Friday Reads: With Liberty and Justice for All
Posted: February 21, 2014 Filed under: morning reads 42 Comments
Good Morning
I guess there’s something about “FOR ALL” that some people just don’t seem to understand.
I’m not sure where Arizona belongs in the category of states that really haven’t signed onto the Constitution yet, but it’s WAyyyyyy down there.
State senators voted Wednesday to let businesses refuse to serve gays based on owners’ “sincerely held” religious beliefs.
The 17-13 vote along party lines, with Republicans in the majority, came after supporters defeated an attempt to extend existing employment laws that bar discrimination based on religion and race to also include sexual orientation. Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, said that’s a separate issue from what he is trying to do.
But Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, said that’s precisely the issue.
“The bill opens the door for discrimination against gays and lesbians,” he said.
Yarbrough, however, said foes of SB 1062 are twisting what his legislation says.
“This bill is not about discrimination,” he said. “It’s about preventing discrimination against people who are clearly living out their faith.”
A similar measure is awaiting a vote in the House, probably later today.
Arizona already has laws which protect individuals and businesses from any state action which substantially interferes with their right to exercise their religion. This bill extends that protection to cover what essentially are private transactions.
The push follows a decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court which said a gay couple could sue a photographer who refused on religious grounds to take pictures of their nuptials. Yarbrough’s legislation would preclude such a ruling here.
But Gallardo said this legislation makes one person’s religious freedom an attack on others.
“We all have the right to our religious beliefs,” he said.
“But I do not agree that we have the right to discriminate because of our religious beliefs,” Gallardo continued. “I do not believe we have to throw our religious beliefs to others that don’t share our same beliefs.”
I had thought we’d gotten to the point where denying the rights of others was considered wrong. But, I guess I’m wrong. Jim Crow just keeps on raising his head. Now, it’s Jane Crow, Juan Crow, and Freddie Mercury Crow.
Republicans lawmakers and a network of conservative religious groups has been pushing similar bills in other states, essentially forging a national campaign that, critics say, would legalize discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Republicans in Idaho, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee recently introduced provisions that mimic the Kansas legislation. And Arizona,Hawaii, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have introduced broader “religious freedom” bills with a unique provision that would also allow people to deny services or employment to LGBT Americans, legal experts say.
“This is a concerted campaign that the religious Right has been hinting at for a couple of years now,” says Evan Hurst, associate director of Truth Wins Out, a Chicago-based nonprofit that promotes gay rights. “The fact that they’re doing it Jim Crow-style is remarkable, considering the fact that one would think the GOP would like to be electable among people under 50 sometime in the near future.”
Several of these measures have sprung up within a short period of time. The Kansas bill wasintroduced by Republican state Rep. Charles Macheers on January 16. On January 28, Idaho state Rep. Lynn Luker (R-Boise) introduced a bill that would prohibit the state from yanking the professional licenses of people who deny service or employment to anyone (including LGBT customers) on the basis of their religious beliefs. (There’s an exception for emergency responders.) Luker has since pulled that bill back into committee, to address concerns about the language being discriminatory.
On January 30, a coalition of Republican senators and representatives in South Dakotaintroduced a bill that would have allowed a business to refuse to serve or people due to their sexual orientation, or be compelled to hire someone because of their sexual orientation. Under this measure, a gay person who brought a lawsuit charging discrimination based on sexual orientation could have faced punitive damages of no less than $2,000. The bill also declared that it is protected speech to tell someone that his or her lifestyle is “wrong or a sin.” The bill was killed this week by the state Senate judiciary committee.
On February 5, Republicans introduced legislation in both chambers of the Tennessee Legislature allowing a person or company to refuse to provide services such as food, accommodation, counseling, adoption, or employment to people in civil unions or same-sex marriages, or transgender individuals, “if doing so would violate the sincerely held religious beliefs of the person.” (Government employees are excluded.) State Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) tells Mother Jones that he sponsored the bill because “a person shouldn’t get sued for choosing not to participate in a person’s wedding.” But this week, the bill’s lead sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown), shelved the measure until next year after facing heavy criticism. And in Oregon, voters could have the opportunity this year to vote on a ballot initiative that would also allow people to refuse on religious grounds to support same-sex couples.
In addition to these bills, lawmakers in Arizona, Hawaii, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have recently introduced Religious Freedom Restoration Acts with a provision that could also allow discrimination against LGBT Americans. These state-sponsored RFRAs, which aim to stop new laws from burdening religious exercise, are nothing new—29 states already have some kind of RFRA in place through legislation or court action. But legal experts say that these particular bills are unique in that they allow individuals—and in some states, businesses—to cite religion as a defense in a private lawsuit.
My latest “Republican Asshat of the Day” is McConnell’s primary challenger who thinks that gay marriage will lead to Parent/Child Marriage.
Seriously. I’m SERIOUSLY. WTF?
Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin suggested that legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to legalizing marriage between a parent and child.
The comments by Bevin, who is running in the Republican primary against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), were made on The Janet Mefferd Show on Wednesday and highlighted by Right Wing Watch.
“If it’s all right to have same-sex marriages, why not define a marriage — because at the end of the day a lot of this ends up being taxes and who can visit who in the hospital and there’s other repressions and things that come with it — so a person may want to define themselves as being married to one of their children so that they can then in fact pass on certain things to that child financially and otherwise,” Bevin said. “Where do you draw the line?”
There’s a number of Republicans that just can’t seem to grok the idea of the “FOR ALL” idea. Some of them sell out their own demographic for religion or money or stupidity. Michelle Bachmann may be leaving Congress, but, she is not going quietly into the night. I almost hate to link to this site, but it’s the original source.
Bachmann was the only female GOP candidate in the race when she ran for president in 2012. She says, “Two things that need to be done: Remind people (Clinton) is seeking to become commander in chief (and) how she has operated in the past with these types of responsibilities. She was in charge during the Benghazi debacle. If a person reads the Senate Intelligence (Committee) report and the House Foreign Affairs (Committee) report released (last) week, it is damning for Hillary Clinton.”
Bachmann says Clinton testified before Congress that she was “aware” of the deteriorating conditions in Benghazi but did nothing. “She has a real problem when it comes to Benghazi,” says Bachmann.
In addition, she says, Clinton is “the godmother of Obamacare,” trying “behind closed doors” to push through something similar when Bill Clinton was president.
Maybe such an approach will work, but would the lure of the “first female president” overcome these concerns in voters’ minds? Bachmann says: “Effectively she would be Obama’s third and fourth term in office.” That might scare enough people to vote for the Republican nominee.
Bachmann says a lot of people “aren’t ready” for a female president. “I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt.” (Presumably she means because of slavery and the lengthy denial of civil rights to blacks.) “People don’t hold guilt for a woman,” she says, adding that while people vote for women for virtually every other office “I don’t think there is a pent-up desire” for a woman president.
She says while Obama was “new and different,” Hillary Clinton has been around a long time and is less likely to stir the juices as Obama did.
It’s difficult to imagine any one that’s in less touch with reality than Bachmann.
“I think there was a cachet about having an African-American president because of guilt,” she said. “People don’t hold guilt for a woman.”
She added that while voters elect women for virtually every other office, she doesn’t think there is “a pent-up desire” for a woman president.
Bachmann, who was the Republican Party’s only female candidate for president in 2012, did have some prescriptions for would-be Clinton challengers, should Clinton run.
“Two things that need to be done: Remind people [Clinton] is seeking to become Commander-in-Chief [and] how she has operated in the past with these types of responsibilities,” Bachmann said. “She was in charge during the Benghazi debacle. If a person reads the Senate Intelligence [Committee] report and the House Foreign Affairs [Committee] report released [last] week, it is damning for Hillary Clinton.”
Least we forget, racist dog whistles still define many folks and these folks have now found a home in the Republican Party. This sad news comes from the Wisconsin statehouse. Outright Racism isn’t just for Southerners any more.
According to documents released Wednesday related to a secret investigation of Walker and his staff, then-deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch received an email in April 2010 that contained a photo of four dogs and mocked welfare recipients.
“This morning I went to sign my Dogs up for welfare. At first the lady said, ‘Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare’,” the email, first reported by Buzzfeed, read. “So I expla ned [sic] to her that my Dogs are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who the r [sic] Daddys are. They expect me to feed them, provide them with housing and medical care, and feel guilty because they are dogs.”
“That is hilarious. And so true,” Rindfleisch replied.
Rindfleisch was convicted of misconduct in office in 2012 for doing campaign work for a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor on government time.
The Scott Walker documents also contained a questionable email forwarded by another former aide, then-chief of staff Thomas Nardelli, involving a nightmare about waking up as black, Jewish, disabled, and gay.
Nardelli also circulated an off-color email containing a photoshopped picture of President Barack Obama wearing an acorn top for a hat, a reference to the now-defunded Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).
It’s difficult for me to leave Republicans alone these days because they just. DONT. SEEM. To. GET. ANYTHING. There’s no convincing them that actual history, economic, psychology, and ever branch of science negates their delusions. It’s beginning to look like some kind of personality disorder.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) on Thursday reminded Americans who wrote the Constitution.
“I think we got off that track when we allowed our government to become a secular government, when we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that He wrote the constitution, that’s based on biblical principles,” DeLay said when asked when people stopped doing good for others in the name of God on “The Difference,” a talk show on Global Evangelical Television.
Delay said he was optimistic about the return of faith to America, noting that he encouraged House members to take up Bible studies when he was leader.
“I pray every day for an awakening in this country, and I think it’s coming,” he said.
Ya know, I’m the GGGG grandaughter and niece of a lot of signers of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and nearly every damned one of us at the family picnics are not religious people. I’ve heard many tales passed down from the greats, but a gawd writing The Constitution is not one of them. In fact, no gawd is even mentioned in it.
Anyway, I’m turning the post over to you for the day. What’s on your reading and blogging list?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
It is my “Sincerely Held Religious Belief” that I have the religious right to use the public streets and sidewalks to demonstrate in front of the homes and/or businesses of people who refuse to serve me.
I just can’t with these people any longer. The ignorance on display is overwhelming.
If you want to believe that the moon is blue, go right ahead. But leave it out of the public sector where science has already established that it is not. I am so sick of the intolerance these morons display under the guise of “religion” and not having an elected official offer the bromide to “STFU!”
The Religious Right, or whatever guides these fools to ignore the meaning of what the Founding Fathers sought to explain, are becoming too numerous to ignore. They have a say in just about every law, past or future, with biblical interpretation that is man made. No room for critical thinking when one can whip out a book written over 2,000 years ago by people who were “telling a story” to a mass of illiterates steeped in superstition.
These “interpretations” are harmful to say the least. They marginalize women, castigate gays, sh*t on the poor and elderly, and self righteously ignore the one admonition that seems sound: to love one another.
There are too many of them infecting congress and can be found throughout most states where laws are tilted in favor of superstitious beliefs and inconsistent messages.
It is a slippery slope that we have embarked upon when reason and commonsense have all but disappeared from the dialogue only to be replaced by foolish theories that should remain separate from the common good.
I have been posting a lot of these on my Facebook page as republican asshats of the day. I am just overwhelmed by the numbers of them I get everyday. I have lots of friends from the UK, Canada, and France and a few from Germany. They are appalled.
A fun story: a SF-area Girl Scout who’s very savvy about target marketing.
Great post. Also depressing. Just exactly what is going on out there in crazy land?
Raising the dial to 11!!!!
One of my friends from high school is the chair of the Dem party in Arizona. I don’t know how she has the stamina to do it.
Not that it will get anywhere but it’s still a welcome change for me.
WaPo: With 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to era of austerity
Finally, Obama either understands or has given in to the idea that you don’t solve this nations financial problems on the backs of seniors, the middle class or the poor. Fix the tax codes so that Big Business and the Rich are forced to pay up. We know who has the money, and it ain’t us!
Think it has something to do with midterm election politics being the cynic I am. I think they are baiting the repugs to act against the interests of their constituents …. especially Seniors.
Let’s see what the rethugs do with that in an election year.
Could be interesting to watch, for sure 🙂
Because it DOES NOT PAY TO HATE THE GAY
Homophobic People Die Earlier
http://www.businessinsider.com/antigay-prejudice-and-elevated-mortality-2014-2
Live longer … love everyone! 🙂
Ditto
Dak. Thanks for continuing to ring the bell. BTW, love the pic of Lady Liberty and Lady Justice.
That pic used to be in the banner of this blog for a few years when it was just my file cabinet.
Michael Hiltzik with another excellent story.
LATimes: Maybe there are no genuine Obamacare horror stories
Other news, CA surpassed it’s ACA sign up goal for 2014 as of Feb 15.
Sometimes at work I want to use my Sincerely Held Religious Belief to tell a bigot to get the F out of my clinic room. No healthcare for haters! But I don’t want to sink to their level. So I will calmly (steaming inside, really) respond with factual info, and re-direct back to their specific health problem. Fortunately I don’t encounter them very often.
All the polls show that most American’s do not share the extreme Right wingnuttery delusions, but WTF do they keep getting re-elected and get so much press?
They are a very LOUD minority! And the only true victims of anything.
Yea. I get them in my classroom too. I wonder what bobby jindal would say if I said the biggest no no in my religion is ignorance and therefore I will toss them out of class?
Heh. I have a lovely dream where on the same day we all refuse service to misogynists, racists, homophobes, and the rest of the sadistic hater Flat Earthers.
I know, sometimes those idiots get under your skin, and I was thinking to curse the hell out of one when they got on to Hillary, and it hit me, she would say, don’t sink to their level. So I didn’t blow it, next time, who knows.
Live long, love everyone………….beautiful words.
Back ‘atchya, Fannie! 🙂
Wonder if Greenwald or his crew will renounce one of his favored countries. Some press freedom huh?
BBC: Venezuela threatens to expel CNN over protest coverage
This situation is really heating up. Wonder if our CIA had anything to do with it?
I doubt it. I think Maduro was a fucking mess for the country with a strong man act.
There is legitimate issues for sure but we are always around to help the dissenters when the country is of strategic importance to us.
True. They are in our backyard.
I haven’t read anything in the last week or so but the economy in Argentina looked like it was in melt down. Everyone fleeing the currency for safety in the dollar.
Yea. take that gold bugs!
Unbelievable story from Daily Kos:
Tennesee public official bragged about owning a trophy made from the skin of a lynched Black man.
Who Keeps Trophies Made From the Skin of Lynched African Americans?
I read that on Raw Story a few days ago. I was appalled.
It’s sickening, but that’s totally how it is in much of rural TN, especially in the East TN hills which is where Algood, TN is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/noam-chomsky-richard-nixon_n_4832847.html
Noam Chomsky: Nixon Was “Last Liberal President”
Three Democrats have held the position of “Commander-in-Chief” since the Nixon era, but if you ask philosopher Noam Chomsky, it was the 37th president and infamous Watergate casualty who was truly the last liberal to…
Garrick Utley dies, was 74
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/240498/nbc-reports-garrick-utley-has-died-at-74/
Sir Pat isn’t gay, but had fun with this:
Patrick Stewart Has An Awesome Response To Being ‘Outed’ As Gay By The Guardian
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/patrick-stewart-outed-gay_n_4814994.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
He’s hilarious and brilliant! Seems to be able to have a good time out of any situation.
Kanasas wising up?
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2014/02/brownback-extremely-unpopular-trails-for-reelection.html
The inevitable happens in Arizona, much to the shock of Republicans I’m sure.
Arizona Pizzeria Reserves The Right To Kick Out Anti-Gay Lawmakers (PHOTO)
Somebody must have planted a boot on Wayne Slater’s ass. 🙂
Dallas Morning News: Greg Abbott campaign surrogate Ted Nugent’s paean to sex with underage girls ‘Jailbait’