The Gay Thing: Mississippi Latest State to Embrace Bigotry Over Equality

I realized I'd better get a new post up, before people thought Greenlee Gazette had gone out of business or something! Truth is, as I've noted in my rare posts of late, blogging seems somehow redundant and unnecessary these days. The whole point of it was for me to express thoughts and feelings that I didn't think were being expressed anywhere. And along the way to entertain and to sometimes educate or help illuminate the dark corners of a story that otherwise gets a lot of play.

Lately--with the exception of the occasional horrific terrorist attach or other world event that takes the news cycle for a day or two--there has been a steady sameness to the news. Every day, in fact, you can find out if anything is going on in the world by turning on any of the cable news channels in the morning. If you are nothing is going on in the world. At least nothing you won't find without digging.

greeted with a round-table discussion of a) how the Republicans can try to stop the Donald Trump juggernaut, or b) how today's news is bad for Hillary Clinton, you can be fairly sure

And I'm sorry to say, blogosphere, that it's sort of anesthetized me to my usual desire to find out anyway. I promise it isn't a permanent condition, but it is a persistent one. So, I need to start paying attention.

Baby steps. Here's one: there is a wave of anti-gay, pro-"religious freedom" bills and laws sweeping the country. The scare quotes are deliberate, because these things are religious freedom in name only. The only thing I've yet to figure out is how many advocates for them (in and outside of politics) really believe the rhetoric behind them, and how many know better, that they're a way to whittle down the successes of the gay rights movement. I'm guessing it's something of a mixture, sort of akin to the Kinsey Scale, only measuring homophobia and religious fervor.

But since I'm sort of easing back into the blogging thing, let's go the humor route to get our feet wet, shall we?

Mississippi Anti-Gay Tourism Video from Funny Or Die

Right Wing World: Presidential Politics Off The Rails

If this were my first or second year of blogging, I'd probably be typing my fingers into stumps, trying to keep up with the utter insanity overtaking Republican politics right now. But it isn't. I'm actually in my ninth year, and no longer feel compelled to hit this stuff quite so hard. I'm actually kind of glad I don't. It's making me crazy enough as it is.

Listen, I am aware that a lot of what's going on in the world is scary, confusing, complicated and difficult to process. It's just as hard as a hobbyist blogger (i.e., no more professional training than your average talk radio boob or FOX "News"-babe) to figure out what to write. The president spoke from the Oval Office last night, ordinarily something I'd write about. But I listened to the conservative response, which was uniformly negative, naturally, and just threw up my hands. Because, surely the president knows nothing and we really should be following what Joe Scarborough or Sean Hannity thinks we should do, right?

Image from source, Washington Post

Trouble is, the people auditioning for the actual president's job are quite arguably worse than the idiots in the conservative media. Any pretense at looking "presidential" is out the window. Any caution for how their words are perceived internationally is ignored. Even reality itself seems rather malleable in Right Wing World. You've got Trump ready to ignore Muslim Americans' civil rights, you've got Ted Cruz talking about nuking and "carpet bombing" (a war crime) swaths of the Middle East. Conservative standard-bearers--allegedly strict constitutional constructionists--want to throw out religious freedom (unless it's made-up Christian "persecution"). Everything has gone topsy-turvy. And it just keeps getting worse.

I get really bummed when I read internet polls or comments sections, and see these "conservatives" on board with this shit! This is allegedly the cautious party, the party afraid of change, the ones about "rule of law" and "personal responsibility" saying and doing whatever it is that their frothing-at-the-mouth, batshit crazy base will eat with a spoon. Regardless of whether or not it's the most anti-American, potentially unconstitutional, often internationally illegal and quite literally illogical claptrap ever spewed in politics.

Maybe I need to come back to this thing more often.

[Excerpt]

Donald Trump is a disaster for Republicans. And they can’t do a thing about it.

Donald Trump seemed to signal a new -- and even darker -- phase of his front-running campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Monday when he released a statement insisting that Muslims should be banned from entering the country under any circumstances "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. . ."

Read more at: Washington Post

Matt Baume On "Religious Liberty"

Found at: Joe.My.God.

Satanists: Hobby Lobby Decision Could Exempt Women from Anti-abortion Laws

Image from source, Raw Story

This gives me a great deal of schadenfreude. File under: be careful what you wish for.

[Excerpt]

Satanists want to use Hobby Lobby decision to exempt women from anti-abortion laws

In a statement, the Satanic Temple said that it will use the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision to exempt its believers from state-mandated informed consent laws that require women considering abortions to read pro-life material. Informed consent or “right to know” laws state that women seeking elective abortions be provided with information about alternatives to the procedure, often couched in language that attempts to personify the fetus. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 35 states currently have informed consent laws, and of those, 33 require that the woman be told the gestational age of the fetus. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Someone Please Explain This "War on Christmas" Video to Me

Seriously, I mean, WTF?

 

SCOTUS Case About "Religious Rights" of Corporations

Doesn't look like a church. Or a person.
Image from source, New York Times.

Sometimes a loony argument somehow wends its way all the way to the Supreme Court, and boy howdy is this one of them. SCOTUS is set to hear a case that asserts "religious beliefs" for corporations, more or less. This sounds preposterous of course, but when you consider that they previously called corporations people, it sounds like a logical conclusion.

So, okay. Even though corporations are clearly not people, let's presume for the sake of argument that they are. Do people have religious beliefs? Yes. Are they entitled to freedom of religion under the Constitution? Yes. They would also be entitled to freedom from religion--something the religious right has decided isn't true--which we'll get to in a minute. But typically, we think of these freedoms as personal and private. They're our own. Strangely, a new definition of "religious freedom" has taken root with the religious right, and they've pushed it all the way to the top.

What do I mean? Well, the case before the Supreme Court has to do with employers who provide health insurance. The Affordable Care Act requires that insurance plans provide contraception options. Hobby Lobby, an employer, is asserting that contraception is against their religion. Again, the corporation's religion. Now, Hobby Lobby is not a church. It's not a company that is an adjunct of the church, selling and doing business only between churches. It's a public business.

Next, consider the cases going through the courts having to do with public accommodations. Be they cake bakers, dress makers, reception halls, photographers, there is a whole category--apparently--of "oddly religious wedding planners." Several have refused to provide services to gay and lesbian couples seeking to get married (regardless of whether or not the ceremony is official or symbolic). These companies--when confronted with public accommodation laws--cry "religious freedom" too.

You'd think a corporation turning down money would
be nearly as unthinkable as a gay wedding!

While the latter point isn't directly tied to the former, they have a lot to do with each other. In both cases, you have companies claiming to have religious beliefs. And claiming that it is their religious freedom to dictate what their employers, or what their customers receive. Hobby Lobby isn't receiving contraception, or even providing it. They're providing insurance to people who may or may not get contraceptives partly covered by the insurance. But more importantly, the employee very likely does not share the employer's religion, and shouldn't have to! And a baker who has a problem with same-sex marriage hasn't got the right to insist that their customers adhere to the bakers' religion or else not get a cake.

I could veer off into several side-issues, like the fact that these oh-so-pious companies probably overlook a bevvy of other sins, and are oddly focusing on contraceptives and gays. But instead, I'll just say emphatically, your religious freedom ends with you. Unless you run a private, religious organization through and through, your religion does not extend to your employees and customers unless they want it to.

I'm nervous that this famously odd Supreme Court (which has veered from the horror of Citizens United and gutting the Voting Rights Act, to pleasing Marriage Equality decisions) might make another Pandora's Box decision. After all, if corporations can dodge all manners of laws and regulations just by crying "religious freedom," where will it end? And with whose religion? Are Satanism, Wicca, Scientology, and Pastafarians going to get in on the action?

[Excerpt]

Court Confronts Religious Rights of Corporations

Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, closes on Sundays, costing its owners millions but honoring their Christian faith.  The stores play religious music. Employees get free spiritual counseling. But they do not get free insurance coverage for some contraceptives, even though President Obama’s health care law requires it. . .

Read more at: New York Times