Toon: The 60% Solution

At the risk of giving GQP politicians ideas...

On April 29, well ahead of its usual timetable of issuing rulings in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a congressional map that had been the result of a lawsuit against Louisiana's 2021 redistricting plan. A lower court had ruled that the 2021 map packed the state's Black voters into a single congressional district in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The Supremes continued their gutting of that Act, decreeing that as long as lawmakers are not actually wearing swastikas and Klan robes when they draw congressional district lines, they can discriminate against whomever they want.

Louisiana Republicans immediately called a halt to the state's primary elections in which early voting was already underway, so that they could re-redraw district boundaries. (Yesterday’s Senate primary went right on ahead as scheduled.) Fellow Republicans in Tennessee, Alabama, and Utah hurriedly followed suit.

This mid-decade scramble to jigger maps to tilt districts against Democrats was started by Donald Gimme-Gimme Trump's gerrymandering demand to the state of Texas — a demand with which Texan Republicans eagerly and speedily complied. 

Democrats have attempted to answer Texas's unprecedented move, but with mixed results. California drew up new Democrat-favoring maps; but Maryland refused to. New York is constitutionally prevented from mid-decade redistricting, and Virginia's high court tossed out a pro-redistricting popular vote on a legislative technicality that nobody seems to quite understand. The Supreme Court in D.C., after rushing to overrule the lower court ruling in Louisiana, has just decided to let the ruling in Virginia stand without comment.

Is my cartoon really such a far-fetched notion? I wouldn't put it past today's ReTrumplicans to push exactly this idea through every legislature in Dixie and the Great Plains.

The First Month of Black History Week

Today's Graphical History Tour should have been the one I didn't post on the last Saturday of my vacation three weeks ago. Better late than never, I hope.

Exactly 100 years ago this month, historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) declared the second week of February "Negro History Week," expanding on earlier observations of Frederick Douglass's birthday. I didn't find that any of America's Black editorial cartoonists were drawing about Black history that week or that month, although each of their newspapers took note of the proposal from Woodson and the ASNLH.

Here's what America's Black editorial cartoonists were drawing about in February of 1926.

Given the Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 mission of pressing the Courts to invalidate same-sex marriages like mine (and a law just passed in Tennessee legislating a right to discriminate against us), I was particularly interested to find that the state of Virginia was in the process of outlawing mixed-race marriage exactly 100 years ago this week.

"The Mongrel Bays at the Moon" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Feb. 27, 1926

Leslie Rogers's cartoon was accompanied by a sarcastic "fable" summarizing the history of the "small shipload of outcasts" from England who settled in Jamestown, only to decide twelve years later "that work was obnoxious to them," so they contracted with the Dutch to supply them with slaves from Africa. From that editorial:

"Now, seeing that there were among the slaves many comely maidens, the lusts of these outcasts were aroused, and since the slave-women could not protect themselves, their masters threw themselves upon them and bred children by them. And it came to pass that a great war freed these slaves and made them citizens of a great state and country. But interbreeding went on merrily until the land was filled with a mixed race whose people spoke out against their former masters and kinsmen.

"'We will have no more illegitimate babies,' they cried. 'If you would cohabit with us. you must marry us.'

"And the masters raised their hands and eyes to holy heaven in horror. 'How can we, the salt of the earth, marry with these people who were once our slaves? Heaven forbid! Let us hasten and pass a law to prevent intermarriage in that we may breed with their women without fear of punishment. It is our God-given right. Our law will dull their will and keep them from thinking that they, as human beings, are entitled to live, love and marry according to their desires. We will hasten this law and shroud it in a pretense that we seek to preserve the integrity of all races.'

"And so they did."

Appropriately enough, it was a case out of Virginia that eventually overturned anti-miscegenation laws. Not that the ruling in Loving v. Virginia is certain to stand against the present Project 2025-26 backlash against civil liberties.

By the way, I would have liked to include any cartoons by Black editorial cartoonists from Virginia here, but none of the Black newspapers in that state appear to have employed their own cartoonists at the time. (The Norfolk Journal and Guide did start running its own editorial cartoons later that year.)

"And It Never Says a Mumblin' Word" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Feb. 6, 1926

Leslie Rogers employed what had become a common metaphor for President Coolidge, in this case accusing him of having little to say about the lynching of Black Americans by "mob rule in enlightened society." 

"Silent Cal" did not have a lot to say about a great many things; but he did support the Dyer anti-lynching bill (which never passed Congress) and spoke against the so-called "Americanism" of the Ku Klux Klan. In October of 1925, he told a convention of the American Legion:

"Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of to-day is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat."

"Taking a Black Prisoner from the Jail to the Courthouse" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Feb. 13, 1926

Meanwhile, Kentucky Governor W.J. Fields sent 1,000 troops to secure the safety of a Black defendant in a triple murder case as he was transported from jail to courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky.

The defendant, Ed Harris, stood accused of killing a White man and his two children, and assaulting the man's wife — exactly the sort of case that often excited mobs to take matters into their own hands; so Gov. Fields sent in eight infantry companies, four cavalry troops, two machine gun squadrons, and a tank company, with orders to shoot to kill.

Leslie Rogers here added dirigibles and the "U.S.S. Mobqueller," in a cartoon that reminds me very much of the style of Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist John T. McCutcheon.

"New Use for U.S. Air Fleet" by Fred B. Watson in Afro-American, Baltimore, Feb. 27, 1926

Fred Watson proposed enlisting the U.S.'s new air fleet to ferry Black prisoners past the volatile mob.

"Trial by Troops" by Wilbert Holloway in Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 20, 1926

If Wilbert Holloway was not impressed, it was because there was no chance of Ed Harris being found anything but guilty. He pled guilty and was sentenced to hang, his trial lasting all of sixteen minutes.

Elsewhere, Delaware Governor Robert Robinson called out the National Guard to prevent angry mobs from interfering in the trial in Georgetown of 21-year-old Harry Butler, who pled guilty to critically assaulting a 12-year-old white girl. He, too, was sentenced to death by hanging.

As for Tennessee, Holloway may have been referring to the trial of John Franklin Webb, convicted of raping a 17-year-old white girl. The trial and jury deliberation took a combined thirteen minutes; he was sentenced to death in the electric chair.

"Finally Hooked" by Wilbert Holloway in Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 6, 1926

Holloway didn't limit himself to explicitly Black issues (two of his four February cartoons were about the weather). I can't be sure what his opinion of U.S. involvement in the World Court was; reported elsewhere on the pages of that edition of the Pittsburgh Courier, a southern Senator made his opinion crystal clear.

"The Drunken Driver" by Fred B. Watson in Afro-American, Baltimore, Feb. 6, 1926

On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Cole Bleas (D-SC) offered as an argument against U.S. participation in the World Court that Liberia and Haiti were members of the League of Nations and would therefore have a say in the selection of World Court judges. If you were triggered by that Tourette's advocate blurting out an obscenity at the BAFTAs on Sunday, you might want to skip the next two paragraphs.

"I call the attention of Senators from the South," Bleas fulminated, "while they are voting on this reservation, to the fact that they are voting for a court where we are to sit side by side with a full-blooded [the N-word], who has as much right as we have in the election of judges of this court. I ask them if they are aware of the fact that there may be and probably will be a  representative of Haiti as a judge on this court so that the southern Senators are voting to throw the destinies of southern women and southern men into the lap of a black man?" 

Bleas used that N-word several more times in the course of his argument, mostly to describe what kind of republics Haiti and Liberia are.

"State's Rights or State's Wrongs" by Fred B. Watson in Afro-American, Baltimore, Feb. 20, 1926

Here's a rare cartoon that includes criticism of California's treatment of Japanese Americans. The topic occasionally came up in the context of protests from the Japanese government, but most white cartoonists and their newspapers approved of cutting off immigration from the Orient, and were content to overlook the restrictions against Japanese-Americans owning property.

Maryland Governor Albert Ritchie's moves to undermine Prohibition would be a topic for another day, but serves as a segue to a couple of editorial cartoons about local issues.

"An Unwelcome Serenader" by Fred B. Watson in Afro-American, Baltimore, Feb. 13, 1926

Watson cites a song popularized by the California Ramblers to express the plight of Black school teachers in his native Baltimore. The story about which he appears to be editorializing concerned two female Black high school teachers, Mabel Jackson and Mary Craft Cottrell, who filed lawsuits against the Baltimore school board for hiring two White women for positions for which Jackson and Cottrell were more qualified.

Jackson and Cottrell had passed the state examination for teachers of domestic art in 1924, placing first and second on the eligibility list. But the Baltimore School Board instead hired Susie Jennings and Elizabeth Burrell, neither of whom had a college degree or a graduation certificate from an accredited normal school, nor had they passed a competitive examination for teaching domestic arts.

The School Board contended that tailoring and dressmaking were trade vocational subjects not requiring a teaching degree. Jennings and Burrell, in their view, were not high school teachers per se, in spite of instructing high school students in a high school building during high school hours.

"An Alarm He Doesn't Heed" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Feb. 20, 1926

In Chicago, Blacks could apply for and qualify for employment as city firefighters, but would have to wait for a vacancy at the Taylor Street station, the one and only fire station open to Blacks. Any vacancies at any other fire station in town could only be filled by White applicants.

Even if their only qualifications involved tailoring and dressmaking.

Okay, that's an exaggeration. But you get the general idea of where race relations were in this country 100 years ago.

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Well, this is a little off-topic, but since Fred Watson brought up Prohibition a couple cartoons ago, I'll close with one of Leslie Rogers's other regular features in Chicago Defender, a more or less non-topical panel titled "The Hardest Job in the World." 

"The Hardest Job in the World" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, Feb. 20, 1926

Anyone who has had to live with dietary restrictions should understand.

Q Toon: He/Him/Hissy Fit

Newly elected Republican darling Glenn Youngkin hasn't even been sworn in as Governor of Virginia yet, and already the Trumpist-CrazyAss wing of the party is pissed at him.

To begin with, Youngkin is promising not to overrule local COVID-19 protective measures. Republicans who believe in small government except when they are in charge of it are upset that he won't dictate that local municipalities must allow COVID-19 to spread like wildfire.

They also have their panties in a wad over Joshua Marin-Mora, a 2021 Georgetown University graduate whom Youngkin brought over from his campaign staff to work under his Press Secretary. It seems that young Mr. Marin-Mora is openly  LGBTQ+ and openly Latinx, and — horrors! — lists "he/him" as his preferred pronouns in his Twitter bio.

“So, Youngkin chose a guy with pronouns in his bio to do his comms who also served on the Georgetown Latinx Leadership Forum and supports virtually everything Youngkin's voters voted against,” blared Pedro L. Gonzalez, a writer for the influential conservative think tank Claremont Institute, in a series of tweets. When other Twitter users unearthed pictures of Marin-Mora wearing LGBTQ Pride clothing, Gonzalez snarled, “The new GOP is actually worse than the old GOP.”

The lengthy thread attacking Marin-Mora was elevated by the likes of Pizzagate conspiracy [fabulist] Jack Posobiec and far-right activist Lauren Witzke.

Not every conservative shares the umbrage of the right-wing wackosphere. Some of them can actually conceive of the possibility that attracting LGBTQ+ Latinxes might help Republicans hold onto Arizona or Texas someday. (I can hear the campaign rally music already: "All My Latinxes Live In Texas.")

I have no doubt that Gonzalez, Posibiec, Witzke and their ilk will soon forget all about the underlings in Youngkin's press office anyway. Before you know it, they'll be back attacking Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, and whatever other counterrevolutionary criminals they root out of  the Republican ranks.

Toon: Bob Good, The Bad, and The Gutless

Heaven knows we mustn't offend the people who have been chanting "Lock her up!" about the candidate 65 million people voted for last time around. They are such sensitive dears.

And yes, that is how Mr. Good wore his mask during his speech on the House floor.

Virginia Is for Blunders

Virginia Warbler Apologizes for Blackface Photo in Yearbook

Q Toon: Good News/Bad News Bears

I'm throwing everything but the kitchen sink into this week's cartoon. Gosh, I hope I'm able to find something else to draw about next week.

Danica Roem received a fair amount of press when she was elected to her state legislature, not only because she is the first openly transgender person elected to such a position in this country, but also because she unseated a lead sponsor of Virginia's version of a "bathroom bill."

You might also have caught coverage of Australia's non-binding referendum on marriage equality; over the month of October, over 12 million Australians sent in their ballots by mail, with nearly 62% of respondents voting Yes.  While the 80% voter participation fell somewhat short of  regular compulsory elections, that's a rate greatly above any national election in the U.S.

Other news items may have escaped your notice unless you follow LGBTQ news closely. This past Monday was Transgender Day of Remembrance, by which time 25 transgender persons had been murdered in the U.S. in 2017. According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), that sets a record.

HRC is sounding the alarm over five Trump-Pence administration judicial nominees openly hostile to LGBTQ rights, Jeff Mateer, Damien Schiff, Leonard Steven Grasz, Mark Norris, and Stephen Schwartz. I drew a cartoon about Mateer in September.

I didn't include the name of Ohio State Representative Wes Goodman, a married "up and coming conservative" who pushed anti-LGBTQ legislation by day and "exchanged salacious texts and emails with gay men he met on Capitol Hill, and sent sexually suggestive messages to young men" by night; he was forced to resign over "inappropriate behavior" with a man in his state office in Columbus.

And finally, anti-LGBTQ repression is on the rise in Turkey as the country abandons its secular government in favor of a sharia-based one. This week, the governor of the capital Ankara banned "any events such as LGBT... cinema, theater, panels, interviews, exhibitions are banned until further notice in our province to provide peace and security." Gay pride events have been banned in Istanbul for the past two years, although homosexuality is not a crime per se.

I visited Turkey once, in 1996, and I would have liked to go back; that first visit only scratched the surface of the place. But there's no chance I would go there the way things are now.

Ah, well. We'll always have Australia.

Q Toon: Loaded Response

I settled down in front of my drawing board last weekend after one of those weeks when LGBTQ issues just seemed insignificant relative to all the other news.

The week started with Donald Joffrey Trump responding to North Korean threats of nuclear attacks against the U.S. with overheated "fire and fury" rhetoric of his own. Nuclear war seemed so likely that even Wall Street suddenly snapped out of its giddy response to Trump's lazy faire economic policies.

Then fascists wielding semi-automatic rifles, swastikas, Ku Klux Klan banners and tiki torches marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, where one of their number ran over a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19. Trump blurted out that "many sides, many sides" were responsible, driving the Korea story right off the front page (to the relief of Wall Street).

After two days, Trump begrudgingly read a statement assigning blame to the Nazis and Klansmen, but then stunningly revoked that statement at an unhinged press conference the next day. Beggaring credulity, Trump insisted that some participants in the march organized by the website The Daily Stormer, the Neo-Confederate League of the South, the National Policy Institute, and the National Socialist Movement are actually "very fine people." Perhaps those people were only Nazi sympathizers.

Why would Trump leap to the defense of the indefensible?

With his approval ratings down to 33% of the electorate, Trump can't afford to piss off Nazis and the Klan. As the sane, reasonable portion of the minority of voters who elected him slowly develop buyer's remorse, Nazis, Klansmen and their ilk become an evermore significant part of Trump's remaining base.

He is losing support among previously sympathetic corporate and labor leaders. Led by Merck chief executive Ken Frazier,  eight members of Trump's Strategy & Policy Forum and his Manufacturing Council resigned from them over his inability to distinguish a moral difference between his fascist base and anti-fascist protesters; Trump then disbanded the councils before any more businessmen could defect.

At this point, however, not a single member of Trump's Evangelical Council has resigned. They have no problem associating themselves with a Nazi sympathizer sympathizer.

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As long as I've brought up Bathroom Bills, let's pause for a moment to celebrate one gleam in the sh¡tstorm: the Texas legislature adjourned its special session without passing Senate Bill 6. A legislative priority for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and the theocratic right, the Texas Bathroom Bill was opposed by the Republican House Speaker Joe Straus, as well as by the Texas business community and the state's professional sports teams.

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On Monday, I invited you to guess who that was kibitzing over my shoulder in this week's cartoon. For the answer, look through the list of keywords at the end of this post.

And should you wish to share or link directly to this week's cartoon, throw some traffic to the news outlets which run my cartoon. Try here, here, or here.

Q Toon: Certainly Not GOP Shy

This cartoon was drawn last Saturday and Sunday, and sent to my editors on Monday morning, well before a certain story leaked out about a particular president-elect of the United States.

So what is it about Republicans and their obsession with excretory functions?

North Carolina Republicans passed their notorious HB2 last year, and even faced with the loss of business, coveted sports events, and the governorship, decided that regulating transgender persons' use of public lavatories was more important than any of that. Charlotte rescinded the equal rights ordinance at the center of the HB2 controversy as part of a deal with Republicans to repeal the state law; but when it came time for Republicans to hold up their end of the deal, they refused.

This year, Republicans in several state legislatures have rushed to the side of their Tarheel brethren, introducing a slew of bathroom bills of their own. In a few, such as Virginia and Minnesota, the bills stand little chance of getting past a Democratic governor. But in others, such as Texas, there is no such check on the legislature, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick there is a vocal proponent. Here in Wisconsin, we have plenty of experience of Gov. Scott Walker quickly signing Republican legislation that he earlier claimed was "not a priority."

So Republicans are all in to confront the non-existent threat of transgender persons launching a wave of sexual assaults in public rest rooms. What can we do about it?

Tell them to piss off.

Q Toon: Head for the Border

With all the focus on the presidential race this year, it's easy to overlook the state and local races that directly affect many people (for example, when they use a public rest room).

The Roanoke Times gave its endorsement to the North Carolina governor for doing so much to drive business into Virginia. His precious Bathroom Bill was one factor, they wrote, explaining that "In response, various companies and even sports leagues pulled events from the state. Three of those have wound up in Salem — the NCAA Division III men’s and women’s soccer championships, as well as the Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association football championship. That’s money in the bank for us."

But wait, there's more:

McCrory has given Virginia a competitive advantage in economic development, as well. When the University Economic Development Association recently held its national conference in Roanoke, the keynote speaker highlighted a North Carolina program to encourage partnerships between colleges and companies, as a way help recruit technology companies interested in research and development. The speaker hailed it as a model for other states to follow as they try to build a “knowledge economy.” Then the speaker noted that McCrory had cancelled it. The pro-business audience groaned.

Meanwhile, McCrory's hometown newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, headlined its editorial "Why We’re Not Endorsing Pat McCrory for the First Time in 25 Years."

McCrory’s term as North Carolina governor is the ultimate illustration of the Peter Principle: that people are promoted based on their past performance and not the abilities needed for the new role and thus rise to the level of their incompetence. McCrory has certainly done that. ...
While the state’s and nation’s attention has rightfully been focused on HB2 since spring, McCrory’s lack of leadership and wrong-headed policies have been on display since his first year in Raleigh.

By the way, if you're in the Raleigh area, the HB2 Bathroom Humor show is opening in your town tomorrow.

Another Day in America

This week's Stepback Saturday is sparked by yet another episode of America's Well-Regulated Militia run amok.

I could start this review of my old cartoons of previous gun murders anywhere, but I'm going to start with this one from March, 1996.

The National Rifle Association and its stooges in all levels of government often respond to any call for gun control with the tiresome and disingenuous trope that if we'd only just enforce the gun control laws that we already have, yadda, yadda, yadda. What action they have taken, however, is to repeal as many of those already existing laws as they can, and to defund enforcement of the laws that remain.

In April, 1999, two well-regulated militia high school students tucked an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons under their trench coats and put Columbine High School on the map.

Mass shootings at the workplace were already old hat by this time. If a sentence includes the word "disgruntled," you can be sure that it also includes a body count.

Numbers of casualties alone should not be the only thing that shocks us. This cartoon from March, 2000 was occasioned by the shooting of a very young girl by a very young boy. I forget whether the lad knew he had a real, loaded gun or not. If this had been the only time such a tragedy had ever happened, I'm sure that you and I would both remember the details.

When I first decided upon the theme of this blog entry, I thought I might only have a few cartoons to choose from, since most of the cartoons I've drawn in the current millennium have been for the Milwaukee Business Journal and the gay press, and gun violence isn't a prominent issue for either of them. Since the Beej no longer wanted my cartoons by the time a neo-Nazi shot up the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek in 2012, I drew no cartoons on gun violence for them; but it turns out that I've drawn too many cartoons for Q Syndicate about gun fatalities to include all of them today.

The inspiration behind this cartoon was a widely published photo of a middle school student who was shot at his school; in the photo, he had a caterpillar in his hand.  If a fellow student had not decided that bringing a gun to school and shooting a classmate in the back of the head was the most appropriate response to unwanted advances, Lawrence King would be 22 now.

My intention was not to include the names of the gunmen in these incidents, but I can't avoid it in the case of a drifter who claimed that a lifetime of teasing over his last name was the reason that he sought out a crowded Roanoke, Virginia gay bar and started shooting.

I bring up this particular case in part because of the coincidence that a shooting 15 years later in Roanoke, on live television, seems to have inspired the Umpqua Community College shooter to aspire to the same sort of lasting infamy. Yet, unless you have some close connection to the Roanoke gay community, I'll bet you had totally forgotten all about Mr. Gay.

There was no LGBT connection to the mass shooting at the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre...

...at least not for most of us. But some people are determined that guns have nothing to do with gun violence, and will blame anything, anything, ANYTHING else.

And the beat goes on.

Trending 150 Years Ago Today

In case you missed it yesterday, here's what was trending across the nation 150 years ago today:

Now let's see if I understand Garry Trudeau's theory of satire correctly...

If a cartoonist for one of these papers drew a "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play" cartoon, that would be punching up against the Powers That Be, and that would be okay. But a cartoon showing John Wilkes Booth making his grand entrance at the Gates of Hell would be punching down at a defeated Victim of History, and you shouldn't do that.

Heck, just settle for Our American Cousin shedding a single tear, then.

Q Toon: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors?

Last year, the Supreme Court surprised everyone by declining to hear a marriage equality case. Without explanation, the court decided to ignore appeals from Republican state Attorneys General who were trying to overturn marriage equality rulings in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia.

Suddenly, marriage equality was the law of the land!

Well, no, not quite.

The court's non-ruling came about because after it had found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional (U.S. v. Windsor, 2013), all lower courts had consistently ruled in favor of marriage equality. Then, the contrarian Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the same-sex-marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Q Syndicate✒Jan 22, 2015

And the issue came right back to the highest court in the nation. The Supremes now have a chance to decide this issue once and for all!

Again, no, not quite.

If they rule to uphold the Sixth Circuit decision, it could throw the marriages of those of us who got married in Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia into legal limbo. At the very least, marriages from any of the 36 states where they are now legal would be nullified any time we'd move to or even travel through marriage discrimination states.

And if they overturn the Sixth Circuit decision, several Republican state legislatures have proposed or passed "religious liberty" laws creating a "right" for employers, insurers, municipal clerks, hospital employees and whoever else feels like it to treat married couples as unrelated strangers.

Texas is even considering a law, House Bill 623, that says, "State or local taxpayer funds or governmental salaries may not be used for an activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage" -- meaning that even a gay-friendly clerk who issues a marriage license to a same-sex couple is in danger of losing her job.

So sit back and wait to see how this issue eventually turns out. The Supremes have plenty of time to learn how to play the piano, carve ice, and recite French poetry.

Q Toon: Rebranding the Tool

Q Syndicate✒Dec 11, 2014

This week's cartoon applies only in the states of California and New Jersey, plus the District of Columbia, where laws banning "reparative therapy" to change a minor’s sexual orientation “including efforts to change behaviors, gender identity or expression, or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward a person of the same sex or gender” have been signed into law. (Language from the D.C. bill.)

Court challenges by conversion therapy advocates to the California and New Jersey laws on the grounds that their exercise of religion was being infringed were both rejected. A court challenge to the D.C. law may be unnecessary, should the Republican Congress decide to step in. (Republicans talk a good game about "local control," but put them in charge of state and federal government, and they will not hesitate to make decisions about how big cities they don't live in ought to be run.)

Meanwhile, a similar laws failed to pass in New York, Maryland, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington in the latest biennium.

Q Toon: To Have and to Hold...

I realize that promising to "obey" is out of fashion; most couples replace "obey" with "cherish" these days. But I wanted Hector and Kevin to use the most traditional version of the marriage vows just to point out what isn't there.

This week's cartoon addresses the allegation that the reason marriage is for different-sex couples only is because they can have children and same-sex couples can't.

Aaron Lindstrom, defending Michigan's opposite-sex supremacy laws: “The state has an interest in marriage because marriage is linked to children,” and to how they’re cared for and whether they’re raised by both a mother and a father.

Judge Paul Kelly's dissent in the Colorado case: "It is biologically undeniable that opposite-gender marriage has a procreative potential that same-gender marriage lacks. [Furthermore,] the state could rationally and sincerely believe that children are best raised by two parents of opposite gender."

Virginia's Catholic Bishops response to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court decision: "Indeed, by its very nature this institution is ordered toward the regeneration and survival of the human race. For that reason Virginia's constitution rightly recognizes the unique contributions marriage -- the union of one man and one woman -- makes to children and to the common good."

Ignored by Lindstrom, Kelly and the bishops are not only the fact that marriage has long been open to couples who are infertile, aged, or having no intention to procreate; but also the fact that same-sex couples can also be parents. Some come to their partners with children due to previous relationships, and there is indeed nothing about same-sex orientation that ipso facto negates the parenting drive.

Besides, it's too late now for traditionalists to go back and change the marriage vows to read: "...to have and to hold babies."

Q Toon: In App Ropriate

As American media have begun to realize how boring the next two years of Democratic presidential run-off will be if Hillary Clinton is the only one running off, some have been casting around in search of potential challengers.

The loquacious former Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, was considered to be one possible rival.  That is, until he offered the National Journal his two cents on soon-to-be-former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's surprise loss in a primary race for reelection.

"Don't hold this against me, but I'm going to blurt it out. How do I say this ... men in the South, they are a little effeminate. ... They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say—and I'm fine with gay people, that's all right—but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he's not, I think, so I don't know. Again, I couldn't care less. I'm accepting."

This display of candor has effectively removed Schweitzer from presidential level consideration. I mean, you can't just go around questioning the he-manliness of every gentleman from below the Mason-Dixon line if you want to be taken seriously.

That sigh of relief you hear is from the Senior Senator from South Carolina.

Q Toon: To Have and to Holder

When I pitched this cartoon to my editors, it was because U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would give same-sex married couples "full and equal recognition, to the greatest extent under the law" relative to mixed-sex married couples. The policy shift has ramifications in cases of bankruptcy, alimony, whether one spouse can be forced to testify against the other, bereavement leave, prison visitation, and myriad other situations.

The cartoon can also apply to various states' attorneys general as well. I drew just a couple weeks ago about Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring's decision not to defend his state's marriage inequality amendment. Just this week, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto decided that current case law renders moot any defense of her state's marriage equality ban (a decision backed by the state's Republican governor, incidentally).

In my home state of Wisconsin, on the other hand, Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and the Republican running to replace him this year plan to defend mixed-sex marriage supremacy with vigor. The Democratic candidates for the office have announced that neither would defend that amendment to the state constitution.

Q Toon: Virginia Is for Loving

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D) announced last week that his office would ask a federal court to find his states constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage to be a violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution -- a 180̊ turn from his Republican predecessor, jurisprude Ken Cuccinelli.

Mr. Herring cited legal cases in which he said Virginia’s leadership had failed its residents by arguing against school desegregation in Brown v. the Board of Education, interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, and women’s admission to the Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported military college, in United States v. Virginia.
“Too many times in our history, our citizens have had to lead the way on civil rights while their leaders stood against them,” Mr. Herring said. “This will not be another instance. It is time for the commonwealth to be on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”

I've overlooked Virginia's laws against mixed-race marriage in this week's cartoon in favor of some sillier laws, even though the parallel with its laws mandating mixed-sex marriage is fairly obvious. My source for the other laws in the cartoon -- apparently still on the books -- is Dumb Laws in Virginia, where you'll find that an anti-bribery law exempts political candidates, it is illegal to hunt on Sunday unless you're after racoons, and the women of Norfolk are required to wear corsets after sundown.

Q Toon: In Goody Hands

I do not envy the voters of Virginia. The Republican gubernatorial candidate is their Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, a rabid homophobe. He still wants to enforce Virginia's anti-sodomy laws, despite their being unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas, on the grounds that they protect children -- the lack of any mention of age in the law notwithstanding.

Also notwithstanding is Virginia's age of consent -- 15 -- which is relevant here because the specific case Cuccinelli is upset about concerns a 47-year-old man, William McDonald, arrested for having consensual oral sex with two girls aged 16 and 17 at the time. Old McDonald may be guilty of being a creep, but not of statutory rape.

While anti-sodomy laws occasionally come into play in cases like McDonald's, they have been used much more often to persecute LGBT citizens. It's useful to note what Virginia's law actually criminalizes:

Virginia outlaws consensual sexual behavior between adults with 18.2-361, "Crimes against nature." This prohibits the making or consenting to such sexual contact a Class 6 felony, punishable by a term of imprisonment not less than one year nor more than five years, or a confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.
Virginia also bans voluntary sexual intercourse between unmarried persons with code section 18.2-344 - Fornication. ...
Lewd and lascivious cohabitation is also prohibited in Virginia and is punishable as a Class 3 misdemeanor upon a first successful conviction which carries a fine of not more than $500. ...

So anyway, Cuccinelli wanted the Supreme Court to engage in what conservatives otherwise call Judicial Activism by pretending that Virginia's unconstitutional anti-sodomy laws still apply when 16-to-17-year-olds (but why stop there?) are involved.

Cuccinelli decided to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that Virginia’s anti-sodomy statute has no constitutional problem, if—as he concedes, and only if—the high court would just interpret the terrifyingly broad sodomy law to apply only to sex involving 16- and 17-year-olds. (Justice Kennedy left the thread of that argument hanging in his majority opinion in Lawrence.) In effect, Cuccinelli’s legal appeal asks the Supreme Court and the lower courts to ignore the clear meaning and intent of the law, to interpret it in a way that advances narrow goals he wants to advance.
Of course, Cuccinelli’s problem at the Supreme Court is that Virginia’s sodomy statute doesn’t mention age, so reading an imaginary age requirement into it is not “interpreting” the statute so much as rewriting it.

In 2004, the year after Lawrence v. Texas, there was a bipartisan effort to update Virginia's anti-sodomy law by removing the unconstitutional provisions against adults who engage in consensual sexual acts in private (leaving public sex, prostitution and so forth as criminal acts). Mr. Cuccinelli, then in the state Senate, opposed the bill in committee and helped ensure its defeat. As he told the Virginian-Pilot in 2009, "My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural-law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that."

Still, even if you don't like Cuccinelli's obsession with gay sex, it's hard to get enthused about the Democratic alternative, party hack Terry McAuliffe. Which is exactly how Republicans get elected. Their base gets enthused about wingnuts like Cuccinelli and his running mate, E. W. Jackson. Look for a landslide Republican victory with about 92% of Virginia citizens staying home.

And bolting the bedroom door.

Qtoon: Patrick Henry They Ain't

In Virginia, the nomination of prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland to a judgeship fell short in the state legislature due to "Rule 69":

Thorne-Begland needed not just a majority of the votes cast, but a majority of the possible votes cast. Ten delegates cast "abstention" votes, and 26 delegates cast no vote at all.

Thorne-Begland’s confirmation ran into turbulence when the socially conservative Family Foundation emailed alerts on May 11 to legislators and followers that an openly gay man had been nominated for the Richmond General District Court. Thorne-Begland had spoken out for gay rights, the statement warned: “The question is, will his personal agenda take precedent over Virginia law and the Constitution?”

Opposition to Thorne-Begland's appointment -- by the Old Dominion's Republican governor -- hinged completely on the fact that he is not ashamed to be gay and in a loving family relationship -- anathema to the Christian Righteous. From a Washington Post editorial:

Twenty years ago, as a Navy lieutenant, he denounced the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on national television, an event that triggered his honorable discharge. He also served on the board of Equality Virginia, a gay advocacy group, and, with his domestic partner, is raising 7-year-old twins. ... 

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, ... -- known in Richmond as "Sideshow Bob" -- said that, as a gay man living with a domestic partner, Mr. Thorne-Begland had a lifestyle that would impede him from upholding Virginia's constitution, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. As if the nominee's sexual orientation would cripple his ability to preside over traffic cases and misdemeanors. 

Bergetoon: Pat Robertson Doesn't Want to Get Weird

Pat Robertson "doesn't want to get weird," but he just can't help it.

"Ladies and gentlemen I don’t want to get weird on this so please take it for what it’s worth. But it seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power, it has been the symbol of our great nation, we look at that monument and say this is one nation under God. Now there’s a crack in it, there’s a crack in it and it’s closed up. Is that a sign from the Lord? Is that something that has significance or is it just result of an earthquake? You judge, but I just want to bring that to your attention. It seems to me symbolic. When Jesus was crucified and when he died the curtain in the Temple was rent from top to bottom and there was a tear and it was extremely symbolic, is this symbolic? You judge."

As Pat Robertson pronouncements go, this one hardly raises an eyebrow. At least he wasn't blaming the earthquake on abortion, gay rights, or liberalism. Abortionists, gays, and liberals are not exactly running the show in Virginia politics.

On the other hand, I haven't heard what P.R. has had to say about Hurricane Irene's swath of destruction through New York and Vermont.

Last week's Virginia earthquake and Hurricane Irene spawned not just floods and tornadoes, but a whole lot of oral diarrhea and mental constipation. Take Michele Bachmann (please):

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'"

Her campaign later said that this comment was meant to be a joke. Many people failed to see the humor in it, including people who think that Michele Bachmann herself is a joke.

Fellow presidential candidate Ron Paul thinks that we should leave disaster relief to the Job Creators:

"[FEMA's] system of bureaucratic centralized economic planning... is a policy that is deeply flawed... I want to transition us out of this dependency... The whole idea of FEMA is a gross distortion of insurance. It's so far removed from the market and what insurance should be about... There is no magic about FEMA."

Not to be outdone, Glenn Beck observed that this year's disasters are further proof that the Lord wants us to hoard:

"How many warnings do you think you're going to get, and how many warnings do you deserve? ... If you've waited [to prepare and stockpile food], this hurricane is a blessing. It is a blessing. It is God reminding you — as was the earthquake last week — it's God reminding you you're not in control. Things can happen."

And what round-up of right-wing stupidity would be complete without a word from Rump Blimpaugh:

"I'll guarantee you Obama was hoping this was going to be a disaster as another excuse for his failing economy... If he's out there blaming tsunamis, if he's blaming earthquakes, and whatever natural disasters there are, this one was made to order, but it just didn't measure up."

All of which is to say that the quake and hurricane pretty much obliterated coverage of any actual LGBT news last week. (Even of Puerto Rico Senator Roberto Arango, R-NSFW, and the on-line Grindr photos of him showing off his rectal weight loss.)