There is no “compromise”

I wanted to elaborate on my Best Friend Jason Kenney’s “poor counsel,” in which he advised the Albertan government to reach a “compromise” with the two Baptist schools that refuse to adhere to Bill 10, a law signed in by the previous conservative administration that obligated all schools to form a Gay-Straight Alliance or Queer-Straight Alliance should the students request one.

Shortly after these comments made the news, David Climenhaga of Alberta Politics pointed out that as a human rights issue, there is no reasonable way to compromise between Queer lobby groups who largely wish to enjoy the same privileges as anyone else and religious lobby groups who want to continue bludgeoning us out of existence.

Just to elaborate: the “Gay Agenda” has largely been about accessing the same civil sectors as anyone else, and enjoying the privileges that we are supposedly afforded by virtue of being a Western democracy. But religious reactionaries campaign from legal exemptions to treat Queer folks equitably in the name of their faith, thereby re-ifying the nature of cishetero privileges by making them, well, privileges rather than rights.

So I would like to see Climenhaga’s question repeated until it’s mainstream: “Where, exactly, do you plan to compromise?”

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September Comment of the Month

Welcome everyone! Here on AtG we want to foster some excellent, weapons-grade snark. In that endeavour, I will highlight two winners each month to praise them for their excellent snark, in the hopes that others will follow suit! Please note it is typically a difficult choice to make and many of you snark very well, and I encourage you to continue doing so. You will inevitably make it!

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I get email

That’s right! PZ isn’t the only one “popular” enough to get hatemail around here!

I’m featuring this one sentence mostly because it’s short and sweet, and void of the incessant hateful spewage that seem to be what most people dredge up upon seeing a woman–and a trans woman at that–with an opinion on the internet:

Why are so many of your posts tagged with ‘Conservative hypocrisy’?

…they ask, answering their own question.

Does receiving my first hatemail make me a Grown Up Blogger now? Did I make it?

I feel like this is a major milestone!

I’m tearing up!

Don’t worry, I’ll remember the little people!

-Shiv

What the fuck, BC Liberals?

All I want for xmas is for privileged politicians to stop shitting on people.

The British Colombian Liberal government rolled back two programs for disabled BC residents, resulting in their bus passes going from $45/year to $625/year.

Clark’s BC Liberal government just made it harder for 55,000 British Columbians living with disabilities to get around – despite facing a greater likelihood of unemployment and poverty.

That’s because Clark’s government cut two programs helping disabled British Columbians cover transportation costs, presenting the changes as a net-increase in benefits even though they’re likely seeing a net-decrease in benefits.

The changes, which have led to 3,500 disabled British Columbians giving up their bus passes, is being described as “cold hearted.”

No shit it’s cold hearted. Public transportation is critical for the empowerment of disabled folks, as transportation barriers bleeds into so many other civil sectors like employment or recreational opportunities.

Why on fucking Earth to these program cuts keep happening to put budgets in the black? Start taxing your absurdly wealthy instead of kicking the people who are already struggling!

Enough with austerity. 

Jesus christ. Fuck you, Clark.

-Shiv

In which the Pope makes Siobhan’s irony meter explode

Favourite irony meter-breaker Pope Francis opened his mouth again, and this time I think I fainted.

Then in the plane ride back to Rome, the pope told reporters that he had intended only to be critical of teaching children in school about what it means to be transgender. He reportedly used the word “transgender,” and he compared it to being gay. The church acknowledges people are gay but claims it’s a sin to act on same-sex attraction.

“It is one thing for a person to have this tendency, this option and even to have a sex change, but it is another thing to teach this in schools in order to change mentalities,” said the pope on the plane, according to Catholic News. “This I call ideological colonization.”

Catholics. Lecturing on colonization. I just

Wat.

-Shiv, Annihilator of Man, Fashionable Communist, who can’t even right now

Freeman on the Land charged with terrorism

I’ll start by saying I am sympathetic in the vaguest sense of what the so-called Freemen stand for. My anti-authoritarian streak has definitely been inflamed by a new wave of fascism that makes me superbly suspicious of political structures, and the Freemen on the Land, defined loosely by a desire to reject those structures, attempts to live my suspicions out.

Where we diverge is rather simple: I still believe, perhaps naively, that between transparency and making sure to chop up as much government authority across differently appointed sectors as you can, whilst restricting the capacity of money in politics, should be able to create a functional socialist society that mitigates the impact of the entitled and aggrieved who always fuck everything up. The Freemen, on the other hand, like to claim that laws don’t apply to them because they never agreed to them, so they do things like refuse to pay taxes or follow speed limits.

Thing is, I like taxes–as long as they’re being spent on infrastructure, humanitarian aid, education, healthcare, that sort of thing. More importantly, the speeding Freemen do happens on roads that everybody else is paying for… meaning if you want to be logically consistent in properly rejecting the government’s taxation, then you should also reject the government’s services and stop using roads and sidewalks as your personal fender. Freemen will refuse to pay taxes but rarely, if ever, actually reject government services.

Such was the case of the first Freeman, at least in Alberta, to be charged with a terrorism act by trying to place a lien on a police officer’s personal property–because the cop gave him a speeding ticket.

Allen Boisjoli, 45, of Vegreville is charged with intimidation of a justice system participant.

Boisjoli is accused of attempting to place a $225,000 lien on a police officer’s personal property after the police officer gave him a speeding ticket. While others have been charged with intimidation before, Edmonton Police believe it’s the first time where an incident has involved simply filing paperwork.

Det. Rae Gerrard said the documents Freemen present have no legal force, but are meant to make people in the system want to drop the case. Freemen or Sovereign citizens reject the notion that current laws have any force over them.

“The Freemen, and Mr. Boisjoli in particular in this case, they use a plethora of documents that mean absolutely nothing. They’re just cutting and pasting from all over the internet,” he said.

The investigation took eight months to complete, but Gerrard said it was worth pursuing.

“When we look at people who are attempting to subvert our entire criminal justice system for their own ends, than we have to see that as very serious,” he said.

…Thing is, if a justice system is broken–which is increasingly becoming apparent–defying that system is a worthwhile goal. But, as I’ve come to learn, you really have to set your rhetorical sights for the leaders and institutions, not the little guys. Shooting individual cops does fuck all for you except get you into deeper shit, you gotta aim higher–and ideally not with actual guns or weapons, because all that does is piss everyone off.

I don’t like the Freemen. They’re hypocritical, and also fucking idiots if they don’t understand that some laws are good. Like speed limits. Those are kinda important. It is true that laws can be bad, as can systems that maintain them, but that doesn’t excuse ripping 200 km/h through a school zone. Unfortunately that means you have to do the smart thing and assess given laws for their merit, which takes more effort than saying “I DON’T WANNA PAY TAXES!!” and trying to game the system with made up documents to antagonize a cop who fined you for doing a stupid fucking thing.

But that suspicion of authority… we share that, at least. Little else, apparently, like a shred of reason.

-Shiv

Dear Niki

I never got the chance to meet you and say it, but you were and still are one of the most steadfast examples I follow.

When I began questioning abortion, your cogent and precise views began my journey to being unapologetic, entirely confident, in pro-choice views. You stared into the eyes of the violent, the indoctrinated, and worked for women trying to escape from under the oppressive thumb of the many misogynistic entities working in tandem. Even with all your difficulties, what you gave as 100% of your effort far exceeded that of most folks, and for that I am ever pushing myself to follow in your example.

You were among the brightest voices in Black Lives Matter. Back in 2014, when I was still just starting to wrap my head around the extent of institutionalized racism in the United States, you were among the many vanguard writers, advocates, and activists who taught me first to listen as a white person. If not for you, I might count myself among the ignorant and the hateful. There are no thanks deep enough for that. I try to live out your legacy with the local BLM chapter by pulling aside and coaxing disruptive white people into understanding, and I hope this honours your memory.

We had a fair bit in common when it came to complex relationships with our body. I shake with rage knowing now the way the disability system in the United States is patchwork, antagonistic to disabled folks, as if the able-bodied could possibly read a graph and decide whose pain is real and whose is not. And I wish we had more time to talk about that, to talk about reform, to paint a metaphorical target and set our sights for something.

Alas, circumstances being what they are, we are robbed of that time.

I could write for tens of thousands of words describing gratitude for each and every thing you taught me, made me rethink or consider, made me laugh. And in some ways I intend to do just that, to continue in the capacities in which you have helped to empower me.

We never met, and now we never will. But I will always see your fingerprint in the foundation of my ethics, and your work will never be forgotten as long as I live.

Thanks,

Siobhan.

Jason Kenney’s 38k cheque from grifting taxpayers “bittersweet”

My favourite and best ever of all time friend, Jason Kenney, describes his departure from Parliament as “bittersweet” …after collecting $38,000 from his federal salary to spend the entire summer campaigning for the leadership of a provincial party:

Kenny described his departure as “bittersweet” saying he has fond memories of his time in Ottawa and will miss the issues he’s worked on, and the people he has worked on them with.

Ah, yes, the “issues he’s worked on.” Trying to impose forced-birther policies on the entire country, denying climate change, running charities dedicated to himself, and pushing for “compromise” when it comes to queer rights. At long last, he leaves federal politics and narrows his focus to merely Alberta.

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Self care Saturday, October 1: Day Z Humour

There are a few references you might not get if you’re not aware of Day Z, a zombie survival game with other players. What these guys depict is… honestly not that far off.

White Lightning HQ does similar skits for all kinds of games. Definitely recommend them.

-Shiv

Johns Hopkins faculty disavow Paul McHugh’s homophobic and transphobic report

Paul McHugh is at least partially responsible for this odious missive titled “Executive Summary on Sexuality and Gender.” The summary in question was picked up by a number of reactionary lobby groups in short order, adding to McHugh’s long history of being one of the selective citations used when attempting to justify homophobia/transphobia as scientific.

What will no doubt be denied by those same reactionary groups is that the faculty at John Hopkins are aware of the report, and in fact they have published what might be missed as a withering condemnation of it:

Science, and particularly the fields of psychiatry and psychology, has made major advances in our understanding of the complex issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. For instance, accumulating data support the concept that gender identity is not strictly a binary phenomenon. And scientific evidence clearly documents that sexual and romantic attractions to people of the same and/or different sexes are normal variations of the diversity of human sexuality.

…

That is why the recent report, released by one current and one former member of our faculty on the topic of LGBTQ health, is so troubling. The report, “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological and Psychological and Social Sciences,” was not published in the scientific literature, where it would have been subject to rigorous peer review prior to publication. It purports to detail the science of this area, but it falls short of being a comprehensive review.

…

We wish to make clear that there are many people at Hopkins who hold a profound and long-standing commitment to the health, wellness, well-being, and fair and non-stigmatizing treatment of LGBTQ people and communities. We do not believe that the “Sexuality and Gender” report cited above is a comprehensive portrayal of the current science, and we respectfully disassociate ourselves from its findings.

“We respectfully disassociate ourselves from its findings” is academic-speak, a sort of scathing disagreement, the equivalent of coming upon one’s car and finding the tires have been slashed by your nemesis.

Because reactionary lobbies are well known for their creative work (/extreme sarcasm), we ought to be surprised to see this exact scenario has already played out. Parents for Choice in Education, a reactionary lobby group advocating for the continued special snowflake status of Catholic schooling in Alberta, propped up two doctors from the University of Alberta to grant some kind of scientific credence for their prejudice. The U of A, having caught wind of this, immediately disavowed the two doctors in question. Yet, much like the reactionary groups propping up McHugh, PCE is suspiciously silent on how it continues to justify supporting doctors who have been told by their employer that their opinions are “inadequate,” which–again–is academic-speak for “fucking ridiculous.”

Perhaps that might suggest that scientific accuracy is not, in fact, their main priority?

-Shiv