I’m not even gay and as a New Yorker I felt like I got kicked in the nuts today. It was so hard to try and play objective journalist today. Some of the crowing on the side of the bigots nearly caused me to break something. I even ran a red light and got caught by one of those camera things.

There’s a multitude of reasons why the vote in the NYS Senate went down the way it did. Senator Joe Addabbo of Queens was threatened by the Catholic church, who just came off a big victory by carrying a Republican to Addabbo’s old city council seat in a landslide over Addabbo’s former chief of staff. Senator Carl Krueger of Brooklyn had hundreds of calls from constituents asking him to vote no, but only a handful in favor.

Still, I feel crushed. Why? This doesn’t effect me in an any way. Why do I feel so distraught? Why did I find it hard to write the story today at work?  

I’ve been to Switzerland. I’ve always found the Swiss to be far more progressive people than us Americans. In fact the last time I went skiing in Lugano (2006), I came home speaking about how awesome it would be to live in a country as progressive as Switzerland.

So I was taken by suprise to see the results of a pretty scary referendum in the country.

Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, Ph.D., D.D.

Bishop of Brooklyn

313 Prospect Park West

Brooklyn, New York 11215

Your Excellency;

I am writing to officially resign as a member of the Roman Catholic Church. After a long and personal struggle, I came to this arduous decision while witnessing a rather disgusting and disagreeable series of events occurring in the United States at the moment, most recently in the State of Maine.

As you know, the people of Maine voted this week to deny the right for Lesbian and Gay couples to enjoy the same marriage rights as everyone else. A right awarded to them by the elected civilian government of Maine. The Diocese of Portland was very involved in getting parishioners all over the state to the polls to vote down these rights, including an unprecedented movement in the Northern part of the state, where there is a devout Francophone Catholic community. to get undecided voters from the pews to the polls to do, what is it they called it?; God’s Will.  A similar vote occurred just one year ago in California. I understand that this is a decision your church agrees with. I will not pretend to understand why. I will merely state that because of we disagree on this issue, I can no longer, with good conscious, remain a member of a group that chooses to accept what I personally see as persecution and bigotry as legitimate belief. On top of that, I can no longer feel right supporting a group that cherry picks when they can enforce their laws.

One wonders why liberals have hard times winning arguments…for me, it can be explained with an exchange I had with someone on OpenLeft today.

In my defense, I was there because I actually was having a good conversation with people on why the House appears to be giving up on a Medicare +5 option

You know, I like Alan Grayson, I really do. I think it’s great to have a genuine progressive representing Orlando.

However, even Grayson should know that as a politician and public figure, you don’t get the luxury of allowing words to fly out of our mouth before being filtered through your brain.  

Like lemmings to the sea, the blogsphere is all abuzz because a bunch of people are reporting anonymous sources are saying the White House wants a trigger in the final bill to keep Senator Olympia Snowe’s vote.

Of course the White House denies this, and Valerie Jarrett is on record saying so, but those anonymous sources; Senior Democratic aides, Senate staffers “familiar” with a meeting, keep saying otherwise.

And journalists, in their never ending desire to sell newspaper and bring traffic to their site, are running with their journalistic malpractice of making stories without independent confirmation, just anonymous sources, reminding me once again why I want out of the journalism business.

Today my uncle brought my grandmother a copy of the New York Daily News dated April 4, 1968.

The reason was because he thought my grandmother, a devout Catholic, would be interested in reading about the installation of Terrance Cardinal Cooke as Archibishop of New York.

I knew I recognize the date; April 4, 1968, but I couldn’t tell from where. I skimmed through the news stories; “President Johnson heads to Hawaii to strike peace deal with Hanoi”, “Senator Gene McCarthy wins Wisconsin Democratic Primary”, “New York Assembly kills bill to legalize abortion” Then, on page nine, in a small blurb in the corner next to a Gimbel’s ad, there it was;

DR. KING HEADS TO MEMPHIS

I thought I was having a dream when I read Gore Vidal’s comments on President Obama in The Times today.

Perhaps he’s lost it? I don’t know, but for the PUMA, it’s going to be like chum in the shark infested water.

Or maybe it is.

I agree with Glenn Greenwald, and I usually don’t, that there’s a double standard here and Blackwater, Halliburton should also be looked at under the same microscope as ACORN, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they really stepped in it.

…and I agree with Glenn Beck that this organization has a lot of problems.

I guess I’m allowed to do this, right? I want to start a Labor Day Open Thread to celebrate the release of Baucus’ Plan which, quite frankly, I was beginning to wonder if we would see the messiah before this plan.

The details are below;

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…