Rally Day

Today in Salt Lake City, President Bush had come out to be the keynote speaker at the national American Legion convention. Yesterday V.P. Cheney and Secretary Rice came out and spoke. Condolezza Rice is just a cool woman on all counts in my book. I'd agree to have her three-headed love child, if my wife would let me.

With all large scale public figures comes large scale controversy. I'm cool with that. People should be able to express themselves in public forums. It's a basic tenet of the Constitution. But when it comes to self-expression, we also need to be careful how we do it. Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City's bone-headed mayor, hasn't figured that out yet.

Here we have the President of the United States, his V.P. and the Secretary of State all coming to Utah to speak. This isn't something that happens every day. It's a very cool thing, no matter who is in office. They've been invited as guests, by our guests - the American Legion. Needless to say, the Legion has paid large sums of money into the Salt Lake City coffers, so far, in the form of hotel and convention space rentals, not to mention the restaurants. Instead of welcoming these people, as Salt Lake City's mayor, a representative of the citizens of Utah's capital city, Rocky has chosen to actively organize a protest against President Bush. He somehow feels that he can step aside as the mayor for the day, neglecting his mayoral responsibilities, and act as a "regular citizen."

Because of his actions, a lot of other groups have taken notice and are coming out. Some of them are coming out of the closet. There are rallies everywhere today. Some are in defense of the President, some as a show of support for our troops. There's even going to be a rock concert called "Rock Against Rumsfeld" tonight. As much as I like live music, I think I'm going to give this one a "miss." I can't stand guitar-driven pontification.

There's one group that has just got my goat, though. It's a Baptist group that's threatened to fly in from one of the southern states (I forget which) to appear at the funeral of a Salt Lake City Marine, Adam Galvez. He died while serving in Iraq, struck down by an IED. It turns out that he may also have been gay. This group is coming down to protest gays in the military, at the funeral, saying that "God struck him down."

I don't care what your feelings are about homosexuals and their inclusion in the military. This kind of behavior is vile. This Marine's poor family doesn't need you to hoist your crap over their private (and sacred) service honoring their lost son. Shame on you, you hypocritical twits. How dare you disturb this family in this way. How dare you call yourselves Christians, all the while proclaiming that God is a terrorist. You want blasphemy? Look in the mirror. I have no patience for such filth. UPDATE: This group was a no show, thank goodness. Maybe they read my blog. . . nah.

(Okay, John. Take a few deep breathes.)

Other than that, I have no strong feelings about it.

Okay. I'm going to go take a walk and calm down now.