Salt City Sinner

image from truthwinsout.org posted on 5/2/2015 by the Salt City Sinner Opponents of marriage equality (and LGBTQ rights in general) like to play pretend a lot. They pretend, for example, that gay or trans* people are out to “recruit,” and usually engage in cheap-shot slander by pretending that proponents of equality are recruiting children in particular. They pretend that LGBTQ identity is something that is mutable, all the while justifying discrimination and hate as a form of religious belief, when religious belief is one of the most mutable characteristics imaginable. The most hilariously illogical game of “let's pretend” that the homophobia industry plays, however, relates to the effect that marriage equality will somehow supposedly have on “traditional” (straight) marriage – that somehow, marriage is a zero-sum game , and that every same-sex couple that is allowed to marry will mean one less opposite-sex couple that can. How is this the case? Despite the fact that this...

posted on 12/23/2013 by the Salt City Sinner On Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby struck down the anti-gay-marriage amendment that Utahns passed by a large majority in 2004, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in Utah.  The ensuing flurry of activity befits the Beehive State, whose word is "industry," after all. Same-sex couples immediately began snagging their marriage licenses and tying the knot by the hundreds, with some even waiting overnight on Sunday to get their licenses when offices opened this morning. Predictably, Gary Herbert, our dour, doughy Governor, released a flotilla of legal maneuvers, all of which have failed as of the afternoon of December 23 rd , the day before the day before the holiest day of conservative Christian pouting, indignation, and public piety.  Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in these proceedings has been the decision of some county clerks – indeed, some counties in their entirety – to flat-o...

posted on 7/9/2013 by the Salt City Sinner  It’s another beautiful summer in Salt City, which has enjoyed such robust temperatures for the last few weeks that I’m half-surprised that Temple Square’s golden angel Moroni hasn’t liquefied like a doomed Rocket Pop. After my   harrowing abduction  at the hands of our first brony President, there has been plenty to keep me busy, so my apologies for the absence – rest assured that Salt City Sinner was simply biding its time, and has not gone into remission. Plenty to keep me busy, and there’s plenty to keep you busy, too, if you feel the inexplicable urge to emerge from your (hopefully) air-conditioned shelter. Here’s a quick rundown of some of my favorite upcoming events. SALT LAKE HARM REDUCTION PROJECT MEETING, 7/10/2013  The Salt Lake Harm Reduction Project is just getting started, so if you want to get in on the ground floor, come out and meet these folks. Harm reduction is an approach to drug and al...

 April 4, 2012- 6:30 PM. Citizens of Salt Lake and surrounding areas met on the stairs of the Utah State Capitol to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Fourty-Fourth anniversary of his death. A man known for his "Dream," and his untimely passing, left a true legacy. The night started out with a prayer and two lovely musical performances- a solo by Shelly Smith which brought most of the crowd to their feet singing along, and the One Voice Youth Choir, who performed "I Need Thee Every Hour." The Keynote speaker was Dr. Roderic R. Land , a member of the teaching staff at the University of Utah.  Dr. Land expressed to the crowd the importance of being involved in our local community, knowing our representatives and "being the change that we need," as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was.  To raise money for the Utah Luther King Jr. foundation, t-shirts are available at the low price of $10.00 each (although they were not sold on the Capit...

On the off chance that you do not  have a partially infected USB plug installed in the back of your head into which your brainstem receives news (and please, gods, count yourself lucky if that is the case) there is a chance you haven't heard of Trayvon Martin . The long and short of the story is this: a black teenager named Trayvon Martin (armed with an iced tea and a bag of Skittles) was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch captain named George Zimmerman. Due to some convoluted gun nut laws in Florida, where this took place, the shooter has not been charged with anything. On a personal note, this has led me to reconsider my views on personal defense laws and gun rights, but that's a story for another day. In solidarity, OccupySLC hosted the following tonight: My schedule lately has bordered on the amusing and played slap-and-tickle with the insane, but I felt I had to be there for this. I was right in my instincts. The March for Trayvon was insane . The crowd tha...

Captain America! An opportunity for community members to help their kids! Life is pretty sweet, sometimes. Captain America, whether you prefer the original flavor or the spicy new update , is a pretty impressive guy. Please, if you have children and spare time, come and experience something legendary. Captain America is nothing to sneeze at: Look at him. Manly, stately, representative of all that is best regarding "Patriotism." And yet, what is this? If you have youngsters, pack them into the minivan and get your hindquarters to the South Towne Expo Center on Saturday the 25th so they can learn to be safe, but more importantly - so they know for sure that superheroes are real, and that Captain America is there to prove it.

Yesterday morning, I was a little iffy about hauling my proverbial oats (and the proverbial oats of some guests) down I-15 to Provo to attend the anti-NDAA and anti-EEA protest there. A few people had canceled on carpooling, and the early morning was clear and bitter cold, with a sharp breeze floating through the Avenues. I shouldn't have worried. I wound up driving Greg Lambert of Crazypoliticos , my friend Jessica Lee (Twitter feed   here  , Flickr   here  ), and Jessica's friend, a polite gentleman named Tim. The trip down to Provo went very quickly, and we parked right in front of the Provo Courthouse. The day had warmed up beautifully, and there was already a small but very high-energy crowd gathered (this crowd grew in size as the afternoon progressed). A few quick words about the anti-NDAA/EEA protest. First off, "What," you may ask, "the hell are NDAA and/or EEA?" Glad you asked! A decent summary of NDAA  can be found right here . In brief...

As Utah plays the perennial Lucy to my Charlie Brown, proffering a balmy football helpfully labeled "SPRING" by the Great Editorial Cartoonist in the Sky, only to cruelly yank it away at the last moment, the season's new life *is* creeping into #Occupy. Not that #Occupy has been asleep at the switch - only yesterday, #OccupyOakland attracted enough attention from the police to earn the now-traditional " Greetings Citizen, We've Noticed You " gift basket of non-lethal gadgetry. No, sir, #Occupy have been busy little bees; it is I who have been remiss in reporting on domestic protest movements. It's an unforgivable lapse, really, but I've been busy traveling to L.A . and evangelizing about potatoes , while going to class part-time/online and tumbling head over heels down a rabbit hole of deepening interest in the occult. Anyhow. As always, #OccupySLC's hub page can be found   here  . Facebook discussion forum complete with 6,000% of your ...

Here in the United States of America, we like to "privatize" things. The short definition of this phenomenon is that services usually provided by the State - public roads, public schools, and, unfortunately, prisons - are increasingly being farmed out to for-profit corporations, who "can do the job more efficiently." Whether this is actually true is up for debate, but in at least some cases - perhaps most notably schools and prisons, those great institutional workhouses of ideology - "efficient" generally means "worse for human beings." Two companies in particular, the amusingly sinister-sounding (and genuinely terrifying)  Corrections Corporation of America  ... ...and the more placidly named GEO Group , are the heavy hitters in the incarceration game. The investors in these cutting edge experiments in human degradation and the commodification of suffering include Wells Fargo, Fidelity, General Electric, the usual gang. A siz...

To celebrate Christmas, #OccupySLC hosted a potluck dinner today at the One World Cafe, located at 40 S. 300 E. in downtown Salt Lake City.. For those of you unfamiliar with the One World Cafe and/or Everybody Eats Foundation, here's a bit-sized morsel from their mission statement : [One World Cafe] began when owner Denise Cerreta in mid-2003 had an epiphany to serve food, let people choose their own portions and let them price those portions themselves...Because our customers choose their own prices, their portions tend to be more mindful and reflect what they actually want to eat, with the result being little or no food waste. We've realized that this makes more food available and we expect this will make the concept exportable and adaptable worldwide.  Much like the Circle-A Cafe / kitchen operation at #OccupySLC's original base camp in Pioneer Park, OWC seems, at first blush, like a silly idealistic notion that could never survive the harsh and brutal reali...