Going Catholic On Condoms.

putin-condom-x750

Perhaps I should say, doing Catholics one better on condoms. The Catholic Church has been telling people, for decades, that condoms don’t prevent HIV at all, and that they are against god. It seems Russia is prepared to outdo them on the misinformation score.

A Russian study actually blames condoms for the spread of HIV. The Russian Institute for Strategic Research (RISR), which was set up by the Kremlin in 2012, presented a report on Tuesday to Moscow’s city council that casts doubt over the validity of well documented statistics showing the spread of HIV in Russia.

It’s worth noting that one of stated goals of the RISR is “Family-based solutions as a strategy for overcoming depopulation.” Which is perhaps why it’s not a surprise to see that the study’s authors alluded to “traditional values” being the route to stopping the spread of HIV, blaming promiscuity and homosexuality for infections.

That certainly sounds familiar. Looks like the U.S. and Russia have a lot on common these days.

Tatyana Guzenkova, deputy head of the organization, presented the report, as according to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant. It is also not a stretch to imagine this being used by the Kremlin to buttress its ongoing hostility towards Russia’s LGBT movement.

Like most things under the Putin regime, the RISR is hard to see as anything but government loyalists, especially because internal dispute about the study was quite vocal. The head of the Federal Center for fighting AIDS, Vadim Pokrovsky, for example, stressed the importance of focusing on condoms to reduce the spread of HIV.

Via Plus.

Protect your kids from tyrant Obama

james-dobson-x750

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has decided to add yet another terrifying screed to the growing pile of Christian hate and panic over transgender rights. It’s tempting to simply poke at such rhetoric, and while it is ripe for mockery, too many people actually listen to people like Dobson, and Dobson thinks a gun might be the answer. There’s always someone willing to pick a gun up here in uStates.

…Obama, acting like a king, is wielding dictatorial powers never envisioned in the law. He is determined to change the way males and females relate to one another, and worse, how children perceive themselves. If you are a married man with any gumption, surely you will defend your wife’s privacy and security in restroom facilities. Would you remain passive after knowing that a strange-looking man, dressed like a woman, has been peering over toilet cubicles to watch your wife in a private moment? What should be done to the pervert who was using mirrors to watch women and girls in their stalls? If you are a dad, I pray you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them. If this had happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot. Where is today’s manhood? God help us!…

Dobson has the sense to frame the gun part as a lament, “oh, if this were in the past, we could just kill the varmints!”, a way to cover himself when some committed Christian out there decides packin’ a pistol in a pee station is a great idea, and finds reason to use it. This is highly inflammatory rhetoric, and it’s being shouted from all sides.

WND article. Raw Story article. The Advocate article.

We Will Line Up For Crucifixion to Defend Our Bigotry.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Well, Misssissippi Governor Phil Bryant must be bursting with pride – he’s made Right Wing Watch. ‘Over the top’, melodramatic, dramatic, glurgetastic, none of these is an adequate descriptor anymore. A brand new word is needed.

At least week’s Watchmen on the Wall conference, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins presented Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant with the first ever “Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award” for having signed a radical anti-LGBT bill into law earlier this year that will allow businesses to deny service to gay people.

While introducing the governor, Perkins said that America’s elected leaders should be “ministers of God,” while Bryant praised the hate group leader as something of a modern-day David.

[…]

Later, Bryant recalled how “all of the secular progressive world had decided that they were going to pour their anger” out on him for pledging to sign the legislation, wrongly thinking that he could be pressured into backing down because they were unaware that Christians like him would line up to be crucified before turning their backs on Jesus.

“They don’t know us very well, do they?” he asked. “They don’t know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don’t know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place.”

Gee, Phil, did you ask all the other Christians if they are good with being crucified?

 

I now pronounce you: Jack Daniels.

From left; Dan Mathews kisses his husband Jack Ryan on stage in Raleigh as Alex Ebert looks on; Photo courtesy of Pawel Malyszko.

From left; Dan Mathews kisses his husband Jack Ryan on stage in Raleigh as Alex Ebert looks on; Photo courtesy of Pawel Malyszko.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros show how to do a concert in NC without compromising your principles.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros considered canceling a concert scheduled in Raleigh, N.C. on Friday, but ultimately decided the show must go on — to make a statement.

The indie band was torn over whether to play in North Carolina in light of the state’s sweeping anti-LGBT law known as House Bill 2, which requires trans people to use bathrooms that do not correspond with their gender identity, rescinds all LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances, and bars residents for suing for discrimination in state court.

“HB 2 was passed by an immoral minority – North Carolina has many thriving, creative, modern communities,” lead singer Alex Ebert said in a statement reported by Rolling Stone. “We were tempted to cancel the show, but decided at the last minute to rally the crowd instead by renewing the vows of our good friends onstage.”

[…]

“Then Jack, and Daniel,” continued Ebert. “I now pronounce you: Jack Daniels.”

Full Story at The Advocate.

HIV+ Organ Transplants Okayed in California.

Credit: Shutterstock.

Credit: Shutterstock.

Organ donation and transplantation between HIV-positive people is now legal in the state of California.

On May 27, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1408, a new piece of legislation that protects surgeons who transplant organs from HIV-positive donors into HIV-positive patients from being penalized by the state’s medical board. President Barack Obama’s HOPE Act technically reversed the federal ban on this procedure back in 2013, but as Medical Daily previously reported, there’s been a delay in uptake. Apparently the National Institutes of Health needed time to “properly iron out the act’s guidelines,” so up until now in California, doctors were criminals and even faced jail time if they condoned HIV transplantation and donation, Tech Times­ reported.

[…]

The surgeons at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore had a similar feeling in March when they were approved to conduct the first HIV-positive organ transplant in the U.S. Dr. Dorry Segev, an associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, told NPR that both HIV-positive and negative patients would benefit from the ban reversal when it comes to the organ transplant waiting list.

“Imagine now we take hundreds or maybe thousands of people off of the list, then everybody behind them moves forward,” he said. “So people with HIV are benefited directly and everybody else on the list is benefitted indirectly. And we’re all very excited to get started.”

Full Story Here.

Oh Fuck. No.

ND Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem

ND Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem

Oh, look, I get to hang my head in shame now, along with a lot of other people. Fuck.

North Dakota Republican Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Friday morning he will file a lawsuit against the federal government over transgender bathroom policies.

Stenehjem said he is working to bring together a “coalition” of attorneys general to file a lawsuit next week in the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas. Officials from 11 states, led by Texas, took legal action this week over the Obama administration directing public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identities.

Stenehjem said the lawsuit he’s bringing is “basically the same” as the one brought by the other states.

[…]

Kylie Oversen, chairwoman of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, said it was “disappointing to see Stenehjem’s response to this directive.”

“Whether it’s at the workplace, in housing, the voting booth, or public spaces, discrimination in all forms is flat out wrong,” she said in an email.

State Rep. Marvin Nelson, the Democratic candidate for North Dakota governor, was also critical of Stenehjem’s decision. He said transgender people are probably the least likely to want to “create an issue in the bathroom.”

“I don’t know why the state of North Dakota would be spending money on this lawsuit,” Nelson said, adding other states have already taken legal action.

Via Inforum, full story here.

Stenehjem isn’t joining the existing lawsuit against the government, he’s writing up his own, but says it will mirror what other states are doing.

That statement welcomed from the North Dakota School Board Association.

“This will give courts the opportunity to really consider the legitimacy of the Obama Administration’s directive,” says Jon Martinson, who is a part of the School Board Association.

The School board association says Obama’s proposal isn’t specific enough on who is a transgender child.

“A simple declaration that now on Wednesday, I’m a female, I’m declaring myself a female, although genetically and biologically I’m a male, and I want to be able to use now the women’s bathroom and the women’s locker room, is not going to fly,” said Martinson.

[…]

“Children and their education shouldn’t be politicized like this,” says Kristen Benson, Family Therapist

Benson says she often hears horror stories about life for those in the transgender community.

“She was a transgender child and she was so scared to use the restroom and didn’t feel like they didn’t have the support at school, so they didn’t eat or drink anything while at school. Because that is how they could avoid this issue, and no child should have to do that,” says Benson.

[…]

A debate of a political or lived experience, that will take months and money to fight.

“It’s a travesty that we are wasting time, energy and money to prevent children from using the restroom when there are children in this state who aren’t eating,” said Benson.

Via WDAY6, full story here.

Going back to the Inforum article for a moment, I took part in their poll:

Poll

Make that Twelve. Again.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin speaks during the 145th NRA Convention inside Freedom Hall on Friday afternoon. May 20, 2016(Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin speaks during the 145th NRA Convention inside Freedom Hall on Friday afternoon. May 20, 2016(Photo: Alton Strupp/The Courier-Journal)

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Kentucky is joining 11 other states in their lawsuit against the federal government over its transgender bathroom guidelines.

“The federal government has no authority to dictate local school districts’ bathroom and locker room policies,” Gov. Matt Bevin said in a statement Friday announcing Kentucky will join the case. “The Obama administration’s transgender policy ‘guidelines’ are an absurd federal overreach into a local issue.”

Also in his news release, the Republican governor took a swipe at Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear.

“Unfortunately, Attorney General Andy Beshear is unwilling to protect Kentucky’s control over local issues,” he said. “Therefore, my administration will do so by joining this lawsuit. We are committed to protecting the 10th Amendment and fighting federal overreach into state and local issues.”

Beshear responded that Bevin’s statement “is not truthful.”

Beshear’s statement said, The Office of the Attorney General has been closely reviewing this matter. On the day the federal government issued its guidance, the governor stated he was researching legal options. I expected to be consulted on those options, but my office has not received a single phone call from the governor or his attorneys on this matter … Sadly, this is another example of the governor’s office playing politics instead of trying to work with us.”

The Full Story Here.

Make That Twelve.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.

Gov. Phil Bryant. AP Photo.


On Wednesday, I posted Eleven States Sue in the Name of Bigotry. Phil Bryant wants to make it twelve.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant plans to join 11 states in a suit against the Obama administration for issuing a guidance document May 13 that suggests public schools allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity.

“In regards to the 11 state lawsuit against the Obama administration over its bathroom directive, our office has talked to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office and I intend, as soon as possible, to join the lawsuit against this latest example of federal overreach,” the governor wrote on his Facebook page Thursday.

Just what it is these asses think they are proving, I don’t know. From my perspective, they are doing a fine job of proving their brains are atrophied and their prime characteristic is that of throwing a temper tantrum.

Full story here.

‘We agree with God’ on controversial HB2.

PHOTO/LATISHA CATCHATOORIAN.

PHOTO/LATISHA CATCHATOORIAN.

RALEIGH – U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, with the support of President Obama, recently referred to transgender struggles as an issue of “civil rights.” Faith leaders who stood in front of the Capitol building Tuesday called Lynch’s remarks “offensive.”

“We’re here to debunk and dispel the many fallacious ideologies that people have attached to HB2, which is simply common sense legislation,” said John Amanchukwu, youth pastor at Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh. “Our president and our Attorney General Loretta Lynch have made some inflammatory comments and statements that are erroneous at best. A person’s ability to self-identify as something they are not has nothing to do with civil rights.”

“The language of ‘civil rights’ shouldn’t be hijacked to give privileges to the politically vocal while taking away freedoms from people disfavored by government,” said Bishop Patrick Wooden, senior pastor and bishop of Upper Room Church. “As you can see, I am African-American. I have been African-American since birth; God made me this way. For the attorney general to equate the legitimate struggle of the civil rights movement to the things that HB2 stands for is embarrassing and is wrong.”

Clarence Henderson, chairman of the Governor’s Commission on Civil Rights, participated in the Greensboro Woolworth sit-ins during the civil rights movement. He said transgender identity is a “feeling” and that to call it a “movement” offends him.

“I stand before you to tell you what civil rights is and what it isn’t. It certainly isn’t transgender (identification)… If you were born a man, that’s who you are. If you were born a female, that’s who you are. Tell me how you’re going to tell the families that came on those slave ships, in chains… tell their families (that it is comparable) to transgender (identity),” he said. “You tell me how many transgender people have been lynched.”

Oh, so now people have to be lynched to qualify for human rights? How about transgender people being disproportionately murdered every day? How about them being beaten and harassed at a continuous high level? How about continuous discrimination? I guess only lynchings will do.

Pastor Kenneth Fontenot, senior pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Wilson, said no law intended to protect a minority should be passed at the expense of the majority. “The laws passed in the 1960s did not bless black people while they hurt white people,” he said.

Really? There were a whole lot of white people at the time who would have most seriously disagreed with you.

Fontenot highlighted his point by pouring maple syrup on a stack of bread, saying that covering bread in syrup does not make it pancakes.

If you don’t have the money or means to make pancakes, syrup on bread will do nicely. Maybe you prefer bread with syrup, so what? Pancakes are made with same fucking ingredients as bread. You could say it’s just a matter of expression.

“It has become more and more challenging each day to witness our common sense liberties and freedoms being challenged and assaulted by an overreach of more and more government. I strongly believe that restrooms and showers separated by biological sex is common sense, not discrimination,” said Leon Threatt, senior pastor at Christian Faith Assembly in Charlotte.

Gabriel Rogers, senior pastor at Kingdom Christian Church in Charlotte, said that just like God loves everyone, so do the ministers, but if the government gives liberties to transgender people, it’s difficult to police the ill-willed with predatory intentions protected by the same law.

Oh yes, because we’re doing such a great job of policing the ill-willed with predatory intentions now, aren’t we? You can’t even manage to police all the ill-willed predatory actions by those who consider themselves upright people of god.

“What are we going to do with the trauma when our young girls and our young boys are exposed to (opposite sex) genitalia? What are we going to do when someone is confused about their own sexuality because they’ve been exposed to someone who was confused in and of themselves?” he said.

Oh my, the horrible trauma! FFS, aren’t there actual traumas you could wring your hands over?

Jimmy Bention, pastor of Metrolina Christian Center Church of God in Christ in Monroe, was incredulous when he said society is “soft-shoeing” the issue because the conversation is about  “penises and vaginas.”

No, it isn’t. And why are you talking about genitals at all when they are capable of causing irreparable trauma?

Added Wooden: “The African-American community is not monolithic. We’re not rogue pastors. We’re not ashamed to admit we agree with God.”

Golly, I must have missed the world-wide announcement from “god”. Can we get a replay, please?

Source.

God’s Almighty Health Care Workers.

pma

You’ve probably heard of the credentials M.D. and R.N., and maybe N.P. The people using those letters are doctors, registered nurses and nurse practitioners. But what about PSC.D or D.PSc? Those letters refer to someone who practices pastoral medicine — or “Bible-based” health care.

It’s a relatively new title being used by some alternative health practitioners. The Texas-based Pastoral Medical Association gives out “pastoral provider licenses” in all 50 states and 30 countries. Some providers call themselves doctors of pastoral medicine. But these licenses are not medical degrees. That has watchdog organizations concerned that some patients may not understand what this certification really means.

Thankfully, I have not run across this, and hadn’t heard of anyone with a PSC.D or D.PSc. They’d need heaven’s help if I ever do run into someone sporting a god badge. Healthcare is difficult enough without this depth of bullshit.

The good folks at the Pastoral Medical Association were too busy doing God’s work to have a deep discussion with those aggressively atheist elitists at NPR, only providing a statement “explaining it was founded by a group of Christians concerned with the increase in chronic illness. The association says it seeks to protect ‘the Almighty’s Health Care workers.'”

Lo, the association’s website (“optimized for Firefox”) is a wonder to behold. It comes complete with a constitution, which begins:

We of this mighty western Republic have to grapple with the dangers that spring from popular self-government tried on a scale incomparably vaster than ever before in the history of mankind, and from an abounding material prosperity greater also than anything which the world has hitherto seen.

[…]

So, how many members does the Pastoral Medical Association have? Screw you, that’s how many. According to the site’s awesome FAQ section, “policy prevents the PMA from releasing exact membership numbers, however we can affirm that the PMA family is many many thousands, growing at an average rate of over 3,000 new members monthly.” At that rate, it’s only a matter of time before we’re all members.

And in case you’re wondering if a PMA license is “recognized,” the answer is a resounding yes. See, “because of the nature of PMA license it has a very solid legal basis in all U.S. states and is also respected in a large number of other countries. The PMA is a well organized private ecclesiastical association operating in according with U.S. Constitutional provisions and overwhelming Supreme Court precedence.”

That’s good enough for us. The next time we feel a cold coming on, or lupus, we’ll eschew science and reach for the PMA directory and our comprehensive wellness quart.

Via Houston Press and NPR.

Christian Lawyers Victims of Second Sexual Revolution.

Shutterstock.

Shutterstock.

Oh, definitely one for The Persecution Files. There might not be any Christian lawyers in five years! I’m pretty sure that isn’t going to happen, in spite of the fact that Christians are being informed that they are not going to be allowed to rest on their bigotry.

Less than a decade ago, few would have imagined homosexual marriage would become the law of the land.

Maybe the same will be written ten years from now, only about the absence of Christian lawyers and judges.

That’s right. The Second Sexual Revolution is not satisfied with just excluding Christians from the service industry as florists, photographers and bakers—it is excluding the law profession, too.

[…]

Fast forward to today. The American Bar Association is currently considering tightening their conduct rules to include sexual orientation and gender identity, even of “gender expression.”

[…]

Naturally, if the attorneys must bow to the altar of sexual tyranny, so must the judges.

Wait, I thought this was a sexual revolution, now it’s a tyranny? Make up thy mind, Sir. There’s much more Persecution Whine here.

President Obama is Bullying God.

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When the Obama administration told every public school in the country that students who identify as transgender can use whichever restroom and locker room they want, parents and school administrators gasped. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the decree would be “the beginning of the end of public school system,” while a school superintendent said the directive was going “straight to the paper shredder.”

Beyond rejecting the Constitution, Obama is also challenging God’s authority, Anthony argued.

“I think he is bullying God,” Anthony said. “He is forcing his redefinition of sexuality on everybody, regardless of their religious beliefs.”

The president, Anthony continued, is “acting like a theologian while being a politician.” So, as a pastor, Anthony has every right to speak about this situation because Obama has “forayed into his territory.”

Silence from Christians, he said, is not going to cut it.

Full Story Here. So, a federal guideline is bullying ‘God’ (there’s that effing placeholder again. Be specific, name your god please). Does that mean that this so-called redefinition of sexuality is being forced on ‘God’, too? How is it possible for this most amazing, super-powered ‘God’ to be bullied? Either your ‘god’ is great, or seriously weak. Looks like the latter in this case. I wonder if it ever occurs to people like Anthony that their belief is seriously weak, too, as they are convinced they must fight their God’s battles. I don’t see how you can truly believe a god exists if you must leap to a vicious defense, and declare your ‘god’ to be bullied into submission.

Antigay Crusade Going to Congress

A House committee is using the defense bill to pass "religious exemptions" for federal contractors.

A House committee is using the defense bill to pass “religious exemptions” for federal contractors.

Republicans in Congress are using defense funding to help pass a “religious freedom” law through Congress.

The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday approved a “religious freedom” amendment to the defense authorization bill. It would undo an executive order from President Obama that prohibits government contractors from engaging in anti-LGBT discrimination against their employees.

The amendment, introduced by Rep. Steve Russell, could be compared to the “religious freedom” laws that caused outrage in Indiana, Arizona, Georgia and elsewhere. In this case, it would limit the federal government to protecting only those groups now named in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the American with Disabilities act, reports the Washington Blade. Neither of those laws protect LGBT people from discrimination, therefore Russell’s amendment would allow religious organizations doing business with the U.S. government to fire or punish any employee based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Advocate has the story.