We must fight to keep our state straight!

North Carolina state Sen. Buck Newton (R) (NC Channel)

North Carolina state Sen. Buck Newton (R) (NC Channel)

Republican candidate running to become North Carolina’s attorney general faced criticism on Tuesday after saying “we must fight to keep our state straight” while discussing a law that restricts transgender bathroom access and gay rights.

[…]

State Senator Buck Newton made the comment while concluding a speech at a rally on Monday and welcomed the idea of being considered a poster child for the law, dubbed HB 2. … “Go home, tell your friends and family who had to work today what this is all about and how hard we must fight to keep our state straight,” he said to applause.

So, it’s not about people simply wanting to pee. It’s certainly not about “protecting” people from the spectre of Chester Bathroom Molester. It would seem that treating LGBT peoples as humans deserving basic rights will…turn the whole state gay! Goodness. I had no idea of this imminent threat to NC and to uStates in general. It must be the fault of that damn Gay Agenda. Perhaps Buck can introduce legislation that every single person residing in NC must have one of these:

www.facebook.com/HeteroAwarenessMonth

www.facebook.com/HeteroAwarenessMonth (Via Buzzfeed).

Full Story Here.

In other non-surprising news, Ted Cruz thinks transgender people should only pee at home.

If Ted Cruz had to use the bathroom after stealing his daughter's cherry, he could use the one right there in the ice cream parlor, but a transgender person enjoying a sundae, he thinks, should have to go all the way home.

If Ted Cruz had to use the bathroom after stealing his daughter’s cherry, he could use the one right there in the ice cream parlor, but a transgender person enjoying a sundae, he thinks, should have to go all the way home.

“Every one of us has the right to live our lives as we wish,” he said. “If any one of us wants to dress up as a woman or man and wants to live as woman or man and believes that we might be something other than what we were born, God has made each of us with free will and the ability to choose to do that if man to wants to dress as a woman, and live as a woman, and have a bathroom at home.”

A reporter sought clarification on the remark: “So then they shouldn’t use the bathroom out in public?”

Cruz then confirmed just that. “You don’t have a right to intrude upon the rights of others because whether or not a man believes he’s a woman, there are a lot of women who would like to be able to use a public restroom in peace without having a man there — and when there are children involved, you don’t have a right to impose your lifestyle on others.”

Full story at Think Progress.

Fetal Idolatry

The Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple (Screenshot/YouTube)

The Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple (Screenshot/YouTube)

Anti-abortion activists were met head-on in Detroit by the city’s chapter of the Satanic Temple, who trolled them by dressing up in baby gear and decrying “fetal idolatry.”

According to the Temple’s Detroit chapter leader, Jex Blackmore, “the anti-choice movement’s obsession with, and mischaracterization of the fetus obscures medical reality and a woman’s constitutional right to choice.”

Full Story Here.

 

If there’s demonic activity…

Mercy

According to Slate, this gap in American health care has created an opportunity for unregulated religious facilities posing as mental health clinics to take a dangerous role. Slate’s Jennifer Miller interviewed 14 former staffers, ex-clients and families for Nashville-based Mercy Ministries — recently renamed Mercy Multiplied.

The charity serves as an in-patient setting for exclusively female clients, aged 13 to 28. An insight into the philosophy behind the program can perhaps be gleaned from a speech by its founder, Nancy Alcorn, who in 2008 said,

If there’s demonic activity, like if somebody has opened themselves up to the spirit of lust or pornography or lots of promiscuous sexual activity, then we’ve opened the door for demonic powers. And secular psychiatrists want to medicate things like that, but Jesus did not say to medicate a demon. He said to cast them out. And that’s supposed to be a part of normal Christianity.

One former patient, Hayley Baker, suffered from a plethora of diagnoses, including major depression and an eating disorder. She also suffered a history of child abuse when she entered a Mercy facility in 2009.

Baker says she was denied prescription Xanax by staffers while suffering nighttime panic attacks, and instead given a sheet of paper saying, “Peaceful Sleep,” bearing a line from the book of Psalms: “He grants sleep to those he loves.”

Baker, like other patients, was told prayer could cure her problems. In fact, staffers approached all problems with this one-size-fits-all religious approach. When one facility experienced an outbreak of mononucleosis, residents were made to walk through the halls and call for banishing of the evil spirits that were causing it.

Baker, who was molested as a little girl, said part of the treatment she was expected to perform was to imagine Jesus being present during a traumatic event in her past and absolving her of guilt associated with it.

“I couldn’t make up Jesus saying something to me,” Hayley told Slate. “I didn’t blame myself for the abuse.”

I’ve had mono. By the time I was diagnosed, I’d had it for some time, and my spleen was enlarged, a common situation with mono. You need to have care, so you don’t rupture your spleen, which is a life threatening situation. “Banishing evil spirits causing mono”. What in the effety eff do you say about that? What happens when the “evil spirits” result in a spleen rupture? This is willful stupidity. It’s dangerous stupidity. It’s devastating to think of all the women who are being so maltreated, especially when they have troubles enough weighing them down.

Their rating at Charity Navigator is 85.97. The recent name change to Mercy Multiplied reflects on how much this fake clinic is branching out. They have even set up in Canada. There’s some very good insight into this travesty of so-called mental health help here. A lot of women end up at MM because there’s simply no other option – they don’t have the money for proper care. There’s more information here and here. There’s also Mercy Survivors.

Slate in depth storyFull Raw Story.

17.

Whitehouse.gov Andrew Johnson took office April 15, 1865. He established Thanksgiving as a holiday, and spoke of the need to relocate Indians to “reservations remote from the traveled routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.”

Whitehouse.gov
Andrew Johnson took office April 15, 1865. He established Thanksgiving as a holiday, and spoke of the need to relocate Indians to “reservations remote from the traveled routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.”

Andrew Johnson: Racist Determined to ‘Relocate’ Indians.

In his third annual message to Congress, in December 1867, Johnson spoke of the need to relocate Indians to “reservations remote from the traveled routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.” Calling the Plains Indians “warlike” and “instigated by real or imaginary grievances,” Johnson said the territories should be exempt from Indian outbreaks and that hostile tribes should not be allowed to interrupt construction of the Pacific Railroad.

“These objects, as well as the material interests and the moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, can be most effectually secured by concentrating them upon portions of country set apart for their exclusive use and located at points remote from our highways and encroaching white settlements,” he said.

Johnson also oversaw three treaties signed in the spring of 1868 at Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory. The Sioux, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho signed treaties calling for peace and friendship with the United States.

In June 1868, the U.S. signed a similar peace treaty with the Navajo at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The agreement ended the four-year forced exile of the Navajo and allowed them to return to their homeland.

By the fall of 1868, however, warfare again broke out as Gen. George Armstrong Custer led the 7th U.S. Cavalry in a surprise dawn attack of the Southern Cheyenne village of Washita. Hailed as one of the first substantial American victories against the Southern Plains Indians, the massacre left as many as 100 Cheyenne dead.

Johnson did not mention the massacre in his final message to Congress, in December 1868. Instead, he encouraged the “aboriginal population” to abandon their “nomadic habits” in favor of agriculture and industry.

Full Article Here.

Also of interest today is whether or not The U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) will actually get around to doing a critique of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery issued at its 13th Session in May 2014: “Study on the impacts of the Doctrine of Discovery on indigenous peoples, including mechanisms, processes and instruments of redress.” [UN Doc E/C.19/2014/3], instead of burying it once again.

The Permanent Forum—like most conventional bodies—avoided naming the religious basis of the Doctrine. But the Study itself took aim at the root: “the presumption of racial superiority of Christian Europeans.” The Doctrine “originated with the papal bulls issued during the so-called Age of Discovery in Europe. It was compounded by regulations, such as the Requerimiento, that emanated from royalty in Christian European States.”

The Study showed how the Christian presumption of superiority embodied by the Doctrine of Discovery fuels colonial land seizures and genocide of Native Peoples. “In all its manifestations, ‘discovery’ has been used as a framework for justification to dehumanize, exploit, enslave and subjugate indigenous peoples and dispossess them of their most basic rights, laws, spirituality, worldviews and governance and their lands and resources. Ultimately it was the very foundation of genocide.”

The Study concluded with a realistic appraisal and recommendation:

Peter D’Errico has the full story here.

Liberty Council: Target on Transgender

The Liberty Council's Anita Staver poses with assault rifle (Facebook.com)

The Liberty Council’s Anita Staver poses with assault rifle (Facebook.com)

LC

The president of theocratic law group The Liberty Council announced on the social medium Twitter that she plans to carry a gun with her to the women’s restroom at Target stores so that she can shoot anyone she thinks is transgender.

Blogger Joe My God wrote on Monday, “Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver declared Friday that she will be taking her Glock .45 handgun to Target as protection against assaults by transgender patrons.”

How about if we ban idiots pickled in Jesus Juice with guns from lavs? That seems to be a better route to safety than picking on transgender people who simply want to pee in peace.

Full Story Here.

The Advocate also has this story:

Anti-LGBT activists are taking the newfound role of “potty police” to the next level, pledging to carry weapons into public restrooms to “protect” against trans people using the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

[…]

The same day that Staver posted her threat about carrying firearms into Target bathrooms, a Republican candidate for sheriff in Texas promised he would “beat the hell out of a transgender person who tried to piss in a bathroom where [his] daughter was peeing,” according to the Dallas Observer

[…]

“This isn’t an anti-transgender issue,” Murphree told the Dallas paper. “It’s a safety issue. I’m not afraid of transgenders. I’m afraid of who will take advantage of the rules to get close to kids. The rights of transgenders do not trump the rights of everyone else.”

Oh, you aren’t afraid. Right. Threatening to beat someone to death, yeah, no fear there.  Before transgender people’s rights could “trump” anyone, you fuckbrained asshole, they first have to have the same rights as everyone else.

“Yes, I will be the next sheriff, and I will serve all citizens,” Murphree reportedly wrote in response to the mother. “I will not sit back and not voice my beliefs and opinions. I will not give in to the political correctness police. I won’t be threatened by those who may call me a bigot or ignorant. I have no issue with transgenders. That’s between them and God.”

No issue with transgenders. I’m beginning to have an auto-enraged response to seeing this, with no people or person[s] attached. It’s othering and treating people like things. And Discworld fans know what Esme Weatherwax had to say about that. It’s the beginning of all evil, treating people like things.

Responding with Style

…and stating the obvious. Recently, Merriam-Webster updated their dictionary to include the words cisgender and genderqueer. Some people have been less than thrilled by this inclusion. There are times the sheer density of people is well, um, this:

Genderqueer

“People keep 1) saying they don’t know what ‘genderqueer’ means,” said the tweet, “then 2) asking why we added it to the dictionary.”

Full story here.

We Don’t Care

15657465-1461349521-640x360

Durham hotel puts new signs on bathrooms after HB2.

Durham, N.C. — A boutique hotel in downtown Durham has hung new signs on its public bathrooms in response to a controversial state law.

21c Museum Hotel, which opened a year ago and displays contemporary art throughout its lobby and public spaces, installed signs featuring a merged male-female silhouette above the phrase “We Don’t Care” outside a bank of single-stall public restrooms in the hotel.

“The title refers to the position of ‘all are welcome’ or we don’t care where you go to the bathroom,” 21c officials said on the hotel’s website. “The installation gives the community another way to engage in conversation around this important issue. Thought-provoking contemporary art fosters dialogue and discovery.”

The signs were created by Kansas City, Mo., artist Peregrine Honig, and each is signed and numbered, officials said.

[…]

21c also issued a statement denouncing the legislation.

“It is demoralizing that sanctioned discrimination could be a cause contemplated, let alone endorsed, by public officials elected to represent a diverse and complete constituency,” the statement reads. “We humbly stand with fellow North Carolinians who petition the repeal of House Bill 2.”

I’m in favour of these signs going up everywhere. Case closed.

Evolution: not a religion

SAB

So sayeth the court.

A federal court rejected the argument from a Christian group in Kansas which said that evolution was religious “indoctrination” and should not be taught in schools.

[…]

In a statement, Americans United for Separation of Church and State said that COPE feared that scientific facts would cause “Kansas schoolchildren will be subtly manipulated into rejecting their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

“It’s a nonsensical argument, which is why courts have unanimously rejected it,” Americans United said. “COPE, it seems, isn’t interested in promoting facts; it’s interested in forcing public schools to conduct far-right religious and political indoctrination.”

Full Story Here.

A love letter to bigotry

Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Jim Webb (Flickr Creative Commons)

Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Jim Webb (Flickr Creative Commons)

Sen. Jim Webb scolds supporters of Harriet Tubman’s new home on the 20-dollar bill, because they’ve been disparaging President Andrew Jackson too much.

One would think we could celebrate the recognition that Harriet Tubman will be given on future $20 bills without demeaning former president Andrew Jackson as a “monster,” as a recent Huffington Post headline did. And summarizing his legendary tenure as being “known primarily for a brutal genocidal campaign against native Americans,” as reported in The Post, offers an indication of how far political correctness has invaded our educational system and skewed our national consciousness.

This dismissive characterization of one of our great presidents is not occurring in a vacuum. Any white person whose ancestral relations trace to the American South now risks being characterized as having roots based on bigotry and undeserved privilege. Meanwhile, race relations are at their worst point in decades.

Aaauugh. It’s too bloody early [here] for this ineffable twaddle. Race relations are at their worst point in decades? Yes, I’d say they are, but perhaps you should figure out just why that is so.

Far too many of our most important discussions are being debated emotionally, without full regard for historical facts. The myth of universal white privilege and universal disadvantage among racial minorities has become a mantra, even though white and minority cultures alike vary greatly in their ethnic and geographic origins, in their experiences in the United States and in their educational and financial well-being.

Into this uninformed debate come the libels of “Old Hickory.”

Old Hickory. Did you know that Jackson was known as Sharp Knife among many Indigenous peoples? Ever heard Indian Killer Jackson?

As president, Jackson ordered the removal of Indian tribes east of the Mississippi to lands west of the river. This approach, supported by a string of presidents, including Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, was a disaster, resulting in the Trail of Tears where thousands died. But was its motivation genocidal?

I can answer that. Yes. Yes, it was. Fuck, I can’t take any more right now. Need tea.

Op ed here. Raw Story has this also.