So many imbeciles, so little time....
Feb. 26th, 2014 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAh, where to begin in the culture wars today?
We have a ragingly homophobic bill on the desk of the Arizona guv, who is being asked to allow outright discrimination against LGBT people by anyone who asserts a "sincerely held" religious belief against accommodating such individuals. This would expand current law, which only allows religious institutions to discriminate, and nobody is suggesting (despite the noise to the contrary you might hear) that the vetoing of this bill will require ministers, rabbis or imams to marry couples against their religious precepts. No, the bugaboo here is that expands the current suit immunity of such organizations to "any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization."
So corporations are people, and now people are churches. I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob.
The proponents of this bill are casting it as a matter of religious freedom. The Constitution guarantees religious freedom!, thus sayeth the Prophet Rush. (Actually, it does no such thing; it prohibits Congress from making a law infringing on such freedom, hand in hand with its prohibiting Congress from making a law establishing a religion under the guise of such freedom.) But let's not quibble; rather, Limbaugh is far more upset about the "bullying" of the bill proponents in their effort to legislate such "freedom" and of the Guv as she decides whether to veto it. He does not like that the people are peacefully assembling and petitioning the state of Arizona for a redress of grievances. (Funny, I remember that being on the bar exam somewhere, too....) He's particularly pissed about private businesses "bullying" Arizona with threats of lost business if the bill is signed; he specifically mentioned an Apple plant set to open and add 2,000 new jobs in the state, but there's also the spectre of the NFL pulling out the state's next promised Super Bowl.
How unseemly! How tacky! Threatening such things out in the open! It's not the way Republicans do it- quietly, in smoke-filled back rooms, with lobbyists and bags of campaign cash, and formal organizations like ALEC writing the bills for the Lej's to sign. And I didn't hear anyone over there complaining when it was a group of public officials in Tennessee convincing VW workers to vote against a union that VW itself was in favor of, threatening the loss of jobs all along the way as they did so.
The hypocrisy, it burns.
----
As I will, apparently, in hell.
For I've gotten into an online flame war with a local columnist and his minions who is still trying to convince his readers that the "contraception mandate" dispute, involving (I swear I am not making this up) The Little Sisters of the Poor, is a similar infringement on "religious freedom" and should be overturned by the Supremes, who so far have only enjoined its application to the nuns on a temporary basis.
Never mind that the mandate was specifically changed to permit a religious exemption for church-related business such as these nuns' separate revenue-generating businesses. There is no compromise with these types, though, and so they now push the talking point that in order to claim the exemption, they must give "permission" to their health insurance carriers to fund the contraceptives separately.
Bullroar.
In not one of the dozens of articles and comments on this did I see that actual language. So I looked it up in the court records concerning the injunction- and this is what they refuse to sign:
“I certify that, on account of religious objections, the organization opposes providing coverage for some or all of any contraceptive services that would otherwise be required to be covered; the organization is organized and operates as a nonprofit entity; and the organization holds itself out as a religious organization.”
Seems straightforward enough, but apparently Sister Mary Strawman considers any signature to be an infringement of her religious freedoms and they're spinning this as something that it isn't. But since when is THAT ever surprising?
----
And now, sports.
Michael Sam continues to make headlines- some for his own good attitude and performance at this past week's pre-draft combine, but way too much from the world of idiots. First, I heard this word from a one-time professional golfer named Steve Elkington. "Elk" is an Aussie of the lowest order, and he tweeted this out the other day:
He tried deleting it shortly after that, but that unfortunate inky quality of the Internet will now serve to mock and shame him for years to come. Not to be outdone, a DC lobbyist Jack Burkham decided to take "sincerely held" beliefs one step further, proposing legislation that would ban gay players from the NFL, because, and I quote,
Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?
Um, to the 21st century, maybe? We do still have 86 years of it left, after all. In a slightly different form of Internet mocking, it has now come out that Burkham's own brother, an anaesthesiologist in Seattle, is himself gay- and doesn't think much about what bro is proposing:
Hopefully their God is big enough that He can make a rock so big that all these jamoches can crawl back underneath it.
We have a ragingly homophobic bill on the desk of the Arizona guv, who is being asked to allow outright discrimination against LGBT people by anyone who asserts a "sincerely held" religious belief against accommodating such individuals. This would expand current law, which only allows religious institutions to discriminate, and nobody is suggesting (despite the noise to the contrary you might hear) that the vetoing of this bill will require ministers, rabbis or imams to marry couples against their religious precepts. No, the bugaboo here is that expands the current suit immunity of such organizations to "any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization."
So corporations are people, and now people are churches. I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob.
The proponents of this bill are casting it as a matter of religious freedom. The Constitution guarantees religious freedom!, thus sayeth the Prophet Rush. (Actually, it does no such thing; it prohibits Congress from making a law infringing on such freedom, hand in hand with its prohibiting Congress from making a law establishing a religion under the guise of such freedom.) But let's not quibble; rather, Limbaugh is far more upset about the "bullying" of the bill proponents in their effort to legislate such "freedom" and of the Guv as she decides whether to veto it. He does not like that the people are peacefully assembling and petitioning the state of Arizona for a redress of grievances. (Funny, I remember that being on the bar exam somewhere, too....) He's particularly pissed about private businesses "bullying" Arizona with threats of lost business if the bill is signed; he specifically mentioned an Apple plant set to open and add 2,000 new jobs in the state, but there's also the spectre of the NFL pulling out the state's next promised Super Bowl.
How unseemly! How tacky! Threatening such things out in the open! It's not the way Republicans do it- quietly, in smoke-filled back rooms, with lobbyists and bags of campaign cash, and formal organizations like ALEC writing the bills for the Lej's to sign. And I didn't hear anyone over there complaining when it was a group of public officials in Tennessee convincing VW workers to vote against a union that VW itself was in favor of, threatening the loss of jobs all along the way as they did so.
The hypocrisy, it burns.
----
As I will, apparently, in hell.
For I've gotten into an online flame war with a local columnist and his minions who is still trying to convince his readers that the "contraception mandate" dispute, involving (I swear I am not making this up) The Little Sisters of the Poor, is a similar infringement on "religious freedom" and should be overturned by the Supremes, who so far have only enjoined its application to the nuns on a temporary basis.
Never mind that the mandate was specifically changed to permit a religious exemption for church-related business such as these nuns' separate revenue-generating businesses. There is no compromise with these types, though, and so they now push the talking point that in order to claim the exemption, they must give "permission" to their health insurance carriers to fund the contraceptives separately.
Bullroar.
In not one of the dozens of articles and comments on this did I see that actual language. So I looked it up in the court records concerning the injunction- and this is what they refuse to sign:
“I certify that, on account of religious objections, the organization opposes providing coverage for some or all of any contraceptive services that would otherwise be required to be covered; the organization is organized and operates as a nonprofit entity; and the organization holds itself out as a religious organization.”
Seems straightforward enough, but apparently Sister Mary Strawman considers any signature to be an infringement of her religious freedoms and they're spinning this as something that it isn't. But since when is THAT ever surprising?
----
And now, sports.
Michael Sam continues to make headlines- some for his own good attitude and performance at this past week's pre-draft combine, but way too much from the world of idiots. First, I heard this word from a one-time professional golfer named Steve Elkington. "Elk" is an Aussie of the lowest order, and he tweeted this out the other day:
He tried deleting it shortly after that, but that unfortunate inky quality of the Internet will now serve to mock and shame him for years to come. Not to be outdone, a DC lobbyist Jack Burkham decided to take "sincerely held" beliefs one step further, proposing legislation that would ban gay players from the NFL, because, and I quote,
Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?
Um, to the 21st century, maybe? We do still have 86 years of it left, after all. In a slightly different form of Internet mocking, it has now come out that Burkham's own brother, an anaesthesiologist in Seattle, is himself gay- and doesn't think much about what bro is proposing:
Hopefully their God is big enough that He can make a rock so big that all these jamoches can crawl back underneath it.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-26 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-27 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-27 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-26 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-27 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-27 12:06 am (UTC)But these are the same people who don't think we should feed the hungry or care for the sick...
no subject
Date: 2014-02-27 01:57 am (UTC)http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/02/arizona-goddam.html