COMMENT: Obama supports same-sex marriage

It's something that few thought they'd hear from an American President, and particularly not one who is known for being involved in a fairly evangelical church, but Obama coming out in support of same-sex marriage is a great day for human rights in the USA.

24 hours earlier, North Carolina had voted 61%-39% against same-sex marriage and enforcing a constitutional ban on gay weddings, which made it all the more important that Obama made his position clear.

In the last few days, Joe Biden, the otherwise invisible Vice President had said he was in favour of same-sex marriage but pointed out that it was his personal opinion and not necessarily shared by the President. At that point the Obama repeated his position on the subject as "evolving" - which has been his official position since 2010.

I dread what the backlash will be. The right-wing press has already started to attack Obama. Fox News said his decision was anti-marriage.

The problem is that the churches have too much influence on American society - brainwashing millions with hatred and bigotry, but Obama is right. It is time to embrace the gay community and give them equality. Not allowing gay marriage is an untenable position in 2012.

I'm not an Obama fan but, given a choice of him or Romney, an right wing extremist, science denier and religious bigot, I hope that the President hasn't destroyed his re-election. Maybe remaining neutral until he was safely back in the White House would have been more sensible?

OPINION: What's the problem with Mitt Romney being a Mormon?

Despite his Super Tuesday wins edging him ever closer to becoming the Republican Party candidate to stand against Barrack Obama in November's Presidential election, there are still many who have a problem with him because of his faith. He is a Mormon, and the USA has never had a Mormon President.

Mitt Romney

Why though, in the "land of the free" should bring a Mormon be a problem? How is it any different from being a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Christian?

The Mormon church, or to give it its proper name, The Church of Latter Day Saints, was founded by Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1820s. According to Smith, he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book inscribed in a language only he could translate on gold plates. He published a version of this book in 1830. (Surprise, surprise, the plates have only ever been seen by a dozen of Smith's inner circle and theit whereabouts are not known). Mormons believe in the Bible but also the Book of Mormon and they believe that after his resurrection Jesus visited the Americas.

Joseph Smith

Mormons have many unusual beliefs that don't sit well with modern society. They have compulsory tithing of a percentage of income to the church. They ban drugs, alcohol and caffeine. They say any adult male can become a priest but ban females and o ky allowed black men to become priests in 1976. They believe there are multiple heavens and multiple worlds, each with its own God. And the list goes on and on.

But hang on a minute....

While rational people will find Mormon beliefs and practises peculiar, if not outright bizarre, but why are they any more odd than the beliefs of all the other religions?

Why is Mitt Romney's Mormon belief any more lunatic than Barrack Obama's Christianity?

The answer, of course, that it isn't.

Both Mormonism and Christianity, and all the other faiths, rely on a good story, lack of evidence, gullible and stupid people, and a "priesthood" happy to abuse the stupid, feckless and at risk.

What we should be asking, instead of attacking Romney's Mormonism, is why anyone with religious faith should be elected to a responsible office?

Does it make any more sense to give power to a man who believes a person came back to life after their death, or that the world was created in six days, or believes our souls will be judged and some will go to heaven and others to hell?

And how does it make any sense to have a President who holds dear to his heart blatant bigotry?

These are, of course, the beliefs of lunatics and the mentally ill. People who believe in imaginary super beings should not be trusted to run local councils, let alone superpower nations.

Sadly,however, through the all-pervading cancer that is religious indoctrination, there has never been an atheist President of the USA and, in all likelihood, there want be for many generations to come. All of the Republican candidates for the Presidency are extremist fundamental believers and they will be standing against another extremist fundamental believer to try to depose him of the White House in November.

It is time for the skeptical, rational, logical and sane to stand up against the monster of religion and snatch power away from the churches because,ultimately, it is the churches who will be President. It's just their face that changes.

COMMENT: In exactly one year the U.S. President will be sworn in

Yes, exactly one year today, the President of the United States of America will be sworn in at his inauguration ceremony.

Americans have a choice between right wing, religious lunatics, though the Republicans are still sorting out which lunatic they want.

Increasingly it looks like Newt Gingrich will be the candidate of the GOP who will attempt to depose Barack Obama, who hasn't had the best first three years in power, and has certainly lived up (or down) to many people's fears that he was more about style than substance.

Increasingly, in the UK, we have a similarly narrow choice of party - right wing, capitalist and, sadly, of faith.

It is time both the US and UK looked beyond the gormless, extremist numpties and voted on principle rather than habit. It is time to accept that capitalism has failed too may times and needs to be replaced as the economic system that controls world finances. It is time to realise that those "of faith" cannot be trusted to behave sanely - after all, they believe there are invisible superbeings for which there is absolutely no evidence. And it is time we rejected politicians who have warmongering attitudes.

It makes no difference whether, in twelve months time, it's Obama or Gingrich being sworn in. Or, for that matter, any other moron the Republican Party puts up. All if them are equally ridiculous, all of them are equally stupid and all of them will be dangerous with their finger on the nuclear button.
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US 2012 Presidential election: timetable of primaries

Here's the timetable of the various primaries and caucuses in the US Presidental election.

January 3, 2012
Iowa (caucus)

January 10, 2012
New Hampshire (primary)

January 21, 2012
South Carolina (primary)

January 31, 2012
Florida (primary)

February 4, 2012
Nevada (caucus)

February 4–11, 2012
Maine (caucus)

February 7, 2012
Colorado (caucus)
Minnesota (caucus)
Missouri (primary)

February 28, 2012
Arizona (primary)
Michigan (primary)

March 3, 2012
Washington (caucus)

March 6, 2012 - Super Tuesday Alaska (caucus)
Georgia (primary)
Idaho (caucus)
Massachusetts (primary)
North Dakota (caucus)
Ohio (primary)
Oklahoma (primary)
Tennessee (primary)
Vermont (primary)
Virginia (primary)

March 6-10, 2012
Wyoming (caucus)

March 10, 2012
Kansas (caucus)
U.S. Virgin Islands (caucus)

March 13, 2012
Alabama (primary)
Hawaii (caucus)
Mississippi (primary)

March 17, 2012
Missouri
GOP caucus

March 20, 2012
Illinois (primary)

March 24, 2012
Louisiana (primary)

April 3, 2012
District of Columbia (primary)
Maryland (primary)
Wisconsin (primary)
Texas (primary)

April 24, 2012
Connecticut (primary)
Delaware (primary)
New York (primary)
Pennsylvania (primary)
Rhode Island (primary)

May 8, 2012
Indiana (primary)
North Carolina (primary)
West Virginia (primary)

May 15, 2012
Nebraska (primary)
Oregon (primary)

May 22, 2012
Arkansas (primary)
Kentucky (primary)

June 5, 2012
California (primary)
Montana (primary)
New Jersey (primary)
New Mexico (primary)
South Dakota (primary)

June 26, 2012
Utah (primary)

48 years ago today - the assassination of JFK

48 years ago today, at 12.30 pm on the 22nd November 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, was assassinated as his motorcade drove through Dallas, Texas.



Today, nearly half a century later, we're still unsure as to who pulled the trigger. Sure, the Warren ommission found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to shoot JFK and Jack Ruby acted alone to kill Lee Harvey Oswald but, as the years have passed, more and more conspiracy theories and potential cover-ups leave us with a situation where it is thought 80% of Americans believe that there was more to it than a lone gunman shooting their President.

Will we ever know the truth? It seems very unlikely now. Most of the main players are now long gone and all the theories seem inconclusive at best and some, well, just crackpot.

What is worth contemplating is what sort of world we might have now had Kennedy lived.

He would, quite likely, have won the 1964 Presidential election, defeating Nixon who might not have ever become President. It's possible that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe might have been sooner than the late 80s/early 90s. If no Nixon, then, possibly, no Reagan and the arms race that threatened the future of the whole world.

Kennedy had his faults as a human being, as do we all, but there is no denying news an inspirational figure, perhaps on a scale not seen until Barrack Obama's election to the White House. Had JFK lived on November 22nd 1963 the is no doubt the world would be a very different place today in 2011.

OPINION: One Year to go... will Obama get re-elected?

We're just 12 months from the next election for US President. Has Barrack Obama done enough for the American people to give him a second term?

I think it's fair to say that I've been disappointed by Obama, he's been style over substance from the word go. Then again, I guess I've been disappointed by just about every American President. The difference between UK and US politics means that we in the UK have a choice of two centre-right parties (plus a barnacle that, last time round, found something to stick to). In the US they have a right-wing party (the Democrats) and an extreme right-wing party (GOP). The choice is limited, but, then, the parties on offer only represent the views of America.

To me, I'm sorry to say, Obama was elected BECAUSE he was black, rather than anything else he said or had done. On the campaign trail, he never promised much, and he's lived up to that promise well.

Obama has had some success: with Healthcare reform; the killing of Osama bin Laden; the killing of Colonel Gadaffi. There's a worrying theme growing there. With attention spans short I think the leaders of any rogue states would be best not annoying the Prez until after the election, it could just be an electorally positive act for him to complete his hat trick.

But he's failed on so many levels. Surely, Obama is, perhaps, the most disappointing Presidents since at least Ford?

To me, his saving grace is the opposition being put up against him by the Republicans. They're all nutters - most put the Bible before science, most would probably bomb the hell out of the whole of the Middle East (except, of course, Israel) if it meant they'd get a vote, and all are stupendously wealthy and have no idea about the real, ordinary person.

Yes, Obama is also a "believer" - at a dangerously evangelical church - but his idiocy is nothing compared to the "faith" of the morons being put forward by the GOP.

So what will happen next November? It's probably too early to tell, one major event, one significant cock up, one more Axis of Evil's leader's head on a pole and things could change.

If I had to guess, I'd predict Obama will narrowly get a second term but, by 2014, be a lame duck President unable to do anything.

Mind you, he's done little so far.

OPINION: What can the Irish do but not the UK?

Yesterday, while the Commonwealth were deciding whether future male or female members of one family should rule over them, there was an election in Ireland unlike anything we've ever seen in the UK. They were voting for their new Head of State - their President.

In Ireland, the Head of State is a largely ceremonial role. I know there are ill-informed monarchists who will say that Elizabeth Windsor, in her position as monarch, has a largely ceremonial role but they are ignoring the legal status and powers which the monarch really has.

The Irish President holds office for seven years and can only be re-elected once. Although political parties put forward candidates the role itself is non political.

Why can't we have such a system in the UK? If Liz Windsor, or any of her descendants, wishes to stand for election they can. And if they win then that's all well and good but why do the British public tolerate a system whereby the Head of State, and all the powers that includes, is selected by which birth canal a child passes through rather than their suitability for the job or being democratically elected?

It's time for a change. There are already parties planned for Liz's jubilee next year. Why not use them to celebrate her retirement and the introduction of an accountable Head of State?

It's time to learn from the Irish.