In this past week, first Canada's parliament, then the Spanish parliament approved national legislations granting same sex couples the right to marry, and all the individual and social rights, and responsibilities that come with it. In short, the two countries fulfilled a promise of equal rights under the law for gay people. Good on them. As a gay American, it is heartening to see the winds of change bringing about a kinder, gentler, more just world. But some are not happy. The fringe fundamentalist right wing of this country - the people who control the GOP party apparatus - are hell bent on setting back progress. In state after state, they are proposing State Constitutional amendments to ban their fellow Americans from enjoying equal justice under the law. Lest you think I am talking about everyone who are influenced by these people, I am not. I am talking about people who use their position of influence to spread hatred rather than celebrating diversity. These despicable people are waging a war. A war on love. Love is sacred in America. Commitment is sacred in America. Yet the fundamentalist fringe right wing has decided to stand against those sacred values, instead favoring hatred, bigotry, and discrimination. The question naturally arises then, why are they waging a war on love? Why? Because they do not care about their fellow Americans. All they care about is gaining a position of influence and pushing their crooked moral code down the throats of a free and open society. In other words they want to turn our free society into a fascist, communist like controlled experiment. That's right. I called them fascists and communists. It is long past time somebody called them on their crap. So in essence, the very qualities that make us human - separate us from beast - compassion, understanding, and care - are lost from the fringe right wing people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Jerry Falwell when it comes to their fellow Americans who happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Make no mistake, their war on love is not based on conscience, but rather on convenience. In order to stop people from uniting around the great common cause that America is, they need a scapegoat. Their predecessors made African Americans and women that scapegoat. They make us their scapegoat - us gay Americans. They tell their audience how Americans who fall in love (in their opinion, with the "wrong people") are sinful, and they pride themselves on beating up on Americans whose only crime is that they want to fall in love. Whose only fault is that they want to spend the rest of their lives in the arms of someone they love. By waging a war on love, by lying and misleading, they exploit their position of influence to gain power over the lives of ordinary Americans. Remember that the virtues by which God is expressed are love and grace. It is not God they want to serve, but rather it is themselves they want you to serve. And that's why they wage a war. A war on love. Gay Americans are part of the American family. We serve in the Armed Forces protecting the freedoms every American enjoys, we serve in public offices, we are janitors, doctors, lawyers, nurses, office clerks, web designers, electricians, plumbers, construction workers, programmers, police, firefighters, educators and students. We care for the sick, and we serve you dinner. We fight for your rights in a Court of Law, and we give you advice on banking. We pay our taxes, and we pay our bills. We fly the flag, and we fly airplanes. We work hard and we play by the rules. We take care of our loved ones, our families and our friends. We go out to movies. We have fun. We worry about our loved ones in the hospital. We laugh. We cry. We make faces. We hug. Some of us color our hair - blonde, brown, black, green! We watch TV. We root for our favorite team. We spill coffee on ourselves. We fight like old married couples. Then we make up. We fall in love. We even fall out of love, and then back in. Gay Americans are your fellow Americans. We are regular people, just like you. You are our family, and we are yours. We love you. Let us Americans come together in our big family and stop the GOP party machine's war on love.

The Boston Globe is reporting that there will be a press conference and photo-op today with the Democratic Congressional leadership and Democratic party Chairman Howard Dean.  Originally it was scheduled as a private meeting between Dean, Reid and the senate Democratic leadership, but the press misquoting Howard Dean and misquoting other Democrats about Howard Dean has gotten to the point where Democrats are going to set the record straight.  Good for them.

And I am so tired of hearing that big money Democratic donors are put off by Howard Dean.  For those who care, that is exactly the point!  The days when a few big money donors controlled the DNC's bank account and thus the Democrats' fate around this country are over.  You hear me, Mr. DLC-Wannabe?  It's over.  Ordinary Americans are taking back control of their party, $25 at a time.  You are still welcome to donate big sums to the DNC if you want to create a better America.  But gone are the days when you got to tell the Democratic party what it stood for and what it could and couldn't fight for.  The party is returning to its roots under Dean's leadership.  There is also another dimention to this.  Under Dean's leadership and his state-reinvigoration program, the DLC Democratic Beltway elite can no longer control the party's money.  It is going where it's needed, and it does not need a permission slip from Joe Biden.  That's the big concern of the DINO's (Democrats in name only).  Dean isn't raising less money; he is just not beholden to these elites.  Howard Dean is making sure that the Beltway stops running the show, and that Democrats in states and localities have what they need to win elections.  So if you care about the party, we thank you for your donation.  But if you want any favors other than a stronger Democratic party and a better America for that check, we can help you find the door.

But there was this bit of fun stuff - other than all the stuff about Democrats defending Dean's performance as chair and blasting GOP for trying to make Dean the issue instead of the American people (no wonder, huh?) - Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, on the senate floor, made these comments: ''If I didn't know how bright he [Howard Dean] was, I'd call him a raving idiot."  I laugh.  You have no idea how how bright Howard Dean is, Mr. Hatch.  He isn't keeping up his attack on the corrupt Republican party so that he can keep earning the scorn of Republicans and some Democrats.  He is doing it because he figured out this: the American people like a man whose every remark isn't prepared.  They like a guy who doesn't run away from answering tough questions.  They like a guy who says what he thinks and treats people like adults.  They don't have to agree with him all the time, but they know he is a no-bullshit kind of a guy who isn't going to insult their intelligence by making politically crafted niceties.  But Mr. Hatch, there is another angle.  You see, Howard Dean is happy to have you and your bunch barking up his tree all day long.  He is happy because then he can show the American people that what he's been saying is in fact the truth: you Republicans don't care about working people.  You would rather whine about Howard Dean than talk about healthcare.  That's how smart he is.  He is so brilliant that he is peeling off layers of political clothing from your party and exposing it naked for what it is in the public square, and you don't even know it!

Agh!  Two potential Democratic presidential contenders in 2008 has given the first indication they are running.  They are bashing, you guessed it, Howard Dean.  Meet the don't-call-Republicans-on-their-shit Democrats: John Edwards.  Joseph Biden.

The Washington Post is reporting that the two Democrats that it's 2004 again: the way to Democrats' heart is through badmouthing Howard Dean!  Biden said " I don't think he [Howard Dean] speaks for the majority of Democrats."  Edwards: "The chairman of the DNC is not the spokesman for the party."  Can I please remind the two beltway boys that the rest of America can't afford to run the same way Washington, DC is?  And if Howard Dean - the chairman of the party (there are around 72 million registered Democrats, according to USA Today)- does not speak for the majority of Democrats, what makes a senator from Delaware (population 800,000) think that he does?  And where does John Edwards - yeah yeah, son of a mill-worker, I know - get off yapping about who the spokesman for the party is?  In the absence of a Democratic president, if there is ONE spokesman for the party, it is the Chairman of the party.  Elected representatives of every day Democrats put Howard Dean in the seat of DNC chair.  He is the spokesman of the party, and he is the voice.  Who exactly does John Edwards think he represents, Mr. Former senator and Mr. I-will-beat-Bush-in-my-backyard who couldn't win his home state for the Democratic ticket?  Understandably, Howard Dean does not represent beltway Democrats, but that's not his job.  The beltway boys have never seen Howard as a good thing for them, and they can't wait to bash him.  You have a disagreement with how the party chairman is presenting himself, say so.  But don't presume the role of the party boss when the party grassroots have given that job to someone else!

Of course, Howard Dean doesn't speak for the party simply or only because he is the DNC chair.  That's the reason he is the spokesman of the party on paper.  This was the first time in a long time that grassroots of the party - every day Democrats - decided who would be the chair, not the party elite in DC.  So here's my message to the party elite: shut your trap, stop your knee-jerk reaction, and try to listen to what your chairman is saying.  Because Howard Dean is not just w-a-y more in touch with every day Americans, he is genuinely more interested in winning elections than circling the town in a limo and hogging the spotlight.  He is organizing the party county by county, state by state.  If one of you boys win the presidency in 2008, you will literally owe your victory to him.  Just open your eyes (that are now wide shut) and see the amazing work Dean is doing for Democrats, and say "thank you." If you think we need to be "nice" to the corrupt leadership that is destroying this country, I can tell you where to shove your niceties.