My name is Mike Adams. I’m honored to have been elected mayor of Salem, Massachusetts at this seminal point in history as we struggle to eradicate intolerance and prejudice towards gays, bisexuals, lesbians, and transgendered persons. Members of the GBLT community (hereafter: Giblets) are in need of our support. But they cannot go it alone. They need the support of the government as well.
I have been inspired by the recent efforts of the Mayor of Boston who has the courage to say that intolerance will not be tolerated in Massachusetts. He is a prescient man. He knows that people who hold disapproving views of sexual minorities will eventually begin to subject them to discrimination. He knows that those who serve chicken may someday decide not to serve Giblets. And he knows that because of what they might do, they must be banned in Boston immediately. In other words, it is often necessary to engage in prejudgments if one is going to prevent prejudice. And discrimination must be used as a means of preventing discrimination. The mayor’s steps are encouraging but they do not go far enough. So, today, I am proposing a new series of criminal procedures that will be invoked against restaurant owners who may hold negative attitudes toward the Giblet community. My specific proposals follow in their entirety:
1. After someone concludes that a restaurant owner may, in fact, be homophobic, the accuser will simply enter a complaint with the local magistrates. If the complaint is deemed credible, the magistrates will have the person arrested and brought in for a public examination. If the magistrate is satisfied that the complaint is well-founded, the prisoner will be handed over to superior court. I will then petition the governor to re-establish a Court of Over and Terminer.
2. A person can potentially be indicted for afflicting someone with homophobia or for making an unlawful covenant with God in a church that does not allow everyone to make a similar covenant. Once indicted, the defendant will go to trial, preferably the same day.
3. If indicted, judges will apply peine forte et dure, in which stones will be piled on the accused’s chest until he can no longer breathe. If he is able to speak, the accused may plead not guilty and receive a jury trial. The jury will be comprised of a subset of those who brought forth the true bill resulting in the original indictment.
4. The evidence at trial will generally be comprised of the testimony of those afflicted by the practitioners of homophobia. In court, we will also rely heavily on the touch test, which was once used in Massachusetts. If the accused homophobe touches the Giblet while the Giblet is having a fit, and the fit then stops, that will mean the accused is the person who has afflicted the victim. It will demonstrate that they wielded power over them. But it will not be the only evidence deemed admissible in court.
5. Other evidence will potentially include: the confessions of the accused, the testimony of a person who confessed to being a homophobe identifying others as homophobes, and the existence of homophobe’s teats on the body of the accused. A homophobe’s teat is a mole or blemish somewhere on the body that is insensitive to touch. The discovery of such insensitive areas will be considered de facto evidence of homophobia, which is a form of insensitivity.
If convicted, appeal is allowed in which convicts will be subjected to an older and more established set of procedures known as Trial by Ordeal. (This is a slight modification we will call Appeal by Ordeal. It is justice with a poetic ring). The specific rules for appeal follow in their entirety:
1. The appellant may walk a nine feet, over glowing ploughshares, heated over an open fire. Innocence will be established by a complete lack of injury.
2. If the appellant is afraid of fire, he may instead remove a stone from a pot of boiling water, oil, or lead. Again, a lack of injury will establish innocence. People can reasonably disagree on a variety of issues such as the use of split infinitives. But no one should be expected to have his, her, or its food prepared by someone who disapproves of sodomy. Just as we must purge the food industry of people who prepare meals with unclean hands, we must also remove those who prepare meals with unclean thoughts.
Massachusetts has always been ahead of its time. It only makes sense that we should lead the long march through our economic and social institutions.
