Yesterday North Carolina travelled back in time to 1875, and here is the state constitutional amendment that was added:
As ThinkProgress points out, 137 years later North Carolina passed its next amendment dealing with marriage, with just as little foresight and just as much fear and hate.
An old acquaintance reminded Facebook readers last night of Plato’s comment: “Ignorance: the root and stem of all evil.”
News item from the U.S. state known as a major depository of dumbshit thinking:
In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said this week that banning handguns from downtown Tampa during the convention, as the city’s Mayor Bob Buckhorn requested, “would surely violate the Second Amendment.”
“It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law,” Scott said in a letter to Buckhorn Tuesday, emphasizing the words “law-abiding.” “It is at just such times that the constitutional right of self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.”
Tampa officials are expecting thousands of protesters to descend on the Florida metropolis for the GOP convention. While no handguns will be allowed inside the convention, which is being protected by the Secret Service, concealed carry license-holders will be able to carry their weapons in the streets surrounding the convention.
It painfully obvious that the Republican Party (and its numbnuts Florida governor) has forgotten the lessons of St. Paul in 2008:
Now, mix in a healthy dose of licensed firearms carriers, and watch a few cops and a mess of bystanders die (something no one wants).
(Thanks to The Spouse for the tip!)
Everyone over the age of 40 should remember this magazine cover:
(I bet you hid your copies of NatLamp from your mom, didn’t you?)
Today, the Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives did something that was similar but not quite so funny:
Can you say “the Republican War on Women”?
Side note: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi nicely summed up the situation when she referred to the Democratic party’s proposal, which was to generate money for the student loan fund with an additional tax on oil and gas companies (that don’t pay their fair share of taxes anyway):
“We [Democrats] prefer tax subsidies for big oil rather than the health of America’s women.”
The religious crapnuts are again showing you what the world would be like, if they were in charge.
Ever heard of Fred Karger? He’s running for the Republican presidential nomination. He’s the candidate you never saw on the televised debates; he’s the candidate that the other candidates never chose to face.
Why? Because he’s moderate (gasp!), pro-choice (gasp!), and pro-marriage equality (gasp!gasp!). And he’s gay and open about it.
‘Nuff said, right?
Here’s his latest campaign video (for the California primary):
This video was posted on YouTube, and then taken down within 24 hours. Here’s the notice Karger’s campaign folks got:
Look through the video yourself, and try to see what “community guidelines” were violated.
The two guys smooching is my best guess. Should that give this video the old “heave-ho” at a time when you can see naked breasts and outlines of erections through tight underwear throughout YouTube?
Really?
Send the anti-equality wackjobs a message and do the viral thing with this video, ‘kay? Show YouTube the veracity of Great Internet Truth #12.
It is currently against the law in Minnesota for anyone to get married save one man and one woman. That law has existed since the 1970s.
However, that’s just not enough for a bunch of out-of-state interests. They want to make sure that the law cannot change, even if demanded by legislation.
Minnesota will have an entry on the November ballot to make one-man-one-woman a state constitutional requirement. The measure was passed by the Republican-led state legislature, and will be put before the voters this year.
Needless to say, there is a lot of lobbying and campaigning on the issue. One of the biggest visible groups supporting the amendment is the Minnesota Family Council. Formerly known as the Berean League, this is the same group that fought tooth-and-nail for years to keep anti-sodomy laws on the state books. It’s interesting to note that not a single straight person was ever brought up on such charges; the laws were only used to prosecute gays and lesbians.
Here is only the latest in a series of expensively-produced video ads supporting the amendment:
It’s also worth noting that the MFC has raised over a million dollars for their effort, almost all of it from seven wealthy out-of-state donors. ($100 bet says that one or more of them are closely affiliated with the Catholic Church, just as NOM is.) Minnesotans United for All Families, one of the largest groups opposing the amendment, has also raised about a million dollars from over 50,000 supporters.
Guess which group is the real grassroots effort. (The Spouse and I went canvassing for them last Saturday.)
The saddest thing about this amendment is that it is not even necessary; existing statutes prevent gay marriage in the state. The proposed amendment is a move by homophobic bigots and religious haters to ensure that the state never has gay marriage.
UPDATE: They deleted my second comment as well. That’s the end of ThinkProgress as far as I’m concerned.
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Never let it be said that conservative news sources are more censorious than liberal sources.
Case in point: I recently made a comment on this story posted in ThinkProgress.
I posted a comment questioning the source, which is Al Jazeera. AJ is known as a news source of questionable agenda; it acts as the mouthpiece for Muslim extremists and seems to think nothing of posting videos depicting graphic violence — including the beheading of Daniel Pearl. (Warning: the video of his beheading exists in the internet, but it is barbarous and frightening. Al Jazeera ran this and other such videos uncut.)
Al Jazeera has a habit of running stories that no one else can verify or confirm. As an example, they recently ran a series of stories on the reason why there are pirates cruising the waters off Somalia. The stories claim that developed-country industries are dumping toxic wastes off the Somalia coast, and the pirate are trying to stop the dumping by becoming pirates. No other news source has been able to verify or deny the story.
Anyway, the comment I posted is gone. It was removed last night, for reasons I can likely guess. I suspect that someone doesn’t like their news stories’ authenticity questioned.
Al Jazeera has the same level of veracity as Fox News and rt.com, and is fueled by similar political agendas.
(FWIW, I’ve placed another comment. Let’s see if that one stays — or not.)
I am doing work at a customer site, and I decided to scan through my favorite webcomics while waiting for a meeting to start.
When I try to go to the website that would show a cartoon like this
I get this instead.
However, the same customer allows this webcomic that contains material like this…
…and this.
The forbidden comic states a truth about apostasy in the Muslim world, and the second one contains obscenity.
I have no objection to obscenity itself, as long as it’s appropriate to the situation.
However, I also have no problem exposing uncomfortable truths about religions either.
But I’m guessing somebody does.
(Apologies for the advertisement at the end of the clip.)
It seems that double-secret probation is also in force in America today. The ACLU has made a Freedom of Information Act request to Attorney General Holder for information concerning the secret interpretation of section 215 of the Patriot Act on the part of the Obama administration. This request has been bolstered by a letter sent by Representatives Mark Udall and Ron Wyden in support of the request:
“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”
Dean Wormer…er, uh, President Obama needs to get a firm grip on his intelligence services. The Blutarskies and Hoovers of the world are going to get that information, and the electorate (the electorate, Mr. Obama) will discover just how far up the public ass the Patriot Act is being jammed.
Here’s one of the Doonesbury cartoons recently censored by several newspapers, and a message your friendly neighborhood white, middle-aged male Republican legislator doesn’t want you to read:
The Kansas City Star was one of the newspapers which refused to run the current comic thread concerning a new Texas law, heartily supported by Governor Rick Good Hair Perry, that requires intrusive sonogram examinations prior to receiving an abortion.
In old Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. She innocently opened a buried urn she had found and released the evils of the world that the gods had purposely confined and buried. (Sounds like Eve, doesn’t it?) This was part in parcel with the gods’ efforts to punish humanity for receiving the gift of fire given to them by Prometheus.
Pandora is now a member of the Kentucky state legislature. She’s in the guise of state senator Jimmy Higdon (a Republican, naturally). Higdon is sponsoring Senate Bill 158, which is a proposed state amendment designed to
“…prohibit any human authority from burdening actions that are based on religious beliefs, except in support of a compelling governmental interest using the least restrictive means to further that interest.”
The Family Foundation of Kentucky and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky both endorse this attempt to add an amendment to the Kentucky state constitution that would allow people to legally perform actions based upon religious belief, even if those actions are illegal.
Isn’t it ironic that this same bunch of self-congratulatory nincompoops who want to “expand” religious freedoms (presumably for fundie Christians and Catholics) don’t want those same freedoms allowed for fundie Muslims? All groups would presumably be allowed to arrange for forced marriages, prevent women from owning property, and even presumably allow for “honor” killings.
“So many of the Jews in this country are atheists.”
“The Jewish vote in this country is so confused.”
“Most of the Jews in this country are far left.”
“Their hearts are with this president…they’re with him on all the issues, abortion, all the things that you might list.”
“They like the identify [of Judaism] for some reason — they still want the identity.”
“Some of the Jewish atheists…who have some dealing with Judeo-Christian ethics sometimes turn out to be the worst enemies of this country in my perspective in terms of its future and its goals, in terms of its moral issues.” (emphasis mine)
This all clearly shows that I’ve caught a glimpse of some sort of alternative world, where the white, God-fearing people of America are the only ones who are morally correct, and are the ones who should calling the shots in the United States. Anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti-sex attitudes all seem rife in this reality.
I’m surprised no one mentioned the Illuminati.
(Sandy Rios is the former president of Concerned Women for America and a Faux News commentator. The grey-haired yahoo on screen is the AFA‘s very own Bryan Fisher.)
Never did understand why Ed Young or Robert Schuller or Ted Haggard thought spending millions on a mortgage was a more Christian act than congregating in a modest building and using that money to open food banks or maintain free medical clinics for children.
Thanks and a kiss to The Spouse for pointing this one out.
To tell the truth, it’s small surprise. The Komen Foundation, much like United Way, is infamous for wasting large percentages of donated moneys to staff salaries, administration, and overhead. Less than 15% of your donations go to cancer research, and now none of your donations go to fund breast cancer screenings for poor women — at least as far as Planned Parenthood is concerned.
The Komen Foundation corporate office number is 877-465-6636. Give them a call (be firm but polite, please.) Tell them exactly how you feel the next time you go to a women’s health event in which Komen has the nerve to raise its head. Let’s see if the anti-choice haters make up the difference from the millions in lost donations that will be needed to keep Jackson and Brinker in their phoney-baloney jobs (at $400K+/year, thanks for asking). [It seems Jackson took no salary for the position of board chair -- my bad.]
Side note: The Denver and Connecticut chapters of the Komen Foundation have broken with their national organization and told the board to go fuck itself. Those two groups didn’t break faith with those who need their services most.
Thanks to Joe for the Someecards barb, and thanks to The Spouse for this tip on Mr. Colbert’s take on the Komen litigations:
“Anybody who knows me knows I am a huge supporter of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, which raises millions of dollars a year in the fight against breast cancer . . . So I’m giving a big Tip of my Hat to the Komen foundation for spending almost a million dollars a year in donor funds to sue these other groups. If they don’t own the phrase “for the Cure,” then people might donate money thinking it’s going to an organization dedicated to curing cancer, when instead it’s wasted on organizations dedicated to curing cancer.”
Thoughtful, thoughtful film about the media’s constant reminder to girls and women that physical appearance is their paramount quality.
What do you do about this? Like so many effective remedies, it begins at home.
