White and Black.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

When a white guy is seen wandering around in public waving a gun, the police usually try to talk him down; he’s probably just having a bad day. Even if the white guy happens to be pointing his gun directly at an officer, his interaction with the police is unlikely to end in the exchange of gunfire. This is called white privilege.

Recent history suggests there’s a certain methodology for how police handle nearly identical gun-related incidents: white guys get arrested, while black guys get shot. Outraged? If not, you need to pay attention.

1. Armed White Guy Has Standoff With Police, Then Gets His Gun Back.

Last May, an armed Michigan man had a standoff with the police as he stood in front of a Dairy Queen waving a loaded rifle around and angrily shouting. When cops arrived, the man, Joseph Houseman, refused to identify himself, grabbed his crotch, flipped the bird, and cursed them out. Houseman was intoxicated and didn’t have an ID. For 40 minutes, the police tried to get the belligerent man to put his weapon down. All the while, he was screaming, “The revolution is coming,” and accusing the cops of being a “gang.” He told the police he had a legal right to “threaten” police officers and their families.

There’s an excerpt from their encounter at the full story link.

2. White Guy Points Gun at Police Officers and Children During Hour-Long Standoff. Video and summary at full story link.

3. White Man Arrested Twice For Road Rage With a Gun.

In October, a Tennessee man was arrested for waving a loaded gun during a road rage incident involving another man and his son. E.J. Watson confronted the pair when they came to a stop, exited his vehicle with his pistol tucked in the front of his pants and was very belligerent, cursing and making derogatory remarks.

The victims called 911, and police pulled Watson over a few miles from the weapon-wielding episode. His car was littered with empty beer cans as well as a loaded Smith & Wesson revolver. Watson refused to exit his vehicle and had to be physically removed. Only three months earlier, he was arrested for a separate drunken road rage incident.

Good thing for Watson he was white—otherwise he might not be alive today.

4. White Guy Arrested for Firing BB Gun at Officers.

A 22-year-old from New Hampshire faces one count of reckless conduct after firing a BB gun at Concord police in September. The two police officers were making a routine traffic stop at an intersection when the man opened fire from a nearby apartment building. They arrested the culprit, Jesse Deflorio, who was on already on probation for a similar incident. The judge residing over the case commented that he was worried about the white guy’s safety following the most recent BB gun-firing episode. Poor white guy.

Tamir Rice, 12, was walking around a Cleveland park, holding a toy gun that uses nonlethal plastic pellets. A police cruiser pulled up and within two seconds Rice was shot and killed by rookie officer Timothy Loehmann.

5. Two White Men Shoot Up Walmart With BB Gun and Live to Tell the Tale.

6. White Guy Arrested After Pointing Gun at Pennsylvania Police Officers.

7. White Woman Dressed In Body Armor Arrested After Shooting Into Cars and Pointing Gun at Police.

8. White Man Arrested After Pointing Gun at Phoenix Firefighters During Hour-Long Standoff.

Full story, summaries, videos, and links here. If you’re one of those people who insists racism, cops, and guns aren’t a problem, do some fucking homework. Read until reality seeps into your brainpan.

Gay Pothead Zombies with Wackadoddle Things.

Gay Pothead Zombies, aka Christians in disguise.

GPZC

Adorable, aren’t they? Unfortunately, what they were doing, not so adorable. As usual, Christians once again prove they have no compunction whatsoever about being dishonest and deceitful, in order to spread their lies for Jesus.

Yes, as reported by Lifesite News, those at the Toronto Gay Pride parade thought they were getting free condoms and some helpful sex tips. They should have realized something was up when Gay Zombies Cannabis Consumers Association was the group trying to do that.

Instead, they were getting fake condoms and info packets that told of the “physical and spiritual dangers of homosexual practices” from a group of Christians in disguise.

Bill Whatcott was leading the charge and the group, better known as GZCCA, as they registered for the parade under that named. They figured it would be easier to pass their message along if they were in disguises that included rainbow tutus and rainbow flags worn as capes.

The group had a couple of specific goals in mind, and the first was to be prophetic and unambiguous witnesses against the celebration of homosexuality. As if that wasn’t enough, they had a second reason for coming together, and it was to offer those partaking in homosexuality a way out.

That way out was to repent and turn to Jesus Christ so that they could be saved. Dressing in the costumes and appearing as gay pothead zombies was a move that Whatcott called “a bit creative” since it allowed them to hand out pamphlets to thousands of people instead of just a small few.

“I asked them if they wanted ‘Zombie safe sex.’ Everyone loved it. But, if you try to give out a Gospel pamphlet, they swear at you and throw slushies on your forehead. But, give them some wackadoddle thing that looks like a condom, and they really can’t grab it fast enough. I had three thousand out in 20 minutes.”

Whatcott’s blog, Free North America, has more pictures of the GZCCA handing out the fake condoms and pamphlets. There are also some looks at the pamphlets, but be warned that many of the images could be considered quite graphic.

Many of the images on Whatcott’s pamphlet show some of the diseases that are associated with homosexuality such as AIDS and numerous others. He believes that people who are attracted to the same sex need to know the medical facts about the practices they are partaking in.

“We don’t feel that this message should be closeted and that we should be bullied into silence.”

Mr. Whatcott, you were never bullied into silence. Christians such as yourself barely shut up long enough to breathe. As you don’t want to be closeted and silenced, you should perhaps have a great deal of empathy for those are repeatedly bullied in an attempt to silence them and shove them back in a closet and lock the door. Shame on you, not only for your deceit, but the lies and misinformation you spread.

Via  Inquisitr.

TV: trying to make everybody f*cking gay.

Boosie Badazz.

Boosie Badazz.

So, this person I had not heard of before has decided that the world at large has just gone too far – the gay is in cartoons, oh no! Why, it’s a terrible thing for kids to see themselves represented as normal.

“Gay panic” hysteria over LGBT-inclusive children’s programming is usually the purview of the falsely named One Million Moms, but rapper Boosie Badazz recently brought those fears into the mainstream when he told VladTV that cartoons are making kids gay.

The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based rapper told DJ Vlad last month that television in general is “trying to make everybody fucking gay.”

“They’re putting it everywhere,” he continued. “Gay stuff is everywhere. … You got cartoons that have gays. On cartoons! These are kids. Let kids make their own decision if they wanna go that way. Six- and seven-year-old, five-year-old, shouldn’t be turned onto gay cartoons when their mind not even developed yet. What if they like how that cartoon talk? Now, you’re forcing them to be gay. Every TV show has gays. They’re kissing each other. It’s out of hand.”

Oh, kissing. Yes, that’s terrible. All those hetero people better stop that, right now. None of that hand holding, either.

“Everywhere you go, they’re forcing this gay stuff,” he said. “It wasn’t like that when I was coming up. The Ninja Turtles wasn’t kissing. You know what I’m saying? It wasn’t like that. The Flintstones wasn’t — they didn’t have two men on The Flintstones kissing, you know. The Jetsons wasn’t kissing. Everywhere you go they trying to do that, and they doing it for monetary gain. They not doing it cause they love the gays.”

Last time I looked, no one was making me, or anyone else watch television, let alone specific programs. I’m pretty sure you can still hang in the stone ages with Fred if you really want to do so.

But those sobering statistics appear to be lost on Badazz, who concluded his rant on VladTV by promising that if his child was gay,”I would probably slap his ass back straight.”

“I’m gonna kick his ass,” the rapper continued. “Maybe he’ll realize he’s not gay. But if I can’t stop him from being gay, I’m not gonna ban my son from my life. I’ll just have to find some crazy ass way to deal with it.”

Later during the same interview with VladTV, Badazz, a father of seven, said that he was looking for women with whom he could have three more children, so that he could make good on a promise he made to his grandmother to give her 10 great-grandchildren.

Though Badazz says he “doesn’t hate gay people at all,” it’s no secret that hostile attitudes like those the rapper is espousing contribute to the perception that LGBT lives, sexualities, and gender identities are deviant and inherently not kid-friendly.

If you ever wonder why bigotry just doesn’t die, there’s why.

The Advocate has the full story.

War Cry Mockery: Pushing Back.

Shock jock radio host Howie Carr mocks Elizabeth Warren with the hand-over-mouth war cry at a Trump rally on June 29 in Bangor, Maine.

Shock jock radio host Howie Carr mocks Elizabeth Warren with the hand-over-mouth war cry at a Trump rally on June 29 in Bangor, Maine.

Trump’s bigotry seems to know no bounds, and as bigots go, he’s on the equitable side of being bigoted against most everyone. Within that however, Trump remains focused on bigotry and perpetuating nasty stereotypes when it comes to indigenous people. Trump has a history of hating on Natives, and I imagine he was thrilled with the whole Warren business so he could unleash his vituperative venom. As usual, people have no problem picking up such nastiness, doing what they think are Indigenous war cries, like ignorant children playing cowboy, with no thought at all to the real harm and damage they are doing.

While many Americans today are boldly leaning into social consciousness, other pockets of American society remain stubbornly swathed in the white supremacist cloaks of 1950 – an era when racism and bigotry were the celebrated norm.

Enter, Boston-based radio show host, Howie Carr, who recently opened up a Donald Trump rally in Bangor, Maine, with an all-too American mockery of Native Americans while referencing Elizabeth Warren, who claims Cherokee ancestry.

And the crowd loved it. Men turn toward each other laughing in amusement, while someone in the crowd even cheers with a loud whistle of support. A racist rally is a good ol’ time for those Trump Republicans.

But let’s just be clear – this particular critique of yet another charade at the Trump circus isn’t about Trump the Clown or his clown accomplice, Howie Carr. Nor is this critique about Elizabeth Warren, who has failed to adequately address her questionable Native American identity.

[Read more…]

27.

William Howard Taft took office in 1909, the same year America’s first permanent movie studio opened in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

William Howard Taft took office in 1909, the same year America’s first permanent movie studio opened in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

William Howard Taft took office in 1909, the same year America’s first permanent movie studio opened in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Champion Film Company, the precursor of Universal Studios, used its location along the Jersey Palisades to film scenes from the “Wild West,” launching a movie genre that from its beginning proved problematic. Years before Hollywood was established as America’s film capital, more than a dozen companies made movies from Fort Lee, transforming local scenery and historic buildings into scenes from the stereotypical West.

These early westerns often portrayed Indians in derogatory ways, prompting a delegation of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians to travel to Washington in early 1911. Concerned that Indians were “discreditably depicted in moving pictures,” the delegates sought an audience with Taft and Robert Valentine, the commissioner of Indian Affairs.

As part of their visit, chiefs Big Buck and Big Bear accompanied a Washington Post reporter to a local theater. The movie they watched followed the story of an Indian woman who, after falling in love with a white man, stabbed the man’s wife with a poison arrow, the Post reported in February 1911.

“If the white people would only take the pains to study Indian characteristics … he could possibly produce something worthy of presentation to the public,” Big Buck told the Washington Post. After viewing the movie, he and Big Bear planned to ask Taft to “close up” the movie house.

“It is bad to be lied about to so many people (and to be) helpless to defend yourself,” Big Bear told the Post.

Valentine was sympathetic and said that he had “seen productions wherein the Indian was pictured as a cannibal, thief, and almost every evil thing one can imagine,” the Post reported. Yet Taft did not respond to requests from Big Bear and Big Buck, and the National Board of Censorship continued to approve the films.

[…]

Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with the rise of the Native American Church and its sacramental and medicinal use of peyote, which the Bureau of Indian Affairs viewed as a threat to Christianity. In 1909, the BIA began investigating peyote meetings and in 1912, the Board of Indian Commissioners lobbied Congress for a law criminalizing its use.

“The danger of the rapid spread of the habit, increased by its so-called religious associations, makes the need of its early suppression doubly pressing,” commissioners wrote in their annual report.

In his final message to Congress, in December 1912, Taft spoke of the government’s role as guardians of the Indians and its responsibility for their “condition of health.”

“In spite of everything which has been said in criticism of the policy of our government toward the Indians, the amount of wealth which is now held by it for these wards per capita shows that the government has been generous,” Taft said. He called on Congress to allocate funding for Indian health “in order that our facilities for overcoming diseases among the Indians might be properly increased.”

Two weeks before leaving office, Taft broke ground with a silver shovel on the proposed 165-foot National American Indian Memorial, to be built on Staten Island. Although Congress set aside the federal land for the project, it did not receive funding and was never constructed.

Full Article at ICTMN.

Gyasi Ross on MSNBC.

“I think we have to be very clear, Donald Trump is just a symbol for an antiquated outdated mode of thought that unfortunately still exists.”

“I think we have to be very clear, Donald Trump is just a symbol for an antiquated outdated mode of thought that unfortunately still exists.”

Gyasi Ross, ICTMN’s Editor at Large, appeared on All In With Chris Hayes last night to address Donald Trump’s candidacy and, specifically, Trump’s 1993 quote, “They don’t look Indian,” as part of the presumptive Republican Presidential Candidate’s reoccurring shtick.

Hayes opened the segment by bringing up the opening of Foxwoods resort and casino in Connecticut, which presented competition to Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City. “Under federal law,” Hayes went on, “Native Americans don’t pay taxes on casinos located on their land.” In 1993 Trump sued the federal government by arguing that the law gave an unfair advantage to a certain class of citizen.

Trump was called to testify before Congress and got into a heated exchange with Representative George Miller. That’s when Trump delivered his infamous phrase, “They don’t look Indian.”

Hayes followed the video clip of the exchange by soliciting comments from Ross, and referred to Trump as the “great determiner of who has what ancestry.”

Ross, a Blackfeet Nation citizen, responded, “This is not a new script at all. … In many ways Native people have historically served as the canary in the coal mine in regards to racial relations and this is no different.

ICTMN has the full story, video below.

https://youtu.be/8_GKkst6tM0

You may rejoice, I must mourn.

Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimedia Commons.

History News Network has a good article up, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” by Anne Pastore. It’s good reading for Colonial Day. Here’s just a bit:

African-American attitudes leading up to the Civil War toward Independence Day itself were perhaps best expressed by Frederick Douglass in his 1852 speech named after its most famous line, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Asking the crowd why they have asked him, a black man, to speak on this occasion celebrating freedom in a country where his people are not free, his oration demands acknowledgement of slavery, “the great sin and shame of America.”

“Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

I learned a few things I didn’t know, and I have yet more reading to do. Wherever there’s a declaration of independence, there’s often a pile of bodies under that declaration, and it’s important to remember the cost to all peoples, not just the spoils of the victors.

There’s a great need for such reflection, because the March of American Stupidity stomps on:

The one-time Florida representative and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel GOP Rep. Allen West  is extremely concerned by his observation that Americans use the phrase “Happy Fourth of July” to greet each other instead of “Happy 240th American Independence Day,” or better yet, “Steadfast and Loyal, Happy 240th American Independence Day.”

West is afraid that the country is not only becoming less Christian, but also less patriotic.

“I’ve noticed something as it relates to today and that which it represents,” West wrote on his blog. “We’ve seen our move away from Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays, and even Happy Winter Solstice. We’ve become so damaged by the talons of political correctness that it now threatens the very existence of our Republic. And I mean its very founding.”

[…]

He concludes, “On June 14th 1775 our Continental Army was formed, the motto of today’s U.S. Army is ‘This We’ll Defend.’ Let us all defend these free and independent states from a new tyranny and make a stand for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…not charlatans who believe they can promise our individual happiness. Steadfast and Loyal, Happy 240th American Independence Day!”

Mr. West, you can take your Steadfast and Loyal, Happy 240th American Independence Day and shove it. Full story here.

Ken Burns Talks Trump.

cbs_ftn_berns_race_150823c-800x430

Ken Burns speaks to CBS (screen grab).

In an interview with the Daily Beast on a retrospective of his films, acclaimed documentarian Ken Burn spent the majority of his time discussing the candidacy of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and what it says about America.

[…]

Discussing Burns’ film The Central Park Five — about five black teens who were wrongly convicted of assaulting a white woman in New York City — Burns recalled how Trump reacted at the time.

“He shamefully took out a full-page ad in all of the New York dailies asking for a restoration of the death penalty for two 14-year-old, two 15-year-old, and one 16-year-old innocent children,” Burns explained. “While New York State laws would not have permitted their execution, just the fact that there was a rush to judgment ought to be complete evidence of how temperamentally unsuited he is for the office he now seeks.”

Burns makes an excellent point here, in regard to Trump’s volatility. Trump is con man, always ready to twist in the wind, willing to change views in a heartbeat. All his viewpoints are on the repugnant side, which should be enough to scare people away, but it isn’t. Given that, people should seriously consider Trump’s eruptions into temper, and how that would translate in an office of high power.

“I find Donald Trump more of a super-predator. This idea that he can attack and attack and attack whole groups of people, and that we live in a media culture where that’s permitted to be tolerated—it’s the spectacle and not the truth of it,” he said. “An amoral internet permits a lie to travel around the world three times before the truth can get started, and we live in a place where lying is OK—where a lassitude develops where it doesn’t matter what the truth is—and that’s how it’s possible for someone like him to be advanced who is so clearly temperamentally unsuited and has no idea about governing.”

“The Republican Party has been extraordinarily successful at getting many groups of people to vote against their self-interest,” he continued. “Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump. What part of Donald Trump reminds you of Jesus Christ? Trump lusts after his own daughter on national radio, talks about women’s bodies and breasts in such a disparaging way, and mocks them. How is this in any way Christian? When you make the ‘other’ the enemy, how is that Christian?”

Okay, that last question is silly. Christians are all about othering, it’s the lifeblood of their belief. If you don’t other, how you can get your self-righteous judgment on? (Yes, I know, #notallchristians.)

Full story here.

Sunday Facepalm: A Look Back.

Last Sunday was the first anniversary of marriage equality. Right Wing Watch has a comprehensive look at all the dire predictions made by the religious right, none of which came true. We’ll start with a video, of American on Fire, Oh No!

On to the predictions of dire woe!

1)War’s A-Brewin’

Many “mainstream” Religious Right leaders said that if the Supreme Court were to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage, Americans should prepare for a revolution.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, for example, said there would be an anti-gay “revolution” that would “just break this nation apart” if marriage bans were overturned, warning that such a ruling would “literally split this nation in two and create such political and cultural turmoil that I’m not sure we could recover from it.”

Mat Staver and Matt Barber of the Religious Right legal group Liberty Counsel made similar statements, with Barber declaring that “revolution is at hand” and Staver claiming that there would be a “new American Revolution” resisting marriage equality. Former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay insisted that “all hell” was “going to break loose” if the court sided with LGBT activists on marriage.

“We’ve got to fight to our deaths to save this great country,” said Cliff Kincaid of the conservative group Accuracy In Media, while Vision America’s Rick Scarborough vowed that he was willing to “burn” in defiance of gay marriage, which he said would “unleash the spirit of hell on the nation.”

One year later, no anti-gay revolution has occurred and Rick Scarborough has not self-immolated.

[Read more…]

McCrory: Dying on Bigotry Hill.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) (nc.gov, Screengrab)

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) (nc.gov, Screengrab)

he North Carolina state legislature is poised to transfer $500,000 from the state’s disaster relief fund to aid in the legal defense of HB2, the heavily-criticized law restricting restroom access, WRAL-TV reported.

“The governor asked for it,” said state Senate Budget Chair Harry Brown (R).

The funding was provided as part of a “technical corrections” bill added to another measure, House Bill 805, on Thursday, following the passage of the $22.34 billion state budget.

This, in the wake of a public statement by The Charlotte Hornets, who are not in favour of HB 2, but it seems there is simply no length to which McCrory is not willing to go to defend his bigotry. What happens if there’s a flood? Those have been happening in the area. What if there’s a fire or other disaster? The people of NC can simply go screw themselves, it seems. Full story here.

Also, North Carolina lawmakers adjourned for the year on Friday night after leaving mostly intact a law restricting transgender bathroom access that has drawn condemnation and jeopardized the state’s efforts to host the NBA All-Star Game, officials said. Full story here.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

The NBA and the Charlotte Hornets announced Thursday night that they will not support the proposed fix by North Carolina lawmakers to House Bill 2, the controversial law that forces transgender people to use public restrooms (in government buildings) that do not correspond with their gender identity.

“We have been engaged in dialogue with numerous groups at the city and state levels, but we do not endorse the version of the bill that we understand is currently before the legislature,” the organizations stated in a press release. “We remain committed to our guiding principles of inclusion, mutual respect and equal protections for all. We continue to believe that constructive engagement with all sides is the right path forward.”

The legislation, forced through during an emergency session of the state’s Congress, was introduced, debated, and passed in a single day. Signed into law March 23, HB 2 has been widely criticized — with over 160 businesses threatening to boycott the state if the bill is not repealed.

North Carolina Republicans had hoped that a compromise bill would quell the backlash. The version of the bill obtained by Charlotte TV station WBTV allows transgender residents to use the public restroom that most closely corresponds with their gender identity as long as they are able to “prove” their gender. Trans people can do so, according to the bill, by furnishing a “certificate of sex reassignment,” one notarized by the physician who performed the surgery. Many transgender people, however, do not have or desire surgery.

In addition, the draft of the bill sent to legislators Wednesday clarified the penalties for using the opposite-sex facilities. “Language in the latest draft of the bill would make it a Class 2 misdemeanor — one level higher than the normal penalty for trespassing — to trespass in a multiple-occupancy bathroom or changing facility,” reports WBTV.

This goes on, as McCrory and his fellow bigots insist on finding some way to legislate open bigotry. What is the final cost of this going to be for the people of North Carolina?

Full story here.

Shameful Camps.

custercamp

I have, at best, been vaguely aware of Fort Abraham, having gone past it often enough. That vague awareness has now been shattered, and not in a good way.

Fort Abraham State Park in North Dakota offers a Saturday morning kids’ program called “Becoming a Soldier of Fort Abraham Lincoln”. The free program states that “children will learn about soldier life at Fort Abraham Lincoln and what it takes to be part of Custer’s 7th Cavalry.”

Fort Abraham is located just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, home of Tatanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull).

The program, which runs from late May to early September, says it will “introduce kids to military life on the Dakota frontier as a solider living at Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1875.” Kids will also take the ‘official oath of enlistment’ into the U.S. 7th Cavalry.

[…]

Custer’s surprise attack happened at dawn. He ordered his men to destroy “everything of value to the Indians,” and in a few hours over 100 Cheyenne’s had been killed including Black Kettle, his wife, and over 800 horses. Custer also took over 50 women and children into captivity.

While originally labelled as a “Battle” the slaughter at Washita River was later called a “massacre of innocent Indians” by the Indian Bureau.

[…]

In 1890, a blood thirsty and revenge driven 7th Calvary rounded up a peaceful band of Lakota, primarily Ghost Dancers, under Chief Big Foot and slaughtered over 300 women, men, and children known as the Wounded Knee massacre.

It is incomprehensible that the Fort Abraham State Park would find it appropriate to encourage children to find out what it takes to be a part of a legacy soaked in genocide.

I agree, it’s incomprehensible. When there’s a tacit refusal to teach children actual history, warts and all, they can hardly be blamed for developing untruthful and biased views. (There was a recent discussion about Custer here.) It’s not surprising that white attitudes towards indigenous people remains so negative when this whitewashing is taking place in the heart of Indian country. It’s sad and burdensome to see that lying about Custer is still so very important to some people. “History comes to life”. Yes, a very whitewashed, colonial version, which celebrates the largest mass murder in U.S. history, the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

https://youtu.be/v68KVexu628

Full Story at Last Real Indians.

Moving on to a Christian camp in Arkansas called Camp War Eagle. You already know it’s bad from the name alone. You just don’t know how bad. Yet.

[Read more…]

Mississippi: HB 1523 Struck Down.

AP photo.

AP photo.

“The United States Supreme Court has spoken clearly on the constitutional principles at stake,” wrote Reeves in the ruling, citing Epperson v. Arkansas. “Under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, a state ‘may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another.’”

Reeves said the Mississippi law “grants special rights to citizens who hold one of three ‘sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions’ reflecting disapproval of lesbian, gay, transgender, and unmarried persons. That violates both the guarantee of religious neutrality and the promise of equal protection of the laws.”

Full Story Here.

Mississippi Business Fights Back.

mississippi-750x563

With its seasonal parfaits, Indianola pecan pies, and multi-layered cakes as tall as hatboxes, Sugaree’s Bakery is well known among the foodies of Mississippi. The proprietress, Mary Jennifer Russell, named the small-batch bakery after a Grateful Dead song and has always run her establishment with a spirit of openness and love. So she was outraged when, last April, Governor Phil Bryant signed a hotly contested and far-reaching piece of anti-LGBT legislation into law.

Before the ink had dried on the bill, Russell had called her contacts in the hospitality business, asking what could be done.

“Our strengths in Mississippi are cultural — food, art, and music,” Russell says. “This is a slap in the face to most of that cultural base.”

[…]

Mississippians like Russell are joining together in hopes of reversing the damage to the state’s economy and reputation. Mike Cashion, executive director of the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, has launched a new public-service campaign titled “Everyone’s Welcome Here,” telegraphing an industry-wide message of inclusiveness, which includes providing decals declaring acceptance. “This campaign is about more than a sticker on your door,” says Cashion. “It’s about the values of our industry — values of hospitality and nondiscrimination. Now we’re working with the Mississippi Economic Council,” he notes. “So even more folks are signing on.”

Other campaigns backed by local LGBT rights groups include the “If You’re Buying, We’re Selling” drive. It has been embraced by more than 500 businesses in Mississippi, which have affixed welcoming blue stickers to their doors and windows.

Mississippi native Knol Aust, who designed the sticker, said it was encouraging, albeit surreal, to see local businesses featuring his work. “When you travel to places like the Castro, you see rainbow stickers everywhere,” he says. “But we’d never had that before. So it was exciting to see this pop up in places I never would have expected — like hardware or liquor stores, which typically don’t get involved in politics.”

It didn’t take long for fundamentalist organizations to push back. Buddy Smith, a spokesman for the right-wing advocacy organization the American Family Association, which is based in Tupelo, Mississippi, said, “It’s not really a buying campaign, but it’s a bully campaign, and it’s being carried out by radical homosexual activists who intend to trample the freedom of Christians.”

It’s a sticker. A sticker which speaks to the owner not being a tiny-brained bigot, but a decent, inclusive person working for the greater good. And the campaign is not being carried out by radical homosexual activists, it’s being carried out by your fellow Mississippians, oh my. Somehow, I just can’t work up the tears for you poor, persecuted Christians.

[Read more…]