Anti-Gay Groups Already Trying to Leverage SCOTUS Hobby Lobby Ruling

Every gay person and supporter who paid attention to the Hobby Lobby case at the Supreme Court likely predicted this. If you give corporations religious exemptions to law (and still, I can't get over that a corporation can have a religion*), it will spread to subjects far afield of the birth control argument that was the point of the case. Of course anti-gay corporate owners would try to leverage the decision into skirting public accommodation laws! And that is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

*By the way, now that corporations can have their own religious beliefs, I've got to wonder: Do corporations take communion? Do they get confirmed? Do they get circumcised? Do they have souls? Can they go to hell?

Image from source, Talking Points Memo

[Excerpt]

Post-Hobby Lobby, Religious Orgs Want Exemption From LGBT Hiring Order

The day after the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling, a group of religious leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he exempt them from a forthcoming executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT people. The letter, first reported by The Atlantic, was sent on Tuesday by 14 representatives, including the president of Gordon College, an Erie County, Pa., executive and the national faith vote director for Obama for America 2012, of the faith community. . .

Read more at: Talking Points Memo

Guy Sings Justice Ginsburg's Hobby Lobby Dissent

There are always high profile Supreme Court cases that one side or the other will be very disappointed about. But the Hobby Lobby case still leaves me very confused. As I said earlier, contraception and abortion aren't my issues. But the Pandora's Box that has been opened by allowing religious exemptions to laws? The pitfalls just seem so obvious. The legal reasoning seems so flimsy. I feel confident enough to predict: this case will lead to many and varied cases of companies trying to duck laws they don't like, bogus religions seeing what they can get away with, and even more bizarre claims of corporate personhood. But hey, it's not all doom and gloom, right? There are even ways to make the best of it. Like this guy.
 

Rachel Maddow: Previous SCOTUS Religion Cases Went Much Differently

A history lesson you should watch, so you can realize just how radical Monday's Hobby Lobby decision really was. If you don't have time for both videos, it's the second one that relates to the story below, the first is on the same subject.

[Excerpt]

Rachel Maddow: Christian segregationists would support Hobby Lobby ruling



Segregationists like Maurice Bessinger, who used religion to justify his beliefs, would be stunned and possibly pleased by Monday’s Supreme Court ruling regarding workers’ access to reproductive health measures, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said, “His belief in slavery and segregation as divinely ordained? That was certainly sincerely held,” Maddow said. “Certainly it was based in religion. But in his case, that was not enough to deprive people of their right to protections and rights that they were afforded under law. Now though, the court today said religion is all you need. . .”

Read more at: Raw Story

Supreme Court Inexplicably Decides For Hobby Lobby

I'm a gay man, if you didn't know, and as such have very little interest in the subject of abortion, or birth control. So, the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood case doesn't affect me directly. But as an atheist, I'm an ardent supporter of the separation of church and state (as all fans of the Constitution should be, by the way). And so, when SCOTUS does anything that bends over for religion, I've immediately got my hackles up.

Let's start with the direct problems with the case:

- It gives corporations "religious rights," furthering the fiction that corporations are people.
- It allows employers' religious beliefs to trump employees' religious beliefs.
- As such, the employer's beliefs are protected, while the employees' are disregarded.
- It allows an employers' beliefs about something (in this case that these particular birth control methods cause abortion, when in fact they don't) to be respected, regardless of how wrong it is.
- It magnifies something that was settled decades ago--birth control--into a "hot button" issue.
- Though it takes strained pains not to, it opens the door to countless other corporate religious exemptions to other laws.
- SCOTUS treats the religions of the companies involved in this case--mainstream Christianity--as a valid, acceptable religion to earn an exception to the ObamaCare law. But it dismisses other religions (Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, Christian Scientists), and gives no clear reasoning as to what would qualify one over the other.

This is one of those cases that is bound to make one side happy, and the other unhappy. But it also goes further, by tarnishing the already dingy reputation of the court, by not having much in the way of legal reasoning at all. Hobby Lobby is not a person. It is not a church. It is not a doctor or in the medical profession. It is a craft store. And yet, they put themselves in the position of dictating their religious beliefs about a medical decision to their employees, regardless of the employee's beliefs, or lack of them.

I want to ask supporters of this decision some simple questions: do you honestly think that it will end here, with a "Christian" corporation, on the issue of birth control only? Did you consider that this law will eventually apply to other religions, from Mormons to Hindus to Islam? Did you consider that a corporation could devise a whole new religion, and make any sort of "sincerely held beliefs" to get out of other laws? This was Pandora's Box. It's open now.

[Excerpt]

Supreme Court exempts Hobby Lobby from Obamacare contraception mandate

 

Attempting to expand religious expression protections to small business owners without significantly disrupting the rules that govern for-profit corporations, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Obama administration must exempt closely-held firms like Hobby Lobby from a rule requiring large companies to help pay for their employees' birth control. . .

Read more at: CBS News

Creepy Mike Huckabee's Sexism and. . .Creepiness

"And then Uncle Sugar touches you in your special place. . ."
Image from source, Raw Story

Ugh. You'd have thought prominent conservatives would have learned their lessons by now, when it comes to women. Instead, they keep saying very, very, very stupid things about rape, abortion, sex, sex parts, contraception, and on and on. They seem to think they're absolute experts on that whole lady business while continuing to prove that they a) don't really seem to know much about it, and b) have no clue how to talk about it without being extremely offensive. And yet, they keep doing it!

But let me say, even though what Huckabee says is indeed racist, and I understand that the following phrase is part of his regular schtick, this man saying "Uncle Sugar," is like the creepiest thing ever.

[Excerpt]

Huckabee: Dems say women ‘can’t control their libido’ without birth control from ‘Uncle Sugar’
 
Mike Huckabee says Democrats make women feel helpless to control their libido by offering government-sponsored birth control. The onetime presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor told the Republican National Committee during a speech Thursday that they can’t allow liberals to frame the debate any longer. “I think it’s time Republicans no longer accept listening to the Democrats talk about a ‘war on women,’” Huckabee said. “Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war for women. . .”

Read more at: Raw Story

Legitimate Rape®

It's kind of amazing that something so horrible--based on something so stupid--can still be funny. But then, I've always had an inappropriate sense of humor.

Video Compilation of Limbaugh Attacking Sandra Fluke 70 Times

Image found at Sodahead

When discussing the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke story, it is always important to point out that Rush wasn't just wrong for treating a private citizen that way. He had the entire story wrong. Nothing he said bore relation to reality. Fluke wasn't talking about her own sex life. She wasn't talking about anyone's sex life. In fact, a major part of what she was talking about was contraception as medicine. It had nothing to do with taxpayer funding.

I've said all of this before, but it doesn't really seem to be sinking in. The Rush fans and FReepers are still calling Fluke a slut, heedless of the fact that it's all in pig boy's fetid mind. Pisses me off. And the ones who feel the need to try to save face have tried to make some sort of point using Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin names. Which is the classic apples-to-oranges comparison.  Aside from the fact that Palin is a public figure, she was used as a punch line. Limbaugh used Fluke as a punching bag. Don't believe me, watch this:

Found at: AmericaBlog.com

Rush Limbaugh (and his supporters) are Inside the Bubble

I don't know how Rush fits in there.

There's something odd going on right now. First, it's odd that Rush Limbaugh and his vile self have overshadowed the GOP presidential contest. But second, it's odd that the whole episode is being argued by Rush and his supporters from an alternate universe. They are all inside the bubble, using their own "facts," irrespective of what is actually going on.

I was just listening to Kevin Wall, the local Las Vegas drive-time host on KXNT radio. He started with a clip from Don Imus about Rush, calling his "apology" insincere. Wall then asked his listeners to vote on that topic. Then, he launched into a diatribe about how Sandra Fluke wanted "us" to pay for her birth control. That she was 30, and should buy her own, not expect it for free, with "us" footing the bill.

Fluke wanted nothing of the kind. She was--first of all--not arguing for herself, but for a friend of hers. And that friend--a lesbian with no need for contraception--needed the pill for ovarian cysts. And because her insurance--which she must buy as a student at their school--didn't cover it. Even at her doctor's request. This has nothing to do with Fluke's sex life, which she never discussed. This has nothing to do with "us"--taxpayers--paying anything. Here's a link about the whole thing, if you want to know more.

But how can Rush turn this into a now nearly week-long battle (losing now nine sponsors), when the actual meat of the story is 100% wrong? How can simpleton Kevin Wall continue the discussion with no idea what the story is actually about? And how can Rush's fans and supporters be standing with him, still insisting that Sandra Fluke is a "slut?" This is astoundingly stupid.

Rachel Maddow: Rush Limbaugh Doesn't Understand How Contraceptives Work

Rachel Maddow proves Rush Limbaugh's ignorance/stupidity regarding birth control in this highly entertaining piece. And along the way, Rachel explains who Sandra Fluke is, what she wanted to say, and how this totally not about Limbaugh's take on "sluts." The meat of the story starts at about 4:30 in the video. Enjoy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Jon Stewart on Virginia's "Trans-vaginal Probe" Law

You know, I've often said here that as a middle-aged gay man in a long-term same-sex marriage, the subjects of birth control and abortion are just not my issues. At all. But even I can see the insanity being rained down by the GOP on both local and national stages. For instance, only a loon would say that the "morning after" clump of cells is a person. And most people probably think that these personhood proposals don't intentionally rule out whole classes of contraception. They'd be wrong about that. I've recently learned that the right-to-life crowd has moved beyond fretting about third, second or even first trimester pregnancies, and right up to the second the sperm meets the egg. Insanity.

But the anti-abortion measures being taken up in Virginia lower the bar on insanity. Government mandated, medically unnecessary, trans-vaginal probing? THIS is smaller government? WTF? Something this crazy can only be adequately dissected by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Because it belongs on Comedy Central.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Punanny State - Virginia's Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill
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SNL: "Really!?! With Seth & Amy" on Birth Control

Amy Poehler came back along with her friend and host, Maya Rudolph. So, viewers were lucky to have a reunion of the old Weekend Update team, Seth Meyers and Poehler. Their  Really?!? segment was one of their best, and this new one is no exception. Hilarious.

The Phony Baloney "War on Religion"

A certain segment of the American populace loves to pretend that they're put apon, marginalized and under attack. It isn't all religious people. It isn't even all Christians. It's the usual suspects: ultra-conservative, (usually) white, (outwardly) straight, (often) male evangelical Christians. There are others that ebb and flow in and out of this beleaguered lot, from Mormons to Catholics, but it's mostly those that I mentioned. They act as though they're outraged, but they're not really. They're thrilled to act the part of victim.

It's gotten so bad that Christians can't even pray in public.

This is obvious if you frequent right-wing blogs, right-wing talk radio, or FOX "News." The reactions are so over the top, the stories so tailored to the victimhood narrative. In the most recent case, with President Obama's plan for insurance contraception plans, the obviousness is glaring. Even after the Catholic Church itself was removed from any direct funding for contraception, right-wing world is still wobbly on its axis. But as one of my favorite writers, Eugene Robinson points out below, Christians are not under any sort of attack, or in any kind of danger that they're going to lose the right to practice their religion. It's preposterous. Don't believe me? Pay attention to your fellow humans between now and Easter. Any changes? Anything different? Didn't think so.

[Excerpt]

Drumming up a phony war on religion

At ease, Christian soldiers. There is no “war on religion,” no assault on the Catholic Church. A faith that has endured for thousands of years will survive even Nicki Minaj.

It never occurred to me to evaluate the Grammy Awards show on theological rectitude, but apparently we’re supposed to be outraged at the over-the-top “exorcism” Minaj performed Sunday night. The hip-hop diva, who writhed and cavorted amid a riot of religious iconography, is accused of anti-Catholic bigotry — and seen as an enemy combatant in an escalating “war on religion” being waged by “secular elites,” which seems to be used as a synonym for Democrats. . .

Read more at: Washington Post

Jon Stewart on Abortion and Birth Control, Pt. II

Jon Stewart is even funny in this second part of Monday's abortion and birth control topic.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Jon Stewart on Birth Control and Religion

Hilarious.

In Case You Missed It: Rachel Maddow's Op-Ed on Abortion and Birth Control

It's really, really, really big government to have it
controlling our sex lives, isn't it?

As I've said before, this is not my issue. But it's been stirred up to a frenzy (probably because the economy is improving) in politics lately. Rachel Maddow wrote an op-ed this weekend on the subject, and makes several good points. It's worth a read. So, read it, won't you?

[Excerpt]


War on birth control

In 2008 in Colorado, a rebel faction of antiabortion activists decided to pursue a “personhood” initiative. Over the objections of the mainstream antiabortion movement, they proposed amending the state’s constitution to redefine the word “person” to include zygotes. Under the proposal, “from the moment of fertilization,” a woman would be considered two people under Colorado law. When the initiative went before voters, it failed by more than 40 points. . .

Read more at: The Washington Post

Santorum Argues States Should be Able to Ban Birth Control, Sodomy

Mr. Frothy Mix himself

What? Seriously, what? So, Rick Santorum thinks that states ought to be allowed to pass laws against birth control. Against sodomy. If they have the power to do that, what don't they have power over? Does that sound like freedom to you? Does it sound like small government? And before you answer, remember that birth control prevents disease, and reduces abortion. And sodomy? Sodomy can be defined as just about any sex act besides missionary (straight) married sex.  Just how popular do you think these ideas are, on a national scale?


[Excerpt]

Rick Santorum: States Should Have Power To Ban Birth Control, Sodomy

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, whose strong base of evangelical Christian supporters has thrust him into contention in Iowa, said on Monday that he believes states should have the right to outlaw birth control and sodomy without the interference of the Supreme Court. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

Yep. Personhood Law Outlaws Birth Control Pills

Yep. Those little pills are murder!
Image from Think Progress.

You know, I've always said that abortion is not my issue. I will personally never be impacted by it, and it's just way out of my orbit. And birth control? As a gay person in a long-term relationship, contraceptives are just about the furthest thing from my mind. But I've gotta think that The Pill is pretty popular, and not particularly just by liberals.

Can we get an "aye" to the statement, "personhood laws are stupid?" Thank you.

[Excerpt]


Personhood USA Confirms That Mississippi Abortion Ban Would Outlaw Birth Control Pills 

 Next Tuesday, Mississippians will go to the polls to decide on Initiative 26, a personhood amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Personhood amendments represent an extreme reach into a family’s privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion and potentially outlawing common forms of birth control. . .

Read more at: Think Progress

John McCain Stumped by Viagra & Birth Control

Right up front, I'll tell you that this is a silly post. John McCain is asked what he thinks about the fact that insurance covers Viagra, but not birth control. There, McCain goes blank. For a looong time. I kept flashing on The Simpsons, where Homer is trying to concentrate, and instead has a 30s cartoon with organ-grinder music playing in his head.

If I knew how to edit video, I just might have a hit YouTube video on my hands!