden may be one reason for Bush's extreme reluctance to permit an unimpeded, bipartisan public investigation of 9/11.

Never before in our national history has such a major event been so unexamined by the government while being so effectively hyped for political advantage. The obfuscation has been deliberate and executed with a passion that suggests Bush may have some dreadful truth to hide. Why else would he initially oppose the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the origins and lessons of 9/11?

Bush allowed the commission to form only after enormous public pressure led by the families of victims, who demanded an accounting of what led to the loss of their loved ones. Bush then sought to undermine an honest investigation by appointing Henry Kissinger, international grand master of mendacity, to be chairman. That gambit failed when Kissinger refused to make public his murky financial entanglements with the very regimes most likely to have links to the 9/11 terrorists.

After a more independent commission finally was allowed to form, Bush set about to systematically undermine its work by refusing to turn over documents essential to the investigation or to permit the full committee to interview the top officials in his administration, from himself on down.

This is a president whose immediate response to 9/11 was to protect the Al Qaeda terrorists' known sponsors in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan while planning a sideshow war against Bin Laden's sworn enemy in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein. In the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, a Saudi plane was allowed to land in the United States and whisk Bin Laden relatives and certain Saudis out of the country before intelligence agencies could fully question them, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals who had been allowed to enter the U.S. under suspicious circumstances, suggesting the connivance of the Saudi government.

Bush turned his sights on Iraq's illusory weapons of mass destruction while lifting the sanctions imposed on Pakistan, a known possessor and proliferator of nuclear weapons. Nor have any of those sanctions been restored even now, when Pakistan admits that its top scientific institute was the source of nuclear weapons technology sold to North Korea, Libya and Iran.

NEW YORK--During the Fifties, actors and screenwriters sympathetic to progressive and radical causes found it nearly impossible to get work. Though they couldn't prove it, blackballed Hollywood talent knew why their telephones had stopped ringing. Somewhere behind the scenes, someone powerful, someone who believed that America was composed only of two kinds of people--communists and right-thinking souls like themselves--was working to silence them.

We tell our kids that America learned from McCarthyism, but a new version of the Red Scare is being born in this new century. Powerbrokers connected to what Hillary Clinton clumsily called the "vast right-wing conspiracy"--the Bush-Cheney's neoconservative war profiteers, the Christian Right and their media allies at Fox News and Clear Channel Communications--operate out in the open. Their goal: to crush personalities whose influence and eloquence threatens their plan to recast the United States in their white, heterosexual, pro-business image.

Ironically two of the hard right's recent high-profile speech martyrs, Bill Maher and Howard Stern, are libertarians--a group whose distrust of big government traditionally prompts them to vote Republican. ABC, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company--a major political contributor to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and other Republicans--canceled Maher's "Politically Incorrect" TV show after 9/11.

Now, over on AM radio, the Bush-controlled Federal Communications Commission has targeted Howard Stern for trumped-up decency violations. In a classic tag-team move, Clear Channel Communications, the thousand-station-plus behemoth so closely allied with the White House that it organized pro-Bush "Rallies for America" during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, declared Stern in violation of a brand-new "zero tolerance" policy for on-air indecency. "Clear Channel drew a line in the sand today with regard to protecting our listeners from indecent content, and Howard Stern's show blew right through it," Clear Channel Radio president John Hogan said before dropping Stern's popular syndicated program--Clear Channel is willing to lose money to promote its political agenda--from its stations.

Citing three separate FCC sources, Stern says he expects to be hit by a huge fine--then fired. "It's over for me as a broadcaster," he said last week. "I'm checkmated. All they gotta do is fine [Infinity Broadcasting, Stern's employer] and then we're gone. And there's nothing we can do about it." On March 5, he added: "I'm guessing that sometime next week will be my last show on this station. There's a cultural war going on. The religious right is winning. We're losing."

If Clear Channel truly had a true zero tolerance policy on decency, Stern points out, it wouldn't have hired foul-mouthed right-wing Republican Michael Savage at its KPRC-AM in Houston. (Savage infamously shouted that homosexuals should "get AIDS and die" on MSNBC.) The real reason he's being attacked, Stern says, is that he dared criticize George W. Bush.

"If you don' t think me going after Bush got me thrown off those stations, you got another thing coming," says the "shock jock." "My days here are numbered because I dared to speak out against the Bush administration and say that the religious agenda of George W. Bush concerning stem cell research and gay marriage is wrong. And that what he is doing with the FCC is pushing this religious agenda. And also the fact that the guy takes more vacation than any President ever...I don't think we can stop it, short of me calling up President Bush and saying 'Look man, I'm going to support you, so don't do this.'"

The New McCarthyism doesn't always flow from the top down. The New York Times, which has published my editorial cartoons for 13 years through three presidents, suddenly excised them from its website on March 1--leaving a Soviet-style hole on its comics page. In an Orwellian twist, it even deleted the archives.

"After two years [sic] of monitoring cartoons by Ted Rall we decided that, while he often does good work, we found some of his humor was not in keeping with the tone we try to set for NYTimes.com," stammered a Times Digital spokesperson to Editor & Publisher magazine when anti-censorship complaints began coming in. "We...recognize an obligation to assure our users that what we publish...does not offend the reasonable sensibilities of our audience."

To his credit, the paper's ombudsman wrote that he disagreed with the decision.

Those "reasonable sensibilities," a Times insider tells me, have less to do with tone than political content: as the most liberal cartoonist in a group of ten, my work drew a disproportionate number of emails from annoyed Republicans--adding to an already short-staffed department's workload. "It wasn't tone. [Times Digital] were sick of the hassle," my source says. "They kept other cartoons that were far more objectionable."

Cowardice, meet laziness. Time magazine was so afraid of the possibility of right-wing hate mail that it stopped running political cartoons after 9/11.

The Internet has become the tool of choice for the previously powerless. Email forwarding, hyperlinks and blogs--a genre dominated by right-wingers--allow anyone with a used Gateway computer and a dial-up connection to rally hundreds of likeminded individuals to point and click, instantly firing off fiery letters to the bosses of radio talk show hosts, cartoonists and columnists who offend their sensibilities.

"Here's the feedback form for Yahoo!'s opinion syndicate," a blog called "The Agitator" suggests. "Write and tell them it's time to drop Ted Rall's column." "No paper should ever run Rall again," howls Andrew Sullivan, a Time magazine columnist who also writes the country's most prominent extreme-right blog. "I urge all of our readers to write to the NY Times," urges another hate site. "Here is their Contact page. I wrote to the publisher this morning."

A few liberals try to censor conservatives, but most opponents of the First Amendment reside on the right.

Unlike Congressional staffers accustomed to the phenomenon of mass letter-writing campaigns, aging editors at old-school print outlets like the Times don't comprehend that they're being fooled and manipulated by fringe interest groups--most of whose members don't even buy their newspaper--into believing these orchestrated correspondence campaigns reflect genuine reader outrage. And so the bullies get their way.

Introducing logic into religious discussion is considered terribly impolite, but the uproar over gay marriage makes such rudeness unavoidable. Many conservatives-particularly those affiliated with the religious right-insist that the Bible prohibits tolerance of homosexuals and makes same-sex civil marriage an abomination. And some liberals, too, say they cannot endorse full equality for gays in marriage, because doing so would violate their faith.

These arguments from both ends of the political spectrum are no doubt deeply sincere. On closer inspection, however, they're also profoundly hypocritical.

First consider John Kerry, almost certain to become the first Catholic politician nominated for President by a major party since 1960. The Massachusetts Senator twice voiced his opposition to restrictions on gay marriage, at the federal and state levels, because he believed that such legislation would deprive gay couples of equal rights under the law. Now he says that although he still opposes amending the Constitution, he might support a carefully worded amendment to his state's charter that would reserve marriage for heterosexual union. According to him, the states should be free from interference by the federal government on this issue.

Mr. Kerry has said he opposes gay marriage as a matter of "personal belief." If his belief stems from religious commitment, then he should explain why he has adopted strong positions on reproductive rights (and gay rights) that clearly violate the teachings of his church.

However strained Mr. Kerry's arguments may sound, they are models of enlightenment compared with the "biblical" justifications of bigotry emanating from the right. Mr. Kerry is also no more conflicted on this subject than President Bush, who said four years ago that the states should be able to "do what they want to do" regarding gay marriage, but now realizes that his conservative base wants a Constitutional amendment restricting state action.

An old joke is that Republicans believe so firmly in marriage that they do it over and over and over again. The living exemplar is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a veteran cultural warrior and now well into his third sanctified union. His half-sister Candace is a lesbian, but he has spoken out against her right to the same conjugal relationship that he has indulged so frequently and vigorously. Why would he deny her the same happiness he has repeatedly enjoyed? Why, he wants to protect the sanctity of the marital institution-by upholding the biblical proscription against homosexuality.

Interpreted as literally as the religious right insists it must be, the Bible sets out certain clear rules concerning sodomy, matrimony and various other human activities. For example, the Bible says that Mr. Gingrich should not have divorced his first two wives, because marriage is a lifetime commitment. Then again, the Bible says that Mr. Gingrich wouldn't have needed to divorce wife No. 1 or No. 2 just because he wanted wife No. 3, since any man can always take an additional wife or concubine (which in the former Speaker's case could be updated to mean "Congressional staffer").

The only obstacle Mr. Gingrich might face would be the inability of wife No. 3 to prove her virginity at the time of matrimony-a sad circumstance requiring that she be stoned to death. By the way, under biblical law all three wives should be considered Mr. Gingrich's personal property, along with any slaves he happens to own.

Slavery is endorsed by the Bible, which can also be read to outlaw interfaith and inter-racial marriages. Yet neither Mr. Gingrich nor his cronies on the religious right supports slavery or opposes marriages that cross religious or racial lines. They don't expect to be struck dead for masturbating or talking back to their parents. They don't seem terribly troubled by divorce, and they certainly don't believe in stoning anybody to death for adultery. If they did, an alarming number of their Republican friends in Congress would be deceased by now.

To accommodate modernity and personal convenience, Holy Scripture is susceptible to broader, more liberal interpretations-even among the self-proclaimed conservative moralists. Only gay people are to be held to the ancient literalisms.

Are there not other reasons to oppose gay marriage? Conservatives complain that legalizing gay marriage will undermine the traditional institution, but they can't explain how. They say that marriage is intended for reproduction, but they don't explain why we sanction the infertile, the elderly and the intentionally childless to marry anyway. They profess concern about sexual fidelity, personal responsibility and family stability, but they won't allow gay people the recognition to fulfill those same values.

Perhaps their minds might expand if they listened to Lorence Wenke, a courageous conservative Republican and fundamentalist believer who serves in the Michigan state legislature. Despite severe pressures from colleagues and congregation, he publicly opposes his state's version of the "marriage amendment." Mr. Wenke may lose his legislative seat, but he spoke out because discrimination violates his democratic principles and Christian values.

I have been waiting patiently.

I have been staring with great anticipation out the window of my flat here in the heart of San Francisco, sighing heavily, waiting for the riots and the plagues and the screaming monkeys and the blistering rain of inescapable hellfire. I have my camera all ready and everything.

There has been nothing. I see only some lovely trees and a stunning blue sky and my neighbor walking by with her pair of matching chow chows as a pained-looking woman struggles to parallel park her SUV. Same old, same old.

And this is San Francisco, gay-marriage HQ, Sodom-and-Gomorrahville, debauchery central. We are supposed to be careening off the nice, safe road of social acceptability right now, welcoming chaos, exploding into a fiery hellmist of our own sick godless depravity and dropping off the disgusted planet any minute now.

Where is my raging apocalypse? This is what I want to know. Where is the social meltdown? The moral depravity? I was promised an apocalypse, dammit. What am I supposed to do with all these tubs of margarine and confetti and kazoos?

There have been more than 3,500 gay-marriage ceremonies in San Francisco so far. Hundreds more are just now kicking up a storm in Oregon and in beautifully rebellious little burgs around New York state. And, yet, nothing. No chaos. No reign of terror. Not even a lousy heat wave. Sigh.

Some homosexual couples have been married for more than three weeks now, living in utter godless sin as they drive their cars and shop and laugh and cry and go to work and pay their taxes and wonder about their dreams. Lightning has not struck them dead. The Hellmouth has not opened wide its gaping maw, hankering for some of the City's trademark Sourdough o' Sin. I am dumbfounded.

After all, gay marriage is supposed to ruin the nation, is it not? Induce actual rioting and civil unrest and shirtless anarchy as millions of stupefied citizens pray to a bloody pulverized Mel Gibson-y Jesus for redemption, as they suddenly begin questioning whether ogling the Pottery Barn catalog for more than 10 minutes might mean they're gay.

"It's anarchy," some guy named Rick Forcier, of the Washington state chapter of the Christian Coalition, actually whined. "We seem to have lost the rule of law. It's very frightening when every community decides what laws they will obey." Why, yes, Rick. It's total anarchy. Just look at all the screaming and the bloodshed and the gunfire. Run and hide, Rick. The gay people in love are coming. And they've got tattoos and funny haircuts and want to get married and celebrate their love and be left alone. Hide the children.

This was -- and still is -- very much the right-wing sentiment. It was almost a guarantee: Same-sex marriage spelled the instantaneous end of all that is good and righteous and edible. Insurrection was imminent, apocalypse nigh. You could see it in their eyes -- they could hardly wait.

Hell, even Governator Arnie went on "Meet the Press" recently and proclaimed, semicoherently, that he was actually worried about the riots and deadly mayhem should S.F. continue with its brazen lawlessness. And look. Nothing. Not a peep. Not a single rabid spitting demon to be seen. Unless you count Lynne Cheney. Which you never, ever should.

I believe I have been misled. I was told repeatedly in extra-glowing terminology by multiple raging Bible-quoting drones that The Good Book expressly forbids gay marriage and gay sex, and to engage in either spells imminent doom and instant social bedlam and there are specific verses all about it.

Is this true? Are there actual verses decrying gay marriage? Are they anything like those other Biblical verses, about the rules and regulations surrounding marriage that are making the rounds on the Net right now? Real verses. Actual verses. Verses o' sanctimonious fun. Have you seen them?

Like this: "Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take multiple concubines in addition to his wife or wives." (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21).

Or maybe: "A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be stoned to death." (Deut 22:13-21) Isn't that cute? Isn't quoting Bible verse fun? Ask your local pastor about that one.

Or how about: "If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law." (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10). Hey, it's right there, in the Bible. So it must be true.

Is it worth showing those verses to the happily sanctimonious and sneering Christian homophobes who are protesting outside S.F. City Hall right now, telling the gay couples what depraved hell-bound sinners they all are? Nah. Why spoil their whiny apocalyptic wet dreams? Live and let live, I always say.

(Oh, and while we're at it, God also really hates shrimp. Maybe you didn't know. Shrimp are evil, as are all shrimp eaters. Clams, too. Hey, it's in the Bible. You can look it up. Why the Right is attacking homosexuals in love and not, say, Red Lobster, remains a mystery.)

So, here we are. Approaching a full month after the first of S.F.'s marriage ceremonies, and nothing. The universe is smiling madly. The world is shrugging. Anonymous supporters from all over the nation have sent flowers to hundreds of loving gay and lesbian couples. As of this writing, there is no scathing hellfire. No fanged demons of destruction (Lynne Cheney excepted). No meltdown whatsoever. I would know, right? I mean, wouldn't the power go out, or something?

Maybe it's still to come. Maybe total screaming misery and unspeakable sociocultural collapse coupled with wanton bestiality and incest and the giving away of free anal beads to innocent teenagers takes more than a month. Maybe I'm just a little impatient.

Maybe Satan is taking his sweet time to marshal his leather-clad armies, watching as other U.S. cities get in on the gay-marriage act, listening as mayors and governors all chime in their support and say what's the big deal. Maybe Beelzebub is waiting for a big moment so as to really leverage the coming news flash, the special report, the sudden activation of the Emergency Broadcast System. Something like:

"This just in: Earthquakes rocked the globe today as giant fire-breathing bees of death swarmed the countryside, feasting on fat white heterosexual babies mostly from Texas and Colorado Springs and Utah and Idaho, as the institution of hetero marriage careened around the mad vortex of space-time like a savage drunken pinball high on black-tar heroin, just like the Christian Right predicted.

"Horrors bled into the streets, terrorists were spawned by the thousand, presidents openly lied so as to lead a nation into bloody violent unwinnable wars, thousands of Catholic priests sexually molested tens of thousands of children over a 50-year period without the slightest punishment, the environment teetered on the brink due to heartless government rollbacks as air quality and water quality and food sources were ravaged in the name of corporate profiteering, the economy crumbled like Jenna Bush after her 10th beer bong as hate and fear and bogus Orange Alerts ruled the land."