The Gay Thing: So-called "Religious Freedom" Cases are Not What They Seem

When I started this blog, I never intended for "The Gay Thing" to be anything more than an occasional topic. The news cycle doesn't really permit that anymore, does it? Couple that with the fact that this blog is also my sounding board, the place where I go to get things off of my chest. And this topic often generates that need, particularly when it comes to backlash and stupidity (they often go together).

Here's a FOX "News" story about one of the early
"religious freedom" cases, Sweet Cakes by Melissa.
There wasn't legal marriage in Oregon at the time.
Helpfully labeled so you know he's not Melissa.

Marriage equality is very nearly a done deal. Before the end of the year, we'll likely be past 35 states and the District of Columbia. What's left is pretty much the deep south and the Dakotas, with some stragglers around the edges (come on, Ohio, you're embarrassing me!). But the anti-gay side--and don't kid yourself, that is what they are--isn't ready to give up. Since they're pretty much out of options in regard to the actual legality of same-sex marriage, what they've got left is to make all sorts of claims of "religious freedom." They're actually making a case that the ability to legally discriminate, shun, or otherwise refuse service to gay people, is a central tenet of their religion.

And the story about the
Houston sermon subpoena
thing from Joe.My.God.
That's mayor Annise Parker,
who's caught up in it.

Finding the commandment or verse that calls for this is difficult, but that's not stopping them. This actually started a while back, when the marriage equality tsunami was just a few lapping waves. It was odd too, because it was almost exclusively wedding industry Christians (cake bakers, photographers, venue operators, dress makers, caterers) from states where gay people couldn't marry anyway. It actually rather shone a light on their lie that they weren't anti-gay, just religiously objecting to gay marriage. How can that be true when these weren't legal marriages anyway? Sometimes--as in a religion-meddling-in-politics case in Houston--marriage isn't even a part of the controversy. It's pretty plain: they just don't like gay people, and want to be mean and/or able to ignore that they exist.

So, they've amped up their martyr complexes, and made mini celebrities out of themselves all across Right Wing World. And now that equality has come to the majority of the US, they're turning it up to eleven. The trouble is, their claims have just enough truthiness, and surfacy-outrage to potentially stick. In other words, though their claims are absolute bullshit, it might sound convincing enough to create backlash. Now, why do I say their claims are bullshit?

Well, first there is the above note that they have a difficult time pointing out the specific religious objections they might have to selling products or services to gay people. Second, this often has little to do with marriage itself, it has to do with public accommodation laws, which predate legal marriage. If you have a public accommodation business, open to the general public, you must serve the general public. It's as simple as the Woolworth's lunch counter not being legally able to bar black customers. I don't care if you don't think sexual orientation is a perfect analogy to race, legally, these cases are identical. If there is a public accommodation law that covers gay people (and they are far from universal, lest you think otherwise), you can't refuse to do business with them just because they're gay. Or have a different religion. Or are black. Or anything else covered by the law.

The unbelievable disingenuousness of Las Vegas
wedding chapels (Elvis?) alleging to be solemn
churches is just galling.

Now, there are new cases, even right here in Nevada, where wedding chapels are deciding not to perform marriages for gay couples, using a "religious freedom" excuse. And this is where the truthiness comes in. It sounds like a religious freedom case, because: chapel. And the officiant may very well be religious and homophobic (I'm sorry, your religion doesn't shield you from being a bigot). But these chapels, in every one of these new cases, are not churches, they are businesses. Consider if you will, the parade of couples who have gone through your average Las Vegas little white chapel. Do you mean to tell me every one has been as pure as the driven snow, with a religion that aligns perfectly with the officiant? Really?

So, while I believe that these cases are bullshit, and a transparent attempt by the anti-gay to exert some control over a situation where they have none, I do worry. I saw Hobby Lobby, a case that was a

A rustic, wild west, for-profit church?!?
Our latest martyrs from Idaho.

Pandora's box filled with mind boggling implications. One of them could be giving these chapels inherent religious beliefs and rights, out of thin air. And once you've carved out exceptions to some laws for the "sincerely held beliefs" of one religion, tell me, where would it stop? This isn't a slippery slope question, this is an obvious, and clear eventuality: there would suddenly be other beliefs that need to be "protected" by carving out exceptions to other laws. And pretty soon, it wouldn't just be Christians seeking them. Right Wing World rarely thinks about that.

As an atheist, I am a staunch supporter of religious freedom, because it protects my lack of belief, or is supposed to. But I don't like disingenuous, manipulative, dishonest movements like this one. And I have a very hard time thinking it's a good idea to grant legal exceptions for what amount to mythical beliefs.

Stephen King on Religion (and How NewsBusters Got it Wrong)

The awesome Stephen King, from FanPop.com

Yes, NewsBusters again. I just extracted myself from a fight I kind of started at the supposed "media watch dog" site that is in reality an arch right-wing commentary site. I've commented before how the NewsBusters headlines often read to me like a big list of "so whats." They list a bunch of things that are supposed to outrage, but instead, I agree with them.

Well, this time, they went too far. They focused on one of my favorite authors--and I know he's considered somehow "not literary," but I don't care--Stephen King. Now, don't think I like King simply because he's a liberal. I like Dean Koontz too, and he's an obvious Orange County conservative. Still, King's stories are more dense, more layered. And with less focus on golden retrievers, Jeep Cherokees, and slightly mismatched male/female couples who verbally spar in humorous ways in the midst of catastrophe.

But one thing they both have in common is a seeming belief in the divine. Sure, they can skew that quite a bit, toward sci-fi, toward other-worldly rather than explicitly God, but other times they'll pretty much spell out a big-time, universe creating deity. As an atheist, this only bothers me a little. I mean, we're talking aliens, monsters, other worlds, alternate dimensions, time travel and IT. I can handle a little make believe.

So, how does this come back around to NewsBusters? Well, they are using him to make it seem that this very successful liberal author has duped NPR in his interview, by supporting Intelligent Design.
I ain't gonna lie, he said something along those lines. But they emphasize that as though it is his main point, but then downplay his conclusion.

My favorite King novel and adaptation was The Stand, 
in which religion is figured heavily. It didn't bother me.
But Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail could just be
"good" and "evil," right?

And I get what he's saying. We humans often say things like, "It must have been meant to be," and "it was fate." We say these things whether we literally believe that time and elements were physically guided or not. We can feel that something was going to happen, and fall into place, without necessarily believing that a supernatural entity was cataloging, manipulating and  guiding time and space to make something happen.

But, typical of NewsBusters, they will focus on what they want you to see. And their readers--as I've learned first hand in the last few days--will take the bait, and argue it strenuously.

Here is the line they highlighted: " if you say, well, OK, I don't believe in God, there's no evidence of God, then you're missing the stars in the sky, and you're missing the sunrises and sunsets, and you're missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together at the same time."

What they don't want you to notice is this, "But at the same time there's a lot of things in life where you say to yourself, well, if this is God's plan, it's very peculiar. And you have to wonder about that guy's personality, the big guy's personality." And then even more clearly, "What I'm saying now is I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts."

I'm just saying, that conclusion doesn't really square with their headline.

[Excerpt]

Stephen King Shocks NPR Audience: Nature 'Suggests Intelligent Design' by God

On Tuesday's Fresh Air on NPR stations from coast to coast, host Terry Gross interviewed author Stephen King on his new book  "Joyland," which features a young man in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy and his grandfather, a radio evangelist named Buddy Ross, who insists the disease is divine punishment. . .

Read more at: NewsBusters

Attention Lindsey Graham: Social Security Has Nothing to do With "Fiscal Cliff!"

Close your mouth, Lindsey. People are starting to talk.

I know that Republicans really, really, really want to undo FDR's "New Deal" and all, but it gets tiresome when they try to attach "Social Security reform" to manufactured crises like the "fiscal cliff" or raising the "debt ceiling." Social Security is its own separate, self-funded thing. It has nothing to do with what's going on right now. Lindsey Graham and the rest of the GOP are being disingenuous and reckless with the United States economy.

[Excerpt]

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham Takes Nation Hostage – Raise Social Security Retirement Age Or Else

As reported on Think Progress, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who represents South Carolina, would throw the country into an economic calamity that is expected to make 2008’s Great Recession look like a New Year’s Eve party if Republicans don’t get the spending cuts to entitlements they’re so desperately craving. . .

Read more at: Addicting Info

Pennsylvania Latest Voter ID State

This sort of thing used to really bother conservatives.
Image from BartCop.

See, here's the thing I don't get. . . Several years ago, here in Nevada, there was a battle being waged by the American Independent Party to be recognized as a force in the state. Not independents, mind you, this was a party that used the word in their name, probably to confuse voters into think they actually were independents. No, they were extraordinarily fringy right-wingers, and they also seemed to be related to each other. Hanson? Hansen? Something like that. Anyway, the AIP was really irritated about having to have government IDs. No driver licenses for the AIP! It's downright un-American!

So, it's weird that there is a GOP-headed effort to pass voter ID laws all over the country. The funny thing about it is, they have a really good messaging campaign behind this one. It make sense, sounds reasonable (but contains just a hint of that GOP-brand meanness). I mean, who doesn't have ID? Honestly! You need an ID to rent a video (if people still did that). You need an ID to buy Jägermeister. And who wants a bunch of phony voters using dead peoples' names, cartoon character names, voting once, twice, a dozen times? So, it sounds like it makes hella sense, right?

And it does. Except that there aren't throngs of fake voters out there (other than Ann Coulter and perhaps one Willard Mitt Romney, but more on that later). In fact, actual voter fraud is vanishingly rare. So, is this one of those "solutions in search of a problem" laws that conservatives are always accusing liberals of? Yes and no. Actually, this was the solution to a different problem: how do conservatives prevent at least a slice of the Democratic electorate from voting? Because that is the reason for Voter ID laws, no matter how good the justification for them is. And it isn't just guesswork, or some wacky conspiracy theory either. They're actually admitting it.

[Excerpt]

Smile, Pennsylvania, You No Longer Have To Suffer The Agony Of Voting!



Good video, Pennsylvania! Very melting pot and clear-skinned and chipper, we’re sure! There may be a little bit of an omission about how 10 percent of your voting populace won’t get to actually vote under your new voter ID law, but we’re sure if they just show up with the birth certificate and the marriage certificate and the name-change order from when they got their sex change and also four other forms of photo ID all notarized and with the raised seal (AND DON’T FORGET THE LONG-FORM!), they too can get state-approved papers in order to exercise their constitutional right of suffrage. . . 

Read more at: Wonkette

I Know You Are But What Am I? Romney Attempts "Obama's War on Women"

Capt. Disingenuous. Image from TPM.

Republicans from bloggers to TV pundits to Mitt Romney himself, are trying to pull a Karl Rove trick. Take their weakness, and pretend it is the weakness of the other side. Led by Rick (don't Google me) Santorum, and a host of state governments' invasive anti-women laws, Republicans have developed a women problem. Rather than addressing that, they're trying to flip it, and say it's Obama's problem. But they're coming off like Pee Wee Herman (I know you are, but what am I?) or Martin Short's nervous lawyer, Nathan Thurm (I don't have a problem. Maybe it's you that has a problem! Ever think of that?). It isn't very convincing, nor is it honest or mature. Republican voters must be used to being treated with such contempt by now, I guess.

[Excerpt]


Debunking Romney’s Claim That It’s Obama’s War On Women

Mitt Romney’s having a terrible time turning the tables on Democrats. But his camp’s claim that President Obama is the one waging the “real war on women” is best debunked visually. . .

Read more at: Talking Points Memo

Santorum Campaign Robocall Urges Michigan Democrats to Vote for Him

Boy, Frothy's starting to look smug! Image from source.

You could say that Rick (don't Google me) Santorum's campaign isn't actually playing dirty, since Michigan has an open primary. Democrats are permitted to vote. But how sneaky is it to imply that Santorum's views on auto bailouts are somehow different from Mitt Romney's?

[Excerpt]


Santorum Robocall Asks Michigan Dems To Vote For Him 

Rick Santorum’s campaign is locked in a tight battle with Mitt Romney ahead of Tuesday’s Michigan primary. On Monday his camp started openly courting a demographic that’s not often reached out to in GOP primaries: Democrats. . .

Read more at: TPM Muckraker