US Supreme Court Strikes down DOMA

[Swift]

Tangentially related, that's one hell of a cover that the New Yorker has.

Awesome!

[geonuc]

Tangentially related, that's one hell of a cover that the New Yorker has.

Awesome!

Indeed.

[pumpkinpi]

They are not a gay couple who can finally get married. They are puppets. Their relationship was modeled after the puppeteers who originated them. They are in a perpetual state between boyhood and manhood. They live on their own yet refer to when they are old enough to go to School. And every now and then Ernie has had a crush on a female guest.
Of course, if Sesame Workshop introduces gay characters I would be fine with it. But it is irrelevant to this relationship. It's like the Mayan Apocalypse. Years ago Someone misinterpreted it in a book, and its been repeated enough that now people believe it to be true .

I'm writing this as my Kids watch Sesame street. What a wonderful show.

[SciFi Chick]

Now I understand why Thumper used the word eviscerated..

[Swift]

I understand all that pp. I understand that Bert and Ernie are asexual and are just characters.

It just amuses me to no end that certain conservative political commentators think there is some hidden liberal media brainwashing in everything, such as Sesame Street, and I love that this cartoon pokes at that.

[Swift]

Now I understand why Thumper used the word eviscerated..

I am amused that Question 30 on that test is not a grammatical sentence. The State of Louisiana failed its own test (one wrong answer fails).

[The Supreme Canuck]

I understand all that pp. I understand that Bert and Ernie are asexual and are just characters.

It just amuses me to no end that certain conservative political commentators think there is some hidden liberal media brainwashing in everything, such as Sesame Street, and I love that this cartoon pokes at that.

Exactly. We know they're not intended to be gay characters. The cover pokes fun at the joke that they are gay (and that they're closeted), while saying something profound about the court's decision.

Now, changing gears... looking at that "literacy" test, the most egregious question is number 20. Remember that there would be a white guy standing there who decides if the answers are right or not - there was no answer key with correct answers on it. That's a problem when it comes to this question, since the wording is ambiguous. It can be interpreted to mean either of the following:

Spell "backwards," forwards.
Spell backwards, "forwards."

Which means if you wrote "backwards" the white guy could say that you should have written "forwards." And vice versa; no matter what you write, your answer is wrong.

[FZR1KG]

Pretty sure that test is a fake.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Why do you say that?

[SciFi Chick]

I see nothing to indicate that it's a fake, unless you think the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement are lying?

[FZR1KG]

I've never seen any official government paperwork that has no governmental seal.
Nothing to say where it comes from other than text.
No letterhead, no stamp, no reference numbers, nothing.

Makes me pretty suspicious.

[Sigma_Orionis]

The parallel between the two are most probably very murky (since it was repealed by an act of the US congress, not the US supreme court) but: all this hoopla about the voting rights act, has this weird taste that reminds me of the hoopla about repealing Glass-Steagall. We all know how that ended up don't we? (at least this time it shouldn't affect me directly.....)

[The Supreme Canuck]

I've never seen any official government paperwork that has no governmental seal.
Nothing to say where it comes from other than text.
No letterhead, no stamp, no reference numbers, nothing.

Makes me pretty suspicious.

From the article:

This test—a word-processed transcript of an original—was added by Jeff Schwartz, who worked with the Congress of Racial Equality in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, in the summer of 1964.

This is a scan of the original (PDF). It can be found here.

The test is legit. No, it doesn't have official seals or whatever, but this was the Louisiana state government in 1964. Plus, this was a test - not the sort of thing to get a seal. Besides which, the source (Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement) is unimpeachable on this.

Honestly, FZ, I imagine that your incredulity here is because the whole thing sounds ridiculous, not because you think the document looks fake - no way that any government in the US could treat people this way!

I assure you that they could, and did.

[FZR1KG]

TSC, SFC, have a look at this link, note it is the same site that shows the test you all read.

http://www.crmvet.org/info/la-test.htm

The link above shows two tests, the 1963 test and this one, the questionable 1964 test.

Have a look at the test for 1963.
It looks legitimate.
It has the legalise, instructions to the examiner, it has page numbers, form numbers, space for who was tested, who did the testing, room for signatures, dates, official codes on certain pages etc.
While it could have been faked as well, it has the things that would be expected to be found on official government paperwork.

Now look at the one that is being claimed as 1964.

Nothing similar at all. The questions are different entirely. There is not even a hint of any officialness to it. Not a trace.

If I had to decide if it was an actual governmental paper I would say not a hope in hell.
I would however totally believe it was someone's idea of a joke written a long time ago.

Till I get some form of proof, I'll have to say its a fake.
It has nothing tangible on it that would indicate a real test.
The only thing it has going for it is that people are all to ready to accept its legitimacy because a lot of shit happened back then, that this was just another case of it. But the reality is, it has nothing to say its real other than the person who submitted it.

Damn, even in the Roman era official paperwork was marked in some way to show authenticity.
Centuries later and we are accepting unmarked, unauthorised, un sealed, unsigned questionable documents as official government documents?

Nope, I'm not buying it. Not without proof, when it hasn't even the least bit of "officialness" to it.
I can't prove it to be a fake, but they really need to prove it as an original official document.

Hope that makes sense.

[FZR1KG]

The test is legit. No, it doesn't have official seals or whatever, but this was the Louisiana state government in 1964. Plus, this was a test - not the sort of thing to get a seal. Besides which, the source (Veterans of the Southern Freedom Movement) is unimpeachable on this.

Everyone makes mistakes at some point. I can't accept that they are right when they show nothing to indicate that they are.
I may as well believe in the Bible if that were the case.

Honestly, FZ, I imagine that your incredulity here is because the whole thing sounds ridiculous, not because you think the document looks fake - no way that any government in the US could treat people this way!

I assure you that they could, and did.

Oh I believe that there was a lot of bad shit done back then and even now.
I just won't accept that anything thrown in is also true based on things far worse happening then, unless it has some proof.
This has nothing. No proof, not even anything that would indicate official paperwork.
There just isn't any.

But if we are going to address it, I want to know why a really good official version exists for the year prior and all trace of officiality is gone a year later.
The two have nothing in common with each other either.

I could even accept that in some town an asshole council put up their own version without anything tying them to it, for deniability.
But to accept that the state issued this state wide. Nope. I can't stretch my reality that far.
All state wide government paper work will have something official to trace it back to it being legitimate.

[SciFi Chick]

One of the reasons I think it might be legit, is the fact that there was a gubernatorial election that year, and a racist segregationist won. This was right on the heels of Kennedy's assassination.

Here are the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_ ... n,_1963-64

[FZR1KG]

One of the reasons I think it might be legit, is the fact that there was a gubernatorial election that year, and a racist segregationist won. This was right on the heels of Kennedy's assassination.

Here are the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_ ... n,_1963-64

If you read about him further you'll note that he wasn't that racist considering the era, certainly not as much as some other candidates.
e.g. during his term he appointed two black judges, the first black judges in Louisiana.
He looked to me like a politician that sat on the fence to get votes rather than an extremist.
A true racist would never appoint black judges for example.

He won over a complete racist and segregationist. So the election wasn't as slam dunk about race as some would have us believe.
He did however support segregation and used that as a one platform for winning the election.

In any case, its not about the governor at the time.
Its about the lack of anything tangible that shows the alleged test in question as a legitimate state government document.
I still see nothing to support that position.