NEWS: The Enterprise And The Big Apple; Tea Party Underground; Egyptian Deathsex; Barack Obama's Cali Killing Spree

 Space Shuttle Enterprise, meet Midtown. 

 Do some Egyptians really want to legalize postmortem intercourse? Now it's unclear:

Alleged proposals to allow Egyptian husbands to legally have sex with their dead wives for up to six hours after their death have been branded a 'complete nonsense'.

The controversial new 'farewell intercourse' law was claimed, in Arab media, to be part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.

... The initial report, published on reputable English language website alarabiya.net, claimed Egypt's National Council for Women was reportedly campaigning against the changes.

It said the group said that 'marginalising and undermining the status of women would negatively affect the country's human development'.

Dr Mervat al-Talawi, head of the NCW, wrote to the Egyptian People’s Assembly Speaker Dr Saad al-Katatni addressing her concerns.

Egyptian journalist Amro Abdul Samea reported in the al-Ahram newspaper that Talawi complained about the legislations which are being introduced under 'alleged religious interpretations'.

The subject of a husband having sex with his dead wife arose in May 2011 when Moroccan cleric Zamzami Abdul Bari said marriage remains valid even after death.

He also said that women have the right to have sex with her dead husband.

 Clerics join forces to fight marriage equality in Scotland. 

 The Times reiterates: homophobes are gay.

 Priest in porn probe departs parish:

An Irish priest at the center of a gay porn controversy has asked to leave his parish and take sabbatical leave from the priesthood, he said Sunday.

Father Martin McVeigh has admitted he destroyed a memory stick containing "inappropriate imagery" ahead of a church investigation into reports he accidentally showed pictures of naked men to parents of children preparing for their First Holy Communion.

The incident happened at the start of a PowerPoint presentation at a grade school in Pomeroy, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in March, said the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady.

Parents said in a statement they were "horrified" by what they saw and called for action to be taken against the priest.

The church reported the incident to police, who said no crime had been committed.

 The Williams Institute investigates "racial" diversity among same-sex couples:

Newly released Census 2010 data, analyzed by the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, highlight unique aspects of racial and ethnic diversity within same-sex couples. They are more likely than their different-sex counterparts to be interracial or interethnic, and couples that include a racial or ethnic minority are more likely to be raising children. Fully a third of same-sex couples that include an Hispanic partner are raising children.

“This is our first 2010 glimpse of the racial and ethnic compositions of U.S. households headed by couples, including same-sex couples,” said Gary Gates, Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute. “The new Census data help provide a fuller picture of the diversity within the LGBT community,” said Gates

The US Census Bureau recently released the research brief Households and Families: 2010, which includes data on the racial and ethnic compositions of households headed by couples in the United States, including same-sex couples.

 The new, improved Tea Party:

... it isn't the kind of activity that makes the press," Fabretti continued. "I mean, when you put 5,000 people at an event, you know, everybody shows up with their cameras. You have 10 meetings with different legislators on [Capitol] Hill -- nobody knows about it."

 The overwhelming whiteness of TV, and what it does to your brain. 

 Some plants possess memory, the ability to communicate, and the ability to respond to communication. The Times wonders if it's still okay to eat them.

 Not only did Barack Obama kill Andrew Breitbart -- he murdered murdered his coroner with arsenic! (HT: JoeMyGod.)

Cardinal Keith O'Brien Comes Unhinged

Equating marriage equality with slave ownership is apparently the coming thing among Roman Catholics. First there was the bizarre newsletter at St. John Neumann, in Maryland. Now, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, has articulated the identical idea in the Telegraph, in a long, unlettered screed against David Cameron's recent advocacy of marriage equality. He's apoplectic:

Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

... can we simply redefine terms at a whim? Can a word whose meaning has been clearly understood in every society throughout history suddenly be changed to mean something else?

If same-sex marriage is enacted into law what will happen to the teacher who wants to tell pupils that marriage can only mean – and has only ever meant – the union of a man and a woman?

Will that teacher’s right to hold and teach this view be respected or will it be removed? Will both teacher and pupils simply become the next victims of the tyranny of tolerance, heretics, whose dissent from state-imposed orthodoxy must be crushed at all costs?

... As an institution, marriage long predates the existence of any state or government. It was not created by governments and should not be changed by them. Instead, recognising the innumerable benefits which marriage brings to society, they should act to protect and uphold marriage, not attack or dismantle it.

This is a point of view that would have been endorsed and accepted only a few years ago, yet today advancing a traditional understanding of marriage risks one being labelled an intolerant bigot.

... Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father.

Disingenuously, the Government has suggested that same-sex marriage wouldn’t be compulsory and churches could choose to opt out. This is staggeringly arrogant ... Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that “no one will be forced to keep a slave”.

What's up with that?

Having read O'Brien on the subject, it's worth revisiting David Cameron's rationale for supporting marriage equality in the first place:

To anyone who has reservations, I say this: Yes, it's about equality. But it's also about something else. Commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other, and we support each other. So I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a conservative. 

Cardinal O'Brien's screed was well over 1,000 words long -- many times longer than the Cameron quote above -- but nowhere in it does he even attempt to rebuff the Prime Minister's point.

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1020

MARRIAGE NEWS WATCH: AFER's Matt Baume on Prop 8, Hawaii, Scotland and Australia.

FACEBOOK: What it knows about Max (and you).

SCOTRAIL: Don't even think about getting on the train without a ticket in Scotland.

IT BURNS: The first thing I always do when I get a new iPad is spend hundreds of dollars flying to an exotic location to see what will happen if I put it in hot lava.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

NEWS: Ruth Davidson, The Rocking Lesbian Tory; Bill Clinton's New Book; Zombie Fish; God Hates Oklahoma

She's a 32-year-old lesbian, a kickboxer, and a veteran of the Territorial Army -- and now she's the head of the Scottish Tories!

Happy birthday, Boy Culture! To mark the occasion, Matt Rettenmund runs down his 100-ish favorite posts from the last six years.

Joan Didion's final approach.

Christwire is the funniest website in the universe:

Hell hath no spitfire like a lisping gay scorned, so it’s no surprise today to see legions of gays angrily sassafrasshing and sashaying all around their demigod Joe My God in heated fury and trying to scratch the skin off GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain.

Radical Islamists kill 100 in Nigeria.

Oklahoma: 10 earthquakes in 1 day.

Qur'anic polygamy in theory and practice.

Rick Santorum:

The economy is inextricably linked to the moral fabric of this country, and we can’t have a real solution-based conversation about fixing the economic problems in this country without faith and family being a large part of that conversation. [Right, Rick. Because the more pious your nation is, the richer it is!]

The Atlantic Wire on Bill Clinton: "The former president is so fed up with the current one's inability to sell his economic message, he wrote a book to do it for him."

Sleeping your way to the top of the food chain.

See zombie fish! Donate to zombie research!

Adam Lambert: looks very well scrubbed.

"An Irishman abroad's view of the Wall Street Shenanigans" -- watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

Teen Arrested in Connection with Murder of Gay Scottish Barman Stuart Walker

A teenager has been arrested in connection with the murder of gay Scottish barman Stuart Walker. Walker's body was found beaten and burned in a rural area outside Cumnock in Ayrshire in Scotland early on Saturday after spending a night out with friends.

STV reports:

Strathclyde Police confirmed the man was taken into custody on Thursday evening, less than a week after Mr Walker's body was discovered at an industrial estate in Cumnock, Ayrshire.

A police spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that an 18-year-old man is currently detained in connection with this inquiry."

No further details have been offered.

Divisional Commander John Thomson of the Strathclyde Police said earlier this week that the victim’s lifestyle was the "main focus" of his inquiries: "I don’t think it was a random attack by someone who will strike again. I suspect Stuart may have known this individual or met this individual shortly before his death."

UPDATE: Those allegations that Walker was facing an indecency probe were reportedly made by a malicious liar. "But the Record can reveal the man who made the allegation was a 44-year-old with a long criminal record including rape, assault, car theft and housebreaking. And prosecutors planned to throw out the case. The man who lodged the complaint cannot be named because it would identify his son, the subject of the allegation."

Slain Gay Scottish Barman Faced Unrelated Alleged Indecency Probe: Police

As investigations continue into the gruesome murder of gay Scottish barman Stuart Walker, who was found beaten and burned in a rural area over the weekend, more details on Walker's background have begun to emerge, including one detail that police say is unrelated but is being reported widely:

However, it has come to light that the 28-year-old had only recently been questioned over an alleged incident involving a 12-year-old boy in August and a report was sent to the procurator fiscal. Police have stressed that there does not appear to be any link between the claims and Mr Walker's murder.

A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said today: 'There was a report sent to the procurator fiscal in relation to an alleged indecency on a 12-year-old boy. There's no suggestion that this incident is in any way connected to the murder.'

A spokesman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service added: 'We can confirm that the Procurator Fiscal at Ayr received a report concerning a 28-year-old male in connection with an alleged incident on 20 August 2011. The case is now closed.' It is believed that there will be no further investigation into the incident.

Gay barman who was murdered and set on fire was facing child sex probe [daily mail]
Murdered Stuart Walker faced indecency allegation [bbc]
Gay murder victim Stuart Walker was questioned over child indecency [pink news]