As I catch up on the news regarding the Christian Fundamentalist Terrorist* who assassinated George Tiller, I’m floored by the statements of the hate-spewing anti-abortion activists who are shocked – shocked d’ya hear? – about one of their own murdering an abortion provider.
(Christian Broadcasting Network) Randall Terry’s remarks and Scott Roeder’s alleged action against Tiller are not what pro-lifers are really about. Don’t get me wrong. Pro-lifers are frustrated and yes angry about the deaths of millions of these aborted babies.
One thing I will say for Scott Roeder is that he’s one of the few anti-abortion activists who really believes that abortion is the murder of babies. If I knew for a fact that there was a man in my town murdering babies, and the police knew and the people knew and nobody was doing anything to stop it, wouldn’t it be insane for me to allow that to happen day after day? Would you be content holding a sign or signing a petition to stop the bad man from murdering babies in your town?
These anti-abortion creeps are running like cockroaches now that the spotlight has focused on the rage they foment. They want to be able to have it both ways, to say that abortion is the murder of millions of babies, but no, we don’t want anyone to kill the murderer (an especially odd position for the non-Catholic pro-death-penalty anti-abortionist.)
Again, what would you say about a person who allows wholesale baby murder for near forty years, but doesn’t take direct action to stop it? It was inevitable that someone would take a look at the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” ethic and decide it is finally time to take action against baby murderers, especially when Christian theology is chock full of martyrs who disobeyed man’s law in order to implement God’s law (and this is the God who sent she bears to massacre 42 children for teasing Elijah about his bald head, so all bets are off regarding what “pro-lifers” are really about.)
Sorry, you can’t call abortion “America’s Holocaust” and then convince me you’re upset that someone assassinated Hitler. Hate speech has consequences.
*Hey, rhetoric that’s good for the Islamic goose is good for the Christian gander. Hmm. Islamic goose, is that even halal?Continue Reading…
Today the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, the constitutional amendment that took away the right of gay people to marry in the state. The majority may now invalidate a minority’s rights at the ballot box.
Remember, this isn’t the same as the other couple of dozen states, like Oregon, that have banned gay marriage in their constitution. In those states, the right for gays to marry did not exist. In California, the court declared the right for gays to marry to be a constitutional right, and then the haters passed the constitutional amendment to take away that existing right.
Strangely enough, the Court left intact the marriages of some 18,000 gay couples who exercised their right before Prop 8 passed. I guess somehow that 18,001st gay couple to get married would’ve been the trigger for gaypocalypse or something. Weird, isn’t it, that 18,000 gay Californians have a right that hundreds of thousands of other gay Californians do not, a right the 18,000 would lose if they ever got divorced.
Conceivably, a majority of Californians could pass constitutional amendments to ban anyone from anything, so long as they didn’t touch the federally-protected classes of gender, religion, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, familial status, disability, or veterans status. No decision on rights from the California Supreme Court can be considered final, because the majority could always overturn it. This is much bigger than a ban on gay marriage, this sets precedent for the majority to take anyone’s rights! A right isn’t a right if it can be taken away; it’s a privilege. The California Supreme Court just decided that all rights in the Republic not granted by the federal constitution are now just privileges, granted unto you by the majority.
The reaction from some of the knuckle-draggers has been predictable. This on from the HuffPo comments is typical:
There is ONE and only ONE fair solution to this problem and it is the same solution that has been proposed by many people including Elton John. Homosexuals should be granted all of the same rights, benefits of married heterosexual couples, the union should be identified by a different term than “marriage”.
Homosexuals don’t seem willing to accept that and I think that it speaks volumes to the underlying intentions.
Great point! Just like little black kids in the 1950s should be granted all the same rights and benefits of education as the white kids, but they should be housed in separate buildings identified by a different term than “schools”.
Strange how gay folks don’t seem willing to accept their lifelong loving partnerships being trivialized by straights as some sort of “sub-marriage” or “alternamarriage”. Homobigots don’t seem willing to see gay folks as equals and their need to cling to a word speaks volumes to the underlying intentions. You’d grant an equal marriage so long as it isn’t called “marriage”? It’s really just an eight letter word you’re hung up on?
Is marriage religious? Fine, keep it in your church, take government out of it completely, and ban anyone from it who makes you uncomfortable. But if marriage is a civil institution with government benefits, all citizens get to participate equally. Restricting one’s choice of lifelong partners to just half the population isn’t just homophobic, it’s sexist!
It will be fun being a cynical old coot, someday telling my grand-nieces and nephews about the days when we used to openly discriminate against gay people… if I can get past their holo-tattoos and cyber-implants.
SALT LAKE CITY 30 June 2008 The following letter was sent from the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Church leaders in California to be read to all congregations on 29 June 2008:
Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families
In March 2000 California voters overwhelmingly approved a state law providing that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.†The California Supreme Court recently reversed this vote of the people. On November 4, 2008, Californians will vote on a proposed amendment to the California state constitution that will now restore the March 2000 definition of marriage approved by the voters.
The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children. Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.
A broad-based coalition of churches and other organizations placed the proposed amendment on the ballot. The Church will participate with this coalition in seeking its passage. Local Church leaders will provide information about how you may become involved in this important cause.
We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.
Individuals exercising their 1st Amendment rights… or a church violating its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status?
Obama effigy found in Oregon shows ugly side of Northwest
Officials at George Fox University in Newberg, Ore., (a school founded more than a century ago by Quakers) said they found a life-size cardboard cutout of Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama “attached by fishing line to a tree.” A sign, reading “Act Six reject,” was taped to the effigy.
The cutout was found Tuesday morning and immediately taken down. University President Robin Baker is set to address undergraduates at 11:15 a.m. today.
“We will not tolerate such displays and condemn it in the strongest terms,” Baker said in a press statement Wednesday. “George Fox University is committed to becoming a place that more broadly represents the Kingdom of God – a place where students from diverse backgrounds come together to live out the teachings of Jesus in our world.”
Still in the same press statement, George Fox University said:
“University administrators do not know who put the cutout up or its intended meaning. The university requests that any information about the cutout be shared with the university’s Office of Student Life.”
Administrators don’t know what it means? Please.
The school’s Act Six program provides scholarships to student leaders from urban Portland. Many, but not all, are students of color, according the university’s release.
Ah, those good ol’ Christian values. Â This wasn’t an effigy hung at one of those godless state universities like Oregon State or that bastion of liberalism University of Oregon. Â This is li’l ol’ George Fox, chock full of good li’l Christian boys and girls.
Yes, of course the hanger of the effigy doesn’t represent most Christians, it’s obviously the work of a disturbed individual. Â But next time one of my Christian relatives (one of whom graduated with a divinity degree from George Fox) sends me an email forward of a Muslim protest in London, with signs that say “Death to those who slander Islam!” and the subject line of “So much for ‘religion of peace’”, I now have a great blog post to forward to them.
Balloon Juice
Sarah Palin is the distilled essence of wingnut. She has it all. She is dishonest. She is a religious nut. She is incurious. She is anti-science. She is inexperienced. She abuses her authority. She hides behind executive privilege. She is a big spender. She works from the gut and places a greater value on instinct than knowledge.
And most dangerous of all, she is supremely self-confident to the point of not recognizing how ill-equipped she is to lead the country.
Or as he puts it later, “George Bush in a dress.” Â And a commenter notes wryly, “ask the nation if we can afford any ‘heckuva job, Sarah” moments in the future”.
Though I would add her personal background adds a lot to the wingnuttiness. Â Likes the guns, hates the gays. Â Got pregnant young and married high school sweetheart. Â Will be a grandma before being mother of a college graduate. Â Very scarlet neck tones. Â Would stuff a polar bear and mount it as a “trophy”.
Just like so so many of those faces I saw nursing beers and line dancing and fighting in the bars I played for fifteen years. Â Oh, shit.
If American voters reach for what we can be, Barack Obama will be our president.
If American voters reflect what we are, I am afraid he won’t.
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Here’s McCain’s selection for the Vice Presidency of the United States, Sarah Palin, answering a 2006 policy questionnaire:
Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance
Fun facts: when John McCain’s grandfather graduated from the Naval Academy in 1906, the Pledge of Allegiance, as first written, was only fourteen years old. It would not be made the official pledge of the United States until 1942, six years after John McCain himself was born.
When John McCain was born, the words “Under God” were not in the Pledge. They would not appear there until 1954, during McCain’s senior year of high school.
I think I understand why the Evangenital HypoChristians are so agog over Sarah Palin. She’s one of them. No understanding of history, completely ignorant of science, but the valedictorian of the “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” class.
As I rode my free bike around Downtown Denver I found some of the fun groups gathered for the convention.
The “Stop the Torture” demonstration down at the park.
Pro-Choice Girl, Pro-Gun Cop
One of the under-dressed and under-epuipped police at the convention center making sure the free speech doesn’t lead to violence, alongside one of the NARAL volunteers countering this kind of crap pic after jump so you don’t have to see an aborted fetus if you don’t want to…
Just listening to the podcast, realized I never did get to the story on Military Evangelism. Too many whiners, I guess. But I will save the segment for next week, don’t you worry.
Anyway, the pharmacist’s point was that he is a preserver of life, and therefore could not in good conscience offer the morning-after contraception pill or birth control to women. That could be an arguable point on the former — there has been a conceived zygote and the pharmacist does not want to be a party to its “murder†— but the latter part is laughable. Birth control does not extinguish a life, it prevents it from occurring in the first place! He’s not a “preserver of lifeâ€, he’s an “enforcer of procreation“!
Of course, the pharmacist ignores the fact that some women are prescribed birth control to regulate hormones, moderate their menstruation, or alleviate depression. That doesn’t matter to him, though. Because the real agenda here has so much to do with controlling women’s bodies (ready for the burqha, ladies?) and the belief that sex is dirty awful nasty and should be used for making babies only. If women are going to be so slutty as to actually enjoy sex for pleasure’s sake, they should be forced to suffer the consequences of shtupping, namely baby after baby after baby.
I’m wondering when the “conscience clause†argument gets to spread beyond the pharmacy. How about a vegetarian waitress at the Outback Steakhouse, does she not only bring you blooming onions? How about the Quaker heavyweight champion of the world, does he just talk you into a ten-count? Who’s ready for the radical lesbian feminist pharmacist (say that three times fast) who refuses to sell Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra? What about the Born Again™ store clerk who won’t ring up the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition? I know, let’s have racist cops who refuse to assist people of color (whoops, too close to reality on that one, Russ…)
My point is not that the man isn’t entitled to his backwater ideals of “conscienceâ€, it is that if his “conscience†prohibits him from fulfilling his duty as a pharmacist, then go sell shoes or something. No one is forcing you to be a pharmacist! You don’t get to pick and choose which prescriptions to fill and which to ignore. (Or worse, deny; in many of the “conscience clause†cases, the pharmacists have not only refused to fill the prescription, they’ve refused to give the script back to the patient so she may fill the prescription elsewhere!) Soldiers don’t get to perform the spit-shining and the marching and the saluting, but refuse to fulfill the killing part because they’re pacifists. Firemen don’t get to choose to only save the houses of the nice rich people while letting the slums burn because they’re elitists. Teachers don’t get to teach biology, chemistry, and physics but skip over the evolution part because they’re Biblical Creationists (whoops, too close to reality again, Russ…)
You have a job — pharmacist — that holds the public trust. We have laws to prevent the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs and you are the arbiter of those laws. If the drug is legal and has been legally prescribed, it is your duty and obligation to fill that prescription. Don’t like it? Don’t be a pharmacist.
It’s really going to get this scary, people, as the theocrats reach for total control of our country. There are movements underway to allow doctors to have a “conscience clause†so they can refuse to treat gay and lesbian patients (because Jesus only heals lepers and whores, not fags). We already forbid federal funding of any overseas health clinics that even mention the word “abortion†to their clients. Public health, commonsense, and your morals mean nothing to the Rapture Right, it’s all about their morality and making sure you abide by it.
Let My Partner Stay // Current
You know what’s going to be fun? Being an old man and explaining to my grandkids how back in the early part of the century, people weren’t allowed to marry their same-sex partners and people could be imprisoned for possessing marijuana. I imagine they’ll look at me like kids today look when they hear that people couldn’t marry their different race partners and people could be imprisoned for possessing alcohol. back in the last century.
Coralie La Salle: You were the only U S journalist to cover that critical interview with Benazir Bhutto where she said Osama Ben Laden was dead and buried [...]
Arline Sherman: Just turned on my XM and found you gone. I will miss you. I looked foward to your program every sat.
Masini: Idea, like mr. Henry Ford had))
"Radical" Russ: RadicalRuss.com is back online and migrated to the new servers.
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