Given a chance to stand up for religious liberty, Bobby Jindal takes a pass

Raw Story: The administration of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday broke its silence over a public school that allegedly advised a Buddhist family to change their beliefs if they didn’t want their child to face harassment.

In a statement to The Times-Picayune, executive counsel Thomas Enright said the Jindal administration had no comment until both sides of the case were known. He also warned against the government restricting religious speech.

“Religious freedom is foundational to liberty in America,” Enright said. “In this case, the plaintiffs are alleging violations of the establishment clause not the free exercise clause. We don’t want to comment on this particular case before hearing the defendant’s side of the story, but as a general rule, government needs to be very careful before making decisions that restrict any American’s religious freedoms.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit against Negreet High School in Sabine Parish in January. A teacher at the school allegedly taught that the universe was created by God about 6,000 years ago. The same teacher is accused of calling 6th grade student “stupid” because he is a Buddhist and consequentially doesn’t believe in God.

When the parents of the students complained to Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb, they were allegedly advised to change their faith or relocate their son to another school with more Asian students.

Here’s the fun part: “The Times-Picayune noted the Jindal administration commented on the case just days after warning of a ‘silent war’ on religious freedom in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library.” So Jindal’s not overly concerned about speaking out about other cases, just this one in particular. And even if he did have a reasonable excuse to not weigh in, it wouldn’t be at all out of bounds to add a “If these allegations are true” remark, which for all intents and purposes would be a discussion of a hypothetical.

But let’s be honest: Jindal’s “silent war” fairy tale isn’t about religious liberty. It’s about forcing non-Christians to abide by Christian doctrine — the opposite of religious freedom. It’s the same strategy as Fox News’ phony “War on Christmas” — it’s propaganda designed to force people who aren’t Christian to act like Christians, to foster a sense of victimhood among Christians, and to paint everyone but Republicans as the enemies of the faith. If Jindal really did believe in religious freedom, he’d be as passionate in defending the rights of Buddhists in a very real situation as he has been in defending Christians in totally made up ones.

For conservative Christians like Bobby Jindal, “religious freedom” means you’re free to choose any of the delightful assortment of many Christian denominations. When it comes to defending other faiths, the best you can hope for is “no comment.”

'Porn addiction' just another harmful lie told by religious fanatics

A new study shows that so-called “porn addiction” doesn’t actually exist. In fact, behavioral health expert David Ley, PhD, Executive Director of New Mexico Solutions in Albuquerque says that viewing porn is actually healthy and can be beneficial. “Ley and his team believe that the positive benefits attached to viewing such images do not make it problematic de facto,” the report tells us. “It can improve attitudes towards sexuality, increase the quality of life and variety of sexual behaviors and increase pleasure in long-term relationships. It provides a legal outlet for illegal sexual behaviors or desires, and its consumption or availability has been associated with a decrease in sex offenses, especially child molestation.”

And here’s where things get interesting. People who complain about having a “porn addiction” aren’t concerned about their interest in porn per se, but rather the type of porn that keeps bringing them back for more.

Clinicians should be aware that people reporting “addiction” are likely to be male, have a non-heterosexual orientation, have a high libido, tend towards sensation seeking and have religious values that conflict with their sexual behavior and desires. They may be using visually stimulating images to cope with negative emotional states or decreased life satisfaction.

“We need better methods to help people who struggle with the high frequency use of visual sexual stimuli, without pathologizing them or their use thereof,” writes Ley, who is critical about the pseudoscientific yet lucrative practices surrounding the treatment of so-called porn addiction. “Rather than helping patients who may struggle to control viewing images of a sexual nature, the ‘porn addiction’ concept instead seems to feed an industry with secondary gain from the acceptance of the idea.

Consider it a relative of “the more you hate gays, the more likely you are to be gay" scenario. This is also why homophobes often argue that homosexuality is a choice. Many are deep in denial and they’re hoping like hell that it is a choice — so they can choose not to be. And it doesn’t take much looking to find people who claim to be straight looking for help to “cure” them of their “gay porn addiction.”

That’s what Ley and team seem to mean by an “industry with secondary gain from the acceptance of the idea”; the homophobia industry, the ex-gay scam, and religious right in general. It’s just another way that rightwing anti-science isn’t just pointing people in the wrong direction, but is actively harming people by telling them their healthy desires are a disorder that needs a cure. When it turns out that there is no “cure,” people get depressed and hopeless — and tragedy is the predictable consequence.

These people have no interest in helping anyone. In fact, to a large degree, they’re the ones with an unhealthy obsession. They’re obsessed with eliminating their own homosexual desires — and they don’t care who they hurt with their mad scientist experiments and quack pursuit of a “cure.”

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Creationist offers bad reason to deny reality

Raw Story: Creationist author Terry Mortenson doesn’t understand how an atheist like Bill Nye “the Science Guy” can find joy in scientific discoveries.

Following the debate between Nye and Creation Museum founder Ken Ham on Tuesday night, Mortenson sat down with Creation Today co-hosts Eric Hovind and Paul Taylor to discuss the event.

“I was kind of intrigued by one of Bill’s last comments about the joy of discovery, but I thought, what is the joy of realizing that I came from pond scum as a result of an explosion and that eventually I’m going to die and I won’t be here, I won’t remember that I ever lived, nobody else will ever remember,” Mortenson said. “What is the joy of that? It is purposeless, as Richard Dawkins and William Provine and others have said.”

“There is no purpose,” he continued. “There is no morality. All you have in evolution in is what is is. It’s the survival of the fittest and if I’m stronger than you and I’m a lion and you’re a gazelle, sorry, you’re my lunch. And if I’m Hitler and you’re a Jew, sorry, you’re lunch. And if I am outside the body and you’re in the mother’s womb, and I don’t want you, sorry, you’re lunch.”

“There is no basis of morality or purpose, and Bill is stealing from the Christian worldview to find joy in discovery when there is no purpose or meaning to it.”

We can dismiss a lot of this as non-argument. Just because I’m aware of my mortality doesn’t mean I’m incapable of joy. And how does the knowledge that you’re descended from less complex life forms somehow give you free reign to abandon morality and eat babies? It makes no logical sense.

But put aside all the hyperbole and consider the actual, underlying argument: that Mortensen finds evolution unsettling, so he chooses not to believe it. Further, since evolutionary theory is so disturbing, Mortensen argues that it cannot be true. I find the existence of things like Two and a Half Men and Lite Beer a nightmarish indictment of American tastes — but that doesn’t mean it’s logical to conclude that they don’t exist. It just means that there are facts out there that I’d rather not be true. Sucks to be me, but I have to accept it.

And this comes up so often that we can easily say it’s a cornerstone of the creationist pseudo-science; “I find it too disturbing, therefore it can’t exist.” This isn’t logic, this is wishful thinking. In fact, this is the very definition of wishful thinking. The fact that they think this is a compelling argument shows that logic is a completely foreign concept to creationists.

When your reasoning is this flawed, the odds that your argument is solid are slim to none.

Republicans try to tamp down latest unhinged candidate outbreak

Maybe they shouldn’t have abandoned that whole rebranding thing after all.

Raw Story: A Republican congressional candidate from Illinois refused to honor her party’s call for her to abandon the race despite her sudden infamy, the Chicago Daily Herald reported on Thursday.

“I’m not withdrawing from the race,” Susanne Atanus told the Herald. “I don’t know why they are not standing behind me. They should talk to me personally. I will not back out of the race.”

Atanus’ candidacy gained the wrong kind of national spotlight on Wednesday after she expressed her belief that God created autism and dementia and extreme weather conditions to punish the U.S. on account of legalized abortion and the increasing support nationwide for marriage equality.

“God is angry,” she told the Herald. “We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions. Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”

Atanus is running against David Earl Williams III for the right to represent the GOP against incumbent Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). However, Republican leaders at both the local and state level released a statement on Thursday disavowing her completely.

This is the GOP’s recurring nightmare heading toward November; that some out-there, bigoted, ignorant ‘bagger candidate will become the face of the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee (although not a candidate, definitely a Tea Party type) ran that scenario yesterday and of course there are others, like the Florida candidate who won’t step back from his fervent belief that Pres. Obama must die.

But the bigger concern isn’t exactly that people will assume that candidates like Atanus speak for the GOP, but rather that they’ll prove that many in the party believe this horsecrap. One of the more important bits of fallout from Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” fiasco was that there was no shortage of people — either in the media or in the party itself — who thought that Akin was absolutely right. The idea that rape rarely results in pregnancy because women have some sort of auto-contraceptive system that kicks when they’re sexually assaulted is such a common lie among anti-choice zealots that nearly everyone in the GOP base actually believes it. To them, Akin was only saying what they thought was common knowledge and defended him as they would the truth.

And Atanus doesn’t sound any different from any random Tea Party activist or columnist for WorldNetDaily. People go on Fox News and say things like this without any pushback at all, because this is the sort of mumbo-jumbo that so many of them believe is absolute Gospel. So the base, like Susanne Atanus herself, has to be wondering what the big deal is. Hell, this sort of thing is just an average day on talk radio or wingnut blogs. Why’s everyone freaking out about it now?

What Republicans are afraid of isn’t what Atanus said, but that what she and other candidates and pundits like her say may become an intraparty debate. They don’t want to shut her down before liberals notice and start to attack, they want to shut her down before conservatives notice and rush to defend.

Why 'It's in the Bible' is a shitty argument for hate

“Well, what Phil was saying in — he was reciting a part of the Gospel. The liberal left must feel that the Gospel, then, is insulting and offensive because Phil was just repeating what is in the Bible.”
—Sarah Palin, defending Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson’s homophobia by pretending that everything in the Bible fits within mainstream thought.

But, of course, that’s not true.

Deuteronomy 13:13-16 tells you to kill everyone in a town that worships a false god, then to pile up all their stuff and light it on fire. Does that mean that Sarah Palin believes we should nuke Tibet?

By this logic, it’s totally inoffensive to demand that rape victims be put to death. It would also be silly for anyone to get bent out of shape when you kill someone for using Tarot cards.And who could possibly object to selling your daughters into slavery? It says right there in the Bible it’s OK! Why do you hate God?

There are a lot of things in the Bible which not only run counter to mainstream values, but actual law. We don’t believe this stuff anymore; we’ve moved on. We’ll keep moving on.

"It says so in the Bible" is no argument. It’s only a weak excuse.

SCOTUS turns away Oklahoma ultrasound law

Los Angeles Times: For the second time in two weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling that strikes down a major abortion regulation from Oklahoma.

The justices on Tuesday turned down the state’s attempt to reinstate a law that would have required pregnant women to undergo an ultrasound test and hear about the size and possible heartbeat of the fetus.

Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the state’s ultrasound law on the grounds it put an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion.

This is what always gets me; the extremely weak and stupid rationale for these sorts of laws. “State Atty. Gen. Scott Pruitt appealed and argued the law was needed to ensure women were ‘fully informed’ before they opted for abortion,” according to the report.

Just once I’d like to see one of these clowns asked point blank what they think it is that most women don’t understand about pregnancy. What Pruitt’s argument — and that of every “informed consent” spin doctor out there — boils down to is an argument that women are too stupid to know what they’re doing, so they need a helpful Republican male politician to draw them a damned picture with a sonogram.

It’s not just an unnecessary burden, it’s an insulting one, as well.

Social conservative extremism costing VA gov. candidate Cuccinelli donors

Bloomberg News: Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli has less than half as much cash as Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe, with a prominent list of Republican donors sitting out this year’s most competitive U.S. political contest — and in some cases switching sides.

The financial disadvantage four months before the election illustrates the difficulties confronting an attorney general who is campaigning on an economic growth plan yet is best known for his opposition to gay marriage and abortion.

“Mr. Cuccinelli’s very hard stance on some of the social issues is a concern for me,” said Virginia Beach developer Bruce L. Thompson, chief executive officer of Gold Key/PHR Hotels and Resorts, a financial backer of current Republican Governor Bob McDonnell who in May gave McAuliffe $25,000.

“I believe personally in a woman’s right to choose, but I also think from an economic development standpoint, we’re trying to attract businesses from other areas of the country, and we’re telling women that we’re going to regulate the way that they run their life? I just don’t think we can be exclusionary when it comes to women” and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals, Thompson said.

Cuccinelli, 44, had $2.7 million in cash as of the end of June, compared with $6 million for McAuliffe, 56, the former national Democratic Party chairman and fundraiser. While McAuliffe had been expected to out-raise Cuccinelli, the Republican is lagging behind where McDonnell was at this point in his 2009 race, when he had $4.9 million in cash on hand.

Granted, a some of the lag in fundraising has to come from the fact that Cuccinelli is growing increasingly rank with the smell of impending failure; the scandals of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell threaten to pull his camaign down as well. But when donors are specifically citing certain social issues as the reason for withholding donations or even for funding the opposition, something is most definitely up there.

Cuccinelli’s been a tireless social warrior and the business community is concerned that this is the only thing he thinks about. Given the Governor’s Office, they think he’ll use it almost exclusively to wage War on Women and to fight the Homosexual Menace — which probably isn’t a bad guess. That has been his history as the state’s Attorney General.

Here’s hoping that other Republicans notice that hyping the religious-based wedge-issue politics is a fundraising loser. That would be a welcome  — and long-overdue — development.

[photo via Gage Skidmore]

What passes for ‘education’ on the right

ThinkProgress: Earlier this month, a Tennessee high schooler recorded an abstinence education assembly spearheaded by two right-wing leaders — and after details emerged about the topics discussed at the public school event, medical experts confirmed that they weren’t “completely accurate.” Health officials refuted some of the material, and local politicians expressed surprise that Tennessee’s public school students have been receiving false information.

As the Tennessean reports, the conservative speakers included Joi Wasill — who founded a nonprofit organization with strong religious, Republican, and anti-abortion ties — and Beth Cox, a member of a Tennessee county school board. The two women delivered an hour-long presentation for the freshmen and sophomores at Hillsboro High School. Wasill and Cox told students that all medical textbooks confirm that life begins at conception, there’s a new STD spreading around the country that’s worse than AIDS, contracting STDs will leave women infertile, and having sexual relations with eight different partners is the equivalent of drinking a whole classroom’s spit.

Cox told the young women in the room that if they became single mothers to boys, their sons wouldn’t have the necessary male role models in their lives to teach them “hunting, fishing, playing ball, all those things that teach them how to be a man.” During the second half, after Wasill took over, she asserted that “fetus” means the same thing as “baby” and adoption should always be assumed as the best option. If a girl is pregnant, send her straight to the nurse and give her prenatal vitamins, Wasill recommended. She also warned that abortion carries the risk of internal bleeding and death.

Apparently, “not completely accurate” is now identical to “completely inaccurate.” And it’s a reminder that religious conservatives are about the least trustworthy people in the world when it comes to education. These are people who believe their political opponents are literally the devil and his minions, so lying is just asymmetrical spiritual warfare. If telling you that abortion will grow you third eye will keep a kid from “killing her baby” and going to Hell, then a third eye it is. It’s not wrong to lie, it’s as right as right can possibly be and Jesus smiles down on every “not completely accurate” word with complete approval. They lie without hesitation.

These people have zero business inside a schoolhouse, since they have absolutely no interest in educating or in presenting students with the truth. Their only interest is to get students to comply with their own literally overzealous religious tenets — by hook or by crook, if need be.

“Religious fundamentalist” is a synonym for “liar,” plain and simple. Don’t trust these fanatics any farther than you can throw them.

[photo by kewl]

Christian extremist openly celebrates rape

ThinkProgress: A University of Arizona student sparked outrage on Tuesday for preaching against women while holding a sign proclaiming, “You deserve rape.”

Dean Saxton, a junior, is notorious for giving inflammatory sermons in the middle of campus. This time, he argued that women are responsible for their rapes because of the way they dress and act. Saxton’s stunt may have been planned in response to the “Take Back the Night” protest against sexual violence scheduled Tuesday night.

Saxton cut right to the chase, bluntly stating that girls who dress like “a whore” have it coming:

Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies, said his sermon was meant to convey that “if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped.”

“I think that girls that dress and act like it,” Saxton said, “they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.”

The most obvious point to strike me was that, by Saxton’s own reasoning, he’s just begging for a beating. After all, people aren’t responsible for their own actions, because we’re just mindless Pavlovian meat machines that can only react to things we see. If someone were to read his sign and decide he dearly needed a few whacks in the mouth, you could hardly blame them. After all, Saxton was right out there in the open, being an insufferable asshole with an offensive sign… really, what did he expect to happen?

And of course, the fact that he left that day without feeling the sole of a shoe against his face completely disproves his little theory.

The second to strike me was that no one will accuse all Christians of agreeing with Saxton. But, imagine what the rightwing blogs would do with a pro-rape sign held by a Muslim student.

Top religious right leader: “Don’t give to the GOP”

Speaking of people who aren’t helping…

Politico: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is calling on social conservatives to stop donating to national Republicans until the GOP stops going wobbly on gay marriage.

“Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t send them a dime of your hard-earned money,” Perkins wrote on Thursday in an e-mail obtained by CNN. “If you want to invest in the political process, and I encourage you to do so, give directly to candidates who reflect your values and organizations you trust-like FRC Action.”

The RNC’s post-election autopsy released last month suggested the party moderate its tone on gay marriage to better appeal to younger voters. Still, the party is expected to vote on Friday to reaffirm its position against gay marriage. A majority of the country now backs gay marriage in public opinion polling.

Sure, Perkins is still saying that people should give to Republicans, just not the party proper. But that means that people who think like Perkins will be strengthening the exact sort of candidates that have Republicans losing national and statewide races. And that’s bad news for the party and, frankly, bad news for Perkins.

After all, it’s pretty well established that the Republican Party isn’t interested in actually changing any policies, just in changing the way they talk about those policies. While it’s the policies that are the problem, maybe enough voters will be hoodwinked by the softer tone into electing Republicans whose policies they’d otherwise reject. Todd Akin wasn’t saying anything that’s not a common belief on the right, after all — the party would just rather candidates kept this stuff to themselves. Perkins would get fewer Republicans elected because he’s unhappy with the way they speak. Not the way they vote, mind you, which wouldn’t change one iota and would be as much to Perkins’ liking as the guys they have today. Just the way they talk. It’s a massive overreaction and it harms Perkins’ cause.

Not that that’s a bad thing, from the perspective of rational people. Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins is most definitely not helping the Republican Party. But that’s what the Republican Party gets for aligning themselves with a hate group.

NC GOP seeks to unconstitutionally establish a state religion

Raw Story:

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have proposed a bill that they say would allow to the state to establish an official religion and defy the Constitution of the United States.

Nine state House members joined with Republican state Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford of Rowan County to sponsor House Bill 494 in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last month that sought to stop Christian prayers at official Rowan County government meetings.

In 2009, a court found that the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by using sectarian prayers to open official meetings.

In his ruling, Magistrate Judge Trevor Sharp wrote that Forsyth County prayers "display a preference for Christianity over other religions by the government" and "alienates those whose beliefs differ from Christian beliefs and divides citizens along religious lines."

Warren and Ford's bill would declare that North Carolina is "sovereign" and any court ruling about religion is nullified by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

There really is so much that wrong about this. I've joked that the Republican Constitution reads, "Everyone gets a gun. Praise Jesus. The end." Nothing demonstrates the truth behind that more than this. While Republicans are freaking out over guns control and (wrongly) portraying it as unconstitutional, these guys are lining up to back an unconstitutional law. In fact, it's so unconstitutional that if you wanted to think of some crazy hypothetical example of unconstitutionality, this would be on the short list of examples you might come up with. Republicans are passionate defenders of the Constitution - right up until the point that they want to launch an assault on it.

And the circular logic is just amazing; that you can use an amendment to the Bill of Rights to nullify an amendment to the Bill of Rights. You have to stop trying to follow the reasoning before you get dizzy and puke.

Just when you think state level Republicans couldn't get more crackpottish or hypocritical, they pull something like this. Once again, just when you think you've hit the absolute bottom, you learn that there is no bottom. The GOP talent for being jawdroppingly wrong, backwards, and religiously oppressive is, in fact, endless.

The amazing success of the ‘coming out’ strategy

Politico:

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), once a staunch opponent of gay marriage, says that he now supports same-sex nuptials after his son told him he was gay.

“I’m announcing today a change of heart on an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about that has to do with gay couples’ opportunity to marry,” Portman said, according to CNN.

Two years ago, his son Will came out to Portman and his wife, Jane, during Will’s freshman year at Yale University, which eventually led Portman to support same-sex marriage.

“I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married,” Portman wrote Friday in an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch.

He later wrote: “Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love.”

My only real comment here is that this is the entire purpose of coming out of the closet. When the LGBT community decided to mainstream themselves, they came up with a strategy that was both brilliant and fraught with tremendous personal risk. It’s worked trememndously well over the years, with gays steadily gaining acceptance and homophobes just as steadily losing it.

It’s also a strategy that requires a great deal of courage, because these sorts of revelations can also go so very, very wrong. So don’t congratulate Rob Portman — you don’t congratulate the bully when he stops stealing lunch money. Congratulate Will Portman, who got that bully to stop.

KKK and the Religious Right: Both Agree on Hating Gays

You may or may not remember a blip on the national radar named Jennifer Keeton. Keeton is a student at Augusta State University, who decided it was possible to pursue a career as a school counselor without ever having to deal with LGBT students. Turns out you kind of have to, Keeton didn't want to, and she was told to straighten up and fly right or pursue her courses at another college. So she did what any fine upstanding Republican would do, she filed a frivolous lawsuit defending her right to live in a world of her own imagining.

Not super-interesting or earth-shattering, so the story went away, for the most part. "Rightwing student unwilling to learn how to do job she's training for and will eventually refuse to do" is of momentary interest, but then that interest fades as some other nutjob does some other crazy thing.

But Keeton is back in the news now that the KKK has came rushing to her defense.

Augusta Chronicle:

The Ku Klux Klan will hold a rally in support of the Augusta State University counseling student who claims her First Amendment rights were violated when the school ordered her to learn more about the homosexual community.

Bobby Spurlock, who identified himself as imperial wizard knighthawk and grand dragon of South Carolina and North Carolina, said the KKK has met with school officials and plans to protest the school's treatment of 24-year-old Jennifer Keeton on Oct. 23 from 1 to 4 p.m. Klan members will be in full dress across from the school's main Walton Way entrance in the median at Fleming Avenue.

Spurlock said the KKK believes Keeton's rights were violated when the school required her to participate in a remediation program after she objected to counseling homosexuals.

Oh dear. Now that's what you call your "bad press." So Keeton and her attorneys at the wingnut Alliance Defense Fund fired off a statement condemning the KKK.

"Jennifer and ADF are disgusted by the KKK and all it stands for," said ADF senior counsel David French. "To say more than that or to discuss their activities at length risks bringing more attention to a failed organization that is seeking to exploit news stories for its own purposes. As the KKK admits in news reports, Jennifer has had no contact with them, and neither have we. Neither Jennifer nor ADF wish to give the KKK the attention it craves."

You're disgusted by the KKK and all it stands for? You know, that seems to be in direct contradiction with the plain facts under everyone's noses. It's crazy, but you seem to be in complete agreement on the issue of Keeton's desire to pretend gay students don't exist. I know it's bad PR when the KKK pops up and says, "Yeah, we hate those people too," but the facts are what the facts are. You're both on the same side and it takes a lot more than an empty declaration to remove that fact.

Maybe it might be a good time to consider living in the real world. Then you won't have that pesky KKK jumping in to agree with you.

Muslim Cabbie Attacked in New York

And so it begins.

Story at NY1.

Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars isn't all that happy about this -- as no sane person should be. "Damn it all. Listen, lizard brain people: 'Muslim' does not mean 'terrorist' or 'America hater'," she writes. "There have been American Muslims here for a century. Muslims died on 9/11 too. Muslims reached out and helped their community after that tragedy as well, as NYPD, FDNY and volunteers. It was their tragedy too. What you are doing makes you no better than the blind and dogmatic hatred of al Qaeda."

The people whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria -- and you know who you are -- are not beyond blame here, as much as they'll spend the time it takes to convince everyone they are. When you whip up hatred and fear, when you lie about good people to cast them as "the enemy," this is what will happen. It's practically guaranteed.




UPDATE: And things get officially weird...

Village Voice:

Michael Enright of Brewster, New York, who was booked on charges of attempted murder and assault with a weapon as a hate crime, is listed on Facebook as an employee of the New York City-based Intersections International, a New York-based "global initiative dedicated to promoting justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity." And a few weeks ago, they announced their support for -- you guessed it -- the Cordoba House, better known to many as the "Ground Zero Mosque."

According to Politico, he "had recently spent time with a combat unit in Afghanistan filming military exercises until this past May." So PTSD, maybe? Who knows.

I suppose you could argue that an employee doesn't necessarily share the views of the employer -- which definitely seems to be the case here. I mean, I doubt you'll find "stab Muslims" in Intersections International's charter. But it really doesn't seem to be the sort of place you'd work if hating Muslims had always been one of your favorite pastimes.

As this all gets less confusing (assuming it ever does), we'll probably learn more.


UPDATE II: And things get weirder. I came across this on Mediaite, among clips of films Enright had made about PTSD.

Enright’s Facebook page also lists him as a supporter of Assemblyman Greg Ball, the maverick conservative Republican who represents his home district and is running a heated primary campaign for the New York State Senate. While Ball is an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration (here’s a video of him talking about illegal immigration as he walks through Enright’s home town), he has never made a statement about the Cordoba House. Ball was unavailable for comment at press time.

Despite the lefty-leaning personality his job would suggest, Enright is a Republican -- or, at least, is backing a Republican. Whether or not this makes any difference remains to be seen, but the "he was a liberal" stories I'm already seeing look to be horseshit.

Park 51 Debate: Which Side are You On?

Muslim-Jewish relations program officer for the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding Walter Ruby on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, the people behind the proposed Muslim community center at Park 51 in NYC -- more commonly referred to (falsely) as the "Ground Zero mosque." The link is mine.

In my testimony at the hearing [before the Manhattan Community Board], I said that since our organizations began cooperating three years ago, I have consistently found both Feisal and Khan to be unequivocally opposed to violence and terrorism and deeply committed to the American values of democracy and pluralism. These are values, Feisal argues in his book, "What's Right with Islam," that are intrinsic to Islam as well.

For this reason, our foundation has consistently supported Feisal's effort to create an Islamic community center in New York that will serve as a high-profile platform from which to articulate that vision of peaceful and pluralistic Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Months ago, he and his wife told the president of our foundation, Rabbi Marc Schneier, that they hope to create a center for Muslim-Jewish dialogue at the Islamic community center in cooperation with our foundation and the larger Jewish community...

From what I have learned, when Feisal set out during the past few years to bring to fruition his decades-old dream of creating an Islamic community center with a strong interfaith component in New York City, he was never much concerned about where the center would be located. Yet, when a space large enough to fulfill his vision became available two blocks north of Ground Zero, he saw special significance in the site. He argued that the building of an Islamic community center there dedicated to non-violence and mutual understanding among faiths would represent a deeply felt gesture of compassion and healing by the Muslims of New York to the entire New York community, including those who lost loved ones on 9/11.

Ruby calls the couple "a model of tolerance."

Meanwhile, Little Green Footballs reports on those opposing Park 51. Long story short, these aren't good people. One of them, David Yerushalmi, wrote this [PDF]:

There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country’s founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously. Why is that? Were they so flawed in their political reckonings that they manhandled the most important aspect of a free society - the vote? If the vote counts for so much in a free and liberal democracy as we "know" it today, why did they limit the vote so dramatically?

Yerushalmi calls blacks "the most murderous of peoples" and says that Muslims practice an "evil religion."

"David Yerushalmi, however, comes off looking almost sane next to another founding board member of [anti-Muslim blogger] Pamela Geller's American Freedom Defense Initiative, John Joseph Jay," we're told. "The Southern Poverty Law Center has a blog post about Jay's almost unbelievable anti-Muslim rants: Prime Islam-Basher Pam Geller Outdone by Colleague."

According to the Daily Kos, AFDI board member John Joseph Jay recently has posted a series of truly vicious anti-Muslim rants -- apparently without the benefit of a capital letter function on his computer.  "if islam kills non-believers as a matter of religious doctrine, then why should muslims expect to be free of retribution in the name of those islam kills?" he wrote. "why should muslims get a free pass? if it is right for muslims to kill non-believers, then why is it no less right for the rest of us to kill muslims?"

In another screed, the Daily Kos said Jay wrote: "there are, friends, no 'innocent' muslims. they obey. and they obey the dictates of the koran on jihad. and, they obey the commands of local clerics. in this, they have no choice. because, friends, there is no 'free will' in islam, one obeys  the dictates of allah."

Last month, Jay expanded on his advocacy of violence against Muslims to include people in positions of power. He commented on his blog about a magazine article regarding America’s "ruling class" as follows: "friends, if you wish to retain and preserve individual virtue, you are going to have to kill in order to do so. if we are to excise the ruling class, it will be with violence. they used violence to attain their privilege, they use it nakedly in the form of the s.i.e.u. [an apparent reference to the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union] and black panther thugs in elective politics to maintain it, they contemplate relocation camps to preserve it... buy guns. buy ammo. be jealous of your liberties. and understand, you are going to have to kill folks, your uncles, your sons and daughters, to preserve those liberties."

Now, keep in mind we're all supposed to be afraid that Rauf and Khan are radical extremist bent on instituting Sharia law. But the evidence points to those leading the opposition to Park 51 being the most extremist and radical ones here. Take away the votes from blacks and women, kill Muslims, liberals, blacks, and labor unionists? These are the people we're not supposed to be worried about?

It's time for people to ask themselves whose side they're on: the side of the models of tolerance or the side of almost inconceivable hatred?

Your call. Just make sure you can live with it.

Griper Blade: The United States of God

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.
-Abraham Lincoln, to Judge JS Wakefield, after Willie Lincoln's death in 1862.

It's unfortunate for the religious right that history exists. They'd have you believe that every President of the United State spent all of their time thinking about God -- what God wanted from them, what God wanted from the country, what they could do that would please God, etc. George Washington, for example, shuffled around his office on his knees, hand clenched in constant prayer, fulfilling his duty as elected lead shaman of a new democratic republic. Every president thereafter followed Washington's lead.

But the hole in this rewritten history is that there have been four presidents -- at least -- who weren't Christian. John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft were all Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson didn't belong to any church at all. Turns out a lot of heathens have been elected lead shaman.

That someone bothered to write these sort of facts down represents a problem for right wing revisionists who claim the US is -- and always was -- a "Christian nation." But what has been written can be erased, truths are only problematic so long as they're known. The ongoing effort to transform a secular government based on law and reason into a big church based on reverence for Jesus is a big project. Every unfortunate fact must be hidden -- preferably by painting over them with new "facts."

And here we come to Virginia Rep. Randy Forbes. Not surprisingly, Forbes is a Republican and a loyal and reliable foot soldier for the religious right. History offends Forbes' Christian sensibilities, so history must be changed. Forbes has a plan to do just that... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: Righteous Lies

Yesterday, I wrote that the influence of the religious right on the Republican party seems to be on the decline. So much so that a top Republican could get away with calling funding for embryonic stem cell research a mere distraction -- not a horror show, not a second Holocaust, but just something not very interesting and not as important as the economy. What was once the "destruction of human life" was now something to yawn over. Let's get on with this economy thing, let's not screw around with stuff no one cares about.

But, of course, people do care about this stuff. Supporters of embryonic stem cell research believe it may lead to treatments for spinal injuries, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes. etc. "...I urge researchers to make use of the opportunities that are available to them, and to do all they can to fulfill the promise that stem cell research offers. Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide," said former first lady Nancy Reagan in a written statement. "We owe it to ourselves and to our children to do everything in our power to find cures for these diseases -- and soon. As I’ve said before, time is short, and life is precious."

But others weren't half as thrilled. I wrote the the religious right was less influential, not that it's gone. And looking at the insane reactions from leading figures and organizations in the movement, we get an idea why they're on the outs -- they're mostly a pack of lying lunatics.

This is the thing about religious fanatics -- they believe they're literally working for God and anyone who opposes them is working, either consciously or unconsciously, for the devil. Why would you feel the need to fight fair against Satan? No matter what you do, your cause remains as just as a cause can possibly be and this frees you up to lie, to cheat, to do whatever it takes to win the fight of the moment. So statements from the religious right tend to be characterized by hyperbole, paranoia, and outright lies... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

The Rise of the Godless Heathens

It's a big day for science and medicine. President Obama has removed the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Bush had banned the funding, kissing up to those who believe every fertilized ovum deserves a Social Security card. The Bush ban was -- not surprisingly -- based on a poorly thought out argument; that we shouldn't be destroying life to save life. But, even if you believed that a mindless collection of frozen cells constitutes "life," Bush's ban did absolutely nothing to save any of them. The embryos were created for in vitro fertilization and unused embryos are just discarded. All Bush managed to do was to keep those embryos from being used in research, not from being destroyed. Bush's ban didn't "save" a single embryo.

During a signing ceremony reversing Bush's executive order, Obama also signed a pledge to "restore scientific integrity in governmental decision making." Clearly, this is the first step toward an anti-human dystopia ruled by the cold hand of science.

When the controversy over stem cell research began, Republicans quickly took the position of the religious right. Embryonic stem cell research was the worst thing ever, the wanton destruction of human life by medical science gone mad. Some still believe this. "If an embryo is a life, and I believe strongly that it is life, then no government has the right to sanction their destruction for research purposes," wrote Sen. Sam Brownback in a statement... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: The Tyranny of a Short-Term Majority

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."

That reasoned argument against what de Tocqueville called "the tyranny of the majority" is a total crock. A bunch of hooey. Liberal claptrap from a French intellectual with no real understanding of democracy. Never mind that James Madison agreed in the Federalist Papers, warning of "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority" -- Madison was just some loonie leftist. The majority is all-powerful. If you can get enough people to agree with you, you can do anything you want to anybody. There are no such thing as rights, only privileges that can be voted away at any time. Get enough people together and you can even take someone's First Amendment rights away -- if people don't like what you're saying, they can use the power of democracy to shut you the hell up.

So sayeth that great American patriot Kenneth Starr. Best known for an unsuccessful witch hunt against then-President Bill Clinton, Starr is the dean of Pepperdine law school -- which makes you wonder what kind of education Pepperdine law students get for their money.

At issue was California's Prop. 8 -- a ban of same sex marriage. The state Supreme Court had previously ruled that gays and lesbians had the right to marriage. Prop. 8, which passed as a referendum, would remove that right and retroactively undo the marriages that have occurred since the court's ruling.

But, since the court ruled that marriage was a right, not a privilege, Prop. 8 became a classic example of the "tyranny of the majority" -- with a simple majority vote, Californians took a right away from a minority group. The ballot measure is now in California's Supreme Court, where Ken Starr -- representing Prop. 8 supporters -- argued yesterday that there's really no such thing as "rights." At least, not if you're in the minority.

"Swallow the bitter pill and act with diligence if one is weak, enjoy all one's rights if powerful: that's my doctrine," wrote the Marquis de Sade. Starr apparently agrees... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]

Griper Blade: The Conference of the Crazy People's Action Committee

In years past, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) has earned the nickname "Crazy People's Action Committee" with its right wing religious fanaticism. Speakers at CPAC conferences have used the opportunity to warn against the Homosexual Menace and the way "undermedicated" "psychotic" leftists were destroying the judiciary by only allowing "activist judges" to sit on the bench. It was about abortion, it was about evolution in schools, it was about how the only way to be a good person was to be a good Republican Christian.

A lot has been said about this year's CPAC conference -- which wrapped up this weekend -- but one thing that few have noted is the toned-down nature of the religious lunacy. It was still the Crazy People's Action Committee, but the craziness has shifted focus. Feverish warnings of God's judgment have been replaced with feverish warnings of creeping socialism -- which, in CPAC World is synonymous with communism, which in turn equals fascism. That fascism was an anti-communist movement is lost on these people since, let's face it, the audience they're speaking to are as ignorant as they are crazy. Where CPAC used to be a gathering of religious nutjobs, it's now become a gathering of people like Joe the Plumber.

So I guess the good news is that if you ever needed proof the conservative movement was abandoning the religious right in droves, I give you the 2009 CPAC conference. The bad news is that this doesn't mean they're any saner. Not that the movement conservatives have moved away from the religious right entirely -- you can still find groups claiming that homosexuality can be "cured" with prayer -- but it's clear that they're no longer front and center in that movement.

Still, as the lunacy shifts focus, it becomes no saner nor closer to the mainstream. Mitt Romney, for example, won the conference's straw poll -- making it two consecutive wins for Mittens. After winning last year's poll, Willard went on to fail to buy the Republican primary with masive infusions of his own money. Clearly, CPAC doesn't represent even the mainstream among Republican voters... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]