Pass this woman a box of tissue, please, for we do not want her staining our linens with her salty bigot tears:

This week, the Proposition 8 trial draws to a close.

This is the trial that never should have been, by a judge who has systematically telegraphed his sympathy for one side.

Boo hoo. Sorry about our whole “American system,” Maggie, but this is a civil rights battle, and they’re usually ultimately decided in the courts. As for the judge’s sympathy, it seems more like he’s systematically telegraphed his sympathy for factual analysis, and as the anti-gay side has been so pathetic that the creme de la creme expert witnesses brought in by the defense ended up helping the plaintiffs, it’s very obvious who has the facts on their side.

Did I mention that Maggie Gallagher’s piece is titled “The Core Civil Right to Vote For Marriage”? That’s rich. In Maggie’s world, giving the unwashed masses the right to vote to take away other peoples’ rights is, in itself, a civil right. A lot of white supremacists probably would agree vis a vis the Civil Rights Act, etc.

When I entered this debate in 2003, gay marriage advocates scoffed at the idea that a federal constitutional amendment was necessary. Now gay marriage advocates applaud as Ted Olson tells the world that our marriage laws are grounded only in hatred and bigotry, that they are akin to racism. Ted Olson’s team actually read Catholic and Baptist doctrine into the court record, to persuade the judge that to be a Christian is to be a bigot.

Oh, Gallagher, stop pretending that your extremist Catholic beliefs are in any way representative of Christendom, and stop co-opting the Baptists, who all think you’re a godless Mary-worshipping heathen.

I hope not. But that is the heart of the case against Prop 8: Gay marriage advocates believe there isn’t any difference between two men in a sexual union and a husband and wife, and those of us who see this difference are blinded by hatred and prejudice. They delegitimize opponents, brand us as haters, and then try to strip us of our rights.

*Taking a moment to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, think of nice things, Zen, calm, love*

WHAT F***ING RIGHTS HAVE GAY PEOPLE EVER TRIED TO TAKE AWAY FROM YOU, MAGGIE?!

*Breathing exercises did not work*

She is such a dishonest woman. It’s incredible.

For these Americans, gay marriage does not merely expand marriage to more people, it abolishes the historic core conception of marriage and replaces it with a new government-mandated genderless marriage. Gay marriage means that our maleness and femaleness does not matter, our capacity to create new life is irrelevant to the public project of marriage.

Said she whose son was born out of wedlock, and whose husband has never been seen at her side in this fight. I’m conjecturing here, but I almost wonder if Maggie has an awful, loveless marriage, and instead of trying to fix it through normal processes (or leave him), she’s taking it out on gay couples, hopelessly trying to bolster her own marriage by fighting for “traditional marriage” in the public square. It’s like she’s trying to atone for her own perceived failures in life by ruining everyone else’s life.

Anyway, for the rest of the piece, she blubbers on about this one time she was at a bar in Oakland and a lady was mean to her and told her she wasn’t welcome in the Bay Area, due to her filthy bigotry. Maggie, of course, pulls the “Who’s the real hater now!” card in response to this. Of course, the real hater is still Maggie Gallagher, because it doesn’t matter how “nice” she is to people, she’s still wasting her sad, pathetic life trying to break loving families apart, and it doesn’t matter how unkind the woman in the bar was to her, because the woman in the bar is standing up for principles, love, and for the equality of all human beings.

Then Maggie closes:

Ted Olson will talk in court this week like a civilized man. But Ted Olson, as much as any one man, is responsible for the idea that there is no real debate to be had about gay marriage, that all the legitimacy, all the arguments, all the good will and good reasons are on his side. He will be asking this judge to disrespect the views of his fellow Americans, to brand them ignorant, irrational and bigoted, and to take away our right to vote for marriage. And he will be bathed in applause for doing so.

Blubber blubber blubber. Some Americans ARE ignorant, irrational and bigoted. What of it?

Anyway, Maggie’s probably going to get more and more hysterical in the coming months and years, as the fight for full equality moves further into the courts, where it belonged in the first place, and away from the whims of the majority. As we’ve seen in the past, when it’s a matter of scaremongering and lying to ignorant people, the anti-gay side has a playbook that works well with older voters and the clinically insane. But when it’s a court of law, where facts are of the utmost importance, the anti-gay folks don’t know what the hell they’re doing, because they’re trying to defend something completely indefensible.

(h/t Kyle)