This week's Q Syndicate cartoon/s

Voters in the states of Maine and Washington will go to the polls on November 3 to approve or rescind legislation passed by their representatives and signed by their governors. In Maine, the ballot question seeks to overturn marital equality; in Washington, religious conservatives want to overturn domestic partnership benefits.

I couldn't jigger this week's cartoon to account for both situations, but the magic of photoshop makes it possible to do two nearly identical cartoons without having to draw two actual cartoons.

So here's the Washington state version of the cartoon:

To my mind, the religious conservatives in Washington give evidence that their fight has nothing whatsoever to do with "preserving the sanctity of marriage," since same-sex couples in that state still have no right to marry. The issue for them is now, and always has been, punishing homosexuals for not being heterosexuals.

Back from vacation

I've been vacationing in Italy the past couple of weeks, but now I'm back. Here's this week's Q Syndicate cartoon:

For those who don't pay attention to right-wing media: Sean Hannity, the Washington Moon Star, Rush Limbaugh, and the usual Christianist lobbies have begun a smear campaign against "Safe Schools Czar" Kevin Jennings based on his career as an activist for LGBT issues in education. In particular, they are attempting to link Jennings to pedophilia through the tenuous argument that Jennings once praised gay rights pioneer Harry Hay, and Hay once expressed some support for including NAMBLA in the gay rights struggle.

Other smears include a discredited claim that Jennings once counseled a 15-year-old boy to continue a sexual relationship with an adult man, and criticism that Massachusetts safe sex materials included advice on fisting among various other sexual practices.

Here, Media Matters takes on right-wing smears of Kevin Jennings.

One other side note: Jennings's actual title is not "Czar" but "Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools." The position was created by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; Jennings is the third person to hold the post, after Eric G. Andell and Deborah A. Price. He took office in July.

This Week's Q Cartoon

The school bus video behind this cartoon is one of those flash-in-the-pan stories, so the cartoon might be a little tardy. Rush Limbaugh, for one, seized on the incident to make some bizarre argument about how liberals or President Obama or Van Jones or ACORN or whatever have made it okay for black kids to beat up white kids on the way to school. (A detail that I saw only on CBS's Early Show was that it was a black student who broke up the fight.)

It's good to see that right wingers have finally come around on the topic of bullying. When gay or gay-perceived students and their parents have called for anything to be done, right wingers have sided with the bullies.

This week's Racine Post cartoon

Jeffrey Thomas passed away on September 16 in Footville, Wisconsin at age 69. The retired orthopedist ran for Congress seven times in Wisconsin's first congressional district, winning the Democratic primaries in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. He never got more than 37% of the vote in the general election.

To be fair, he never got any support from the Democratic party, either. I'm not privy whether it was because the party never thought he had a chance of winning, or whether it was a question of his stands on any issue; I understood him to be against abortion rights, and he didn't come from a union background. But it's hard to ignore the fact that the legislature carved a solidly Republican district out of our formerly swing district in 2002 as part of a bipartisan agreement to protect all of Wisconsin's incumbent congressional representatives.

At any rate, I've been to some Racine Democratic Party events in election years and there was never the slightest evidence that there was any congressional race on the ballot at all. Not one yard sign. Not one bumper sticker. Not one sign-up sheet. The Democrats have usually rented office space downtown. Jeff Thomas's campaign office (the year that I found it) was in a corner grocery store in a rundown neighborhood a mile away.

Somehow, for some reason, Dr. Thomas never gave up. There were five candidates on the ballot for the Democratic nomination in 2008, a couple of whom attracted brief attention by MoveOn.org and the Daily Kos. But Thomas won the nomination again. A few hand-painted yard signs were the only indication thereafter that he was still in the running. Republican incumbent Paul Ryan, with no shortage whatsoever of campaign funds and no competition in advertising or media attention, won the November election without breaking a sweat.

Rest In Peace, Jeffrey Thomas.

Or, How To Speak Southern?

Outing blogger Mike Rogers has reported allegations that South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer is a closeted gay man. The rumors could doom the career of the 40-year-old bachelor, but may be just the thing to save Governor Mark Sanford from impeachment.

On the other hand, South Carolina legislators may prefer that Sanford be succeeded by someone they can imagine themselves trouncing in the next election.

The last time I drew S.C. Governor Mark Sanford...

The last time I drew South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford...

... most of the country had never heard of him.

Old link I just stumbled upon

I had no idea at the time, but a 2008 cartoon of mine caught the attention of Dan Froomkin, late of the Washington Post, at the very end of this article. As I recall, I was not the only person to make the semantic observation about "timetables" vs. "time horizons" for troop withdrawals from Iraq.

This is the cartoon:

(click here to view)

Paul Berge Racine PostJul 24, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com