doit, doit now!

So in my last post I posted a letter my cousin wrote to me after I got married. As you might imagine after reading it, I was livid, and I weighed on whether or not to answer him. I decided I should. I am not one to take being called a sinner lightly, especially by another sinner, Mr. Glass House. My (long) response, after the jump:

Update 12/17/2008 02:25 AM: I have also decided to license of this letter (perhaps presumptorily) with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License. Details are at the bottom of the post.
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One of my cousins felt compelled to write me after I got married and tell me what his understanding of the Catholic Church’s position on gay marriage is. I found it considerably offensive even though it was couched in the language of “Christian love.” I took his name out to protect the not-so-innocent. His letter follows after the jump:

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So apparently Ford has dropped its advertising from LGBT publications after threat of a boycott from the deceptively-named American Family Association. Ford is claiming that “it’s purely for economic reasons,” but I have a hard time believing that. Something tells me that white trash Bible-thumpers from Mississippi aren’t buying nearly as many Land Rovers and Jaguars as LGBT’s are (speaking of which, I think it’s a good idea for the LGBT community to take back the word “family” from the hate-mongers and use it to represent our community).

And thus my letter:

Dear Ford Motor Company:

I have been considering the purchase of a new car from you for several months now. The Escape Hybrid is a pretty nice machine, and it offers basically everything I have been looking for in an automobile.

However, I won’t be buying one. Or any other Ford vehicle, for that matter.

I am extremely displeased with your bowing to the pressure of the American Family Association and the rest of the extreme Radical Right’s demands about not advertising in gay publications. While I can’t back up this assertion with fact, I would bet that the percentage of gay people buying Land Rovers and Jaguars is a lot higher than the percentage of Mississipian Radical Right people. Since I have many friends who own (but who will undoubtedly soon be getting rid of) Jaguars and Land Rovers, I think you may find that caving to the demands of the Hate Lobby will cost Ford a lot more in lost business than standing up for what is right.

But economic reasons aside, I find it morally reprehensible that your company has decided that the politics of hate has generated enough fear in you to bend your will. This country, and your company, are made up of a wide range of people from all walks of life, and that diversity is necessary for a healthy society and for a successful company. Kowtowing to hate is disrespectful to your LGBT employees, shareholders, and to humanity in general.

It is very sad that you will bow to the pressure of those who espouse hateful policies instead of leading by example and telling these groups that their views are not acceptable in civilized society.

You may think you have avoided a boycott, but I think you have instead created a much worse one.

Sincerely,

Nick Hodulik

The Kansas state school board voted to teach Intelligent Design. The odd thing about Intelligent Design is that it is inherently a contradiction — if there really is an Intelligent Designer, how do people stupid enough to come up with Intelligent Design in the first place ever come to exist?

I wrote to some of the directors who voted for it. You can too! Tell them what morons they are: Kansas State Department of Education

Hey Steve and John-
Thanks for voting in the New Dark Ages! Now Kansas will be even more backwater than it is currently, and the students of Kansas have you guys to thank! Great job!

In christ,
Nick

You go, girl. Smack those propagandist bitches up. Yeah, I know it’s a canned response. What matters is that she is on it.

Dear Mr. Hodulik:

Thank you for contacting me to request my support for legislation now pending in the U.S. Senate.

I hope you will be happy to know that because I share your support for this measure, I have signed on as a cosponsor.

Because California is such a large and diverse state, it is especially important to know the concerns of my constituents. Please be assured that your opinions have been recorded, and that I will certainly do all I can to move this issue forward in the coming months.

For additional information about my activities in the U.S. Senate, please visit my website, http://boxer.senate.gov. From this site, you can access statements and press releases that I have issued about current events and pending legislation, request copies of legislation and government reports, and receive detailed information about the many services that I am privileged to provide for my constituents. You may also wish to visit http://thomas.loc.gov to track current and past legislation.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me.

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

I write my elected representatives all the time and have decided to start posting my letters to them. I urge you to do the same. Feel free to copy my letters in their entirety and send them to your elected representatives. Their contact info can be found here. For Californians, Barbara Boxer is here and Diane Feinstein is here.

Dear Senator Boxer/Feinstein:

A September 30 Government Accountability Office report makes it clear that the Bush administration violated federal law by using taxpayer funds to create “covert propaganda.” This is not the first time that the GAO found the administration in violation of the publicity and propaganda prohibition.

Previous GAO investigations found other instances where the White House broke federal law prohibiting the use of “fake news.” A separate report by members of the House Committee on Government Reform found that the administration has set aside a quarter billion in taxpayer dollars for similar publicity campaigns.

These reports suggest that the executive branch is siphoning taxpayer money to covertly manipulate the Fourth Estate. It’s our money. We have a right to know how it’s being used.

Perhaps more importantly, I ask that you support The Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967) in its original incarnation. Businesses that produce covert propaganda for our government have managed to get members of the Senate to alter the language in the original bill to favor not disclosing the source of every single “fake news” video news release (VNR) that they produce.

The original bill mandated that companies that produce VNR’s must put clear notification across the entire VNR that the “news” was actually cooked by the government, and that this notification cannot be removed. The VNR industry has managed to change the language of the bill so that only a short notification of being “cooked” would be mandated. Since many cash-strapped newsrooms use only short clips from the VNR’s, the American people are oftentimes not notified that they are being fed covert propaganda. The VNR industry would obviously like it to stay that way.

This cannot be allowed to happen. The American People should unequivocally know whether or not the “news” that they are watching is real or is being fed to them by the government. How can we have a Free Press when the government is doing its own reporting on itself?

Please support the original spirit of the bill and use your influence to urge other Senators to do so as well.

Sincerely,

Nick Hodulik

This all has to do with these obnoxious PR companies that produce propaganda for our government and send out the “video news releases” to television stations. The stations often show the VNR’s unedited and with no indication that the release is government propaganda. More info can be found here on PRWatch.

Without being glib, this is precisely what Hitler did during WWII, except that by that point the government owned all of the media outlets, as well. Germany didn’t have a so-called “Free Press” and thus no expectation of truth from their news. Even in the era of Fox/Faux News I still expect to know when our government is using our own tax dollars to lie to us through the media. The Truth in Broadcasting Act requires it.

Please write your elected reps today.