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From the "too weird to believe unless you see it for yourself" file...

JESUS was GAY - according to the gospel of SIR ELTON JOHN.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead."

Maybe because, Elton, those countries that kill gays are not Christian. They are Muslim, Koranic, Muhammedean, Sharia Law sorts.

Sheesh. Does AIDS fry one's brain? Anyone? Elfie?

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Forty years ago the U.S.A., we, Americans, put men on the moon. I watched that on a black-and-white TV in a gathering of family and in the company of friends. That was an accomplishment, a high point in U.S. history. We went back and forth, to and from the moon for the next six years. Apollo ended in 1975, and Man hasn't strayed past earth orbit since.

Yesterday, Man (granted, a small subset of Man, in a rapidly decaying U.S. city) carried on an episode of strangeness that marks our societal decline...

2 cruisers lead Jackson mementos to cemetery

Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Two hearses jammed with stuffed animals left in memory of Michael Jackson were given a two-car police escort Friday to the toys' burial at Woodlawn Cemetery, leaving police officials highly critical of the decision afterward. ...

At the cemetery, the toys were unloaded from the tops of the hearses and from boxes inside the vehicles. They were then placed into clear plastic bags and then inside donated vaults.

The cemetery donated the equivalent of three graves for the vaults. A donated gravestone also detailed the singer's impact on the music industry and the world.

Jackson's songs played over speakers as a service was held. "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" played as the hearses arrived and "Ben" as the service ended. ...

An exhibit will be established at the museum honoring Jackson, and some of the items left in his memory will be put on display, Smith said.

Timothy Vick of Ferndale brought a photo Friday he took of the singer in 1989. He said Jackson left a mark on his life.

"I think I cried more for him than when some family members passed," Vick said.

Let me get this straight…Americans buried (in 3 plots no less!) stuffed animals? Because…why? A perfect example of an exercise in symbolism over substance. Those stuffed toys belonged in a dump or an incinerator, not buried in a cemetery.

If I wasn't sure before that the U.S.A is in a terminal, Romanesque sort of shrivelly decline, then this episode would seal it.

We go, in some 40 short years, from putting Americans on the moon to burying Michael Jackson’s stuffed memorial toys. Points on a line that’s on a negative slope.

Hey, why can’t we turn this around and make Michael Jackson’s incipient burial not an otherwise mindless display of further strangeness, but symbolic of burying child molestation forever?

At least Michael Jackson’s lifetime craziness would finally end with some real accomplishment. Instead of...

Jermaine Jackson: 'Michael should not be buried next to bad people'

Michael Jackson's brother, Jermaine, is fighting to prevent the singer being buried in a public cemetery alongside "bad people".

...further degredations.
h/t Darleen Click @ Protein Wisdom

Stifle it, bitches. Your President feels the same way about same-sex marriage as Carrie Prejean; you can't change that, and your wining snit-fits and temper tantrums aren't getting the job done. Hate it for you.

Donald Trump on Miss California: Same as Barack Obama

President Barack Obama ended up in the middle of an unlikely controversy this morning — the debate over Miss California’s position on gay marriage.

At a press conference addressing Carrie Prejean’s disputed title in the Miss USA competition, pageant owner Donald Trump compared Prejean’s stated views on gay marriage to Obama’s.

“It's the same answer that the president of the United States gave,” Trump said. “She gave an honorable answer. She gave an answer from her heart.”

In her own remarks moments later, Prejean echoed Trump’s statement, telling reporters: “The president of the United States, the secretary of state, and many Americans agree with me in this belief.”

Now, this next is just...weird. From yesterday's Leaf-Chronicle (I saw the Clarksville paper; this was the lead story on page A-1...

State marries same-sex couple

ID says woman but in jail as man; state says gender cannot change

Phillips and Rittenberry are the first same-sex marriage in Tennessee.

Rittenberry, 46, and Phillips, 33, met through a hot-line service and legally wed in November 2007

Oh, and the hilarity does ensue. You'll have to visit that article, look at the grinning bride's photo. It seems that she was a he, she had some kind of surgery, but the surgery obviously didn't get...everything.

Rittenberry was born a man but identifies as a woman and claims to have had sex reassignment surgery. Although Rittenberry's Tennessee driver's license and Kentucky birth certificate say "female," both the Montgomery County Jail and the clinic where Rittenberry claims to have had surgery insist that Rittenberry is still biologically a man.

You'd think at some point during the honeymoon that the groom might notice something's not exactly, you know, right, but he's not exactly sure of what's supposed to go where. What a pain in the ass that must be...

"The marriage is real to me," Rittenberry said in a jail interview. "I could care less about the system. I just wanted me and Jeff to be together. He wanted to marry me and I said 'yes.'"

Well, that's fine I suppose, but I still wonder what's up with the extra pieces. I think a lawsuit is in order..."Doc, you tole me that junk was fixed!"

The same-sex marriage of Rittenberry, also known as Terri Jo Colby, and Phillips took officials by surprise and demonstrates that in Tennessee, gender identification is often a matter of trust.

Well, and eyesight. At some point the Kroger sacks have to come off.

And the poor officials at the County Clerk's office?

"In all honesty, women look like men and men look like women ... so whatever the ID says, we take it as what they are."

Yeah. Glad I don't hang around that County Clerk's office, I'd never keep a meal down.

Farmer said he has never heard of a case like this and expects an investigation to take place.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall when that goes down.

Rittenberry claims to have had a male-to-female genital reassignment surgery in 2003 at the clinic of Dr. Pierre Brassard and Yvon Menard in Montreal, Canada.

Brigitte Morin, medical secretary at the clinic, said in a phone interview that Rittenberry was on file as a patient at the clinic under the name Terry Jo Colby. But, she said, no sex reassignment operation was performed and no documentation was given to Rittenberry verifying such a surgery.

"Turn around three times and click you heels, dear. Now, off you go!"

What about the, you know, "Jail" experience?

Rittenberry was booked in the jail on March 19, charged with domestic assault against a relative and criminal impersonation stemming from allegations of credit card fraud in 2004.

Criminal impersonation. Well, s/he's got that figured out.

Medical personnel at the jail conducted a physical and identified Rittenberry as a man.

"What's that hanging thingy for, again?"

"He still has male genitalia, and as far as the state of Tennessee is concerned and the jail is concerned, he's still a man," Denny said. "He will be treated like a man — with respect — but he has to be treated like a man because all documentation points to his male gender from birth."

That's edgy. And cruel. Can't you just take someone at their word, anymore?

Rittenberry is in isolation for protection.

NO! Tell me it ain't so!

"In a facility like ours or any prison facility, when you have someone to fall in that category, he could be taken advantage of," Denny said. "He is in isolation to keep from being injured or someone hurting him."

Ya think?

Saturday evening, following inmate visitation, Phillips, Rittenberry's husband, sat on the steps of the jail smoking a Marlboro.

He calmly said that from his understanding, Rittenberry did have sex reassignment.

"To me, she's a woman," Phillips said.

He said when he married Rittenberry, he knew Rittenberry was transgender.

When asked if Rittenberry had male or female genitalia, Phillips paused and repeated, "To me, she's a woman."

Still a pain in the ass, I'll warrant.

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UPDATE: Tennessee Voids Marriage of Transgender Couple.

Oh. This.

His (whatever) "Cheerleader" photo.



Now I'm really ill.

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