A Planned, Personal Thank You.

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Pastor Greg Locke.

Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke is well known for his spittle-flecked invectives over most everything, but mostly over…women. Everyone knows everything is the fault of women, right? One woman made a donation to Planned Parenthood in Mr. Locke’s name, and he had a meltdown over it. He really, really doesn’t want anyone to ever do this again, so…

In the video below, he howls about the fact this thank you card was sent to him and wants to make it crystal clear that he doesn’t in anyway support women’s health care at Planned Parenthood. He warned that such donations in his name are a waste of time and he’ll deposit any thank you cards in the trash. So, whatever you do, don’t waste your time donating to the Planned Parenthood clinic closest to Greg Locke’s church—Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee—and don’t waste your time making sure a thank you card gets mailed to him at:

Greg Locke
c/o Global Vision Bible Church
2060 Old Lebanon Dirt Rd
Mt Juliet, TN 37122

Via Daily Kos.

Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one…

A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. CREDIT: AP /Rich Pedroncelli.

A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed Friday, Aug. 26, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. CREDIT: AP /Rich Pedroncelli.

The Trump administration may weaken or eliminate the provision for full coverage of contraception in the Affordable Care Act, experts say, and it may not require any action from Republican allies in Congress.

The provision that allows women to receive full coverage for birth control — including insertion and removal of an IUD — could be eliminated or at least weakened through regulations, guidance, or law. Reproductive rights advocates are also waiting to see whether the Trump administration will continue to defend the mandate in the courts on Tuesday.

Newly minted Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price has a record of dismissing women’s need for full coverage of birth control. In an interview with Think Progress in 2012, Price said, “Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one. There’s not one … The fact of the matter is this is a trampling on religious freedom and religious liberty in this country.”

During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) asked Price about his 2012 statement on birth control because her constituents say birth control without a co-pay is essential to their health care. Price refused to commit to full coverage of birth control.

“There are avenues in the heath care system that doctors and hospitals take to make sure people can get the health care they need,” Price answered.

Price seems to think contraception is like having a doctor fill up a bag with pharmaceutical samples of something or other, to help out patients who can’t afford prescriptions. That sort of thing is usually done for a one time treatment. Contraception doesn’t work like that. As a former physician, I’m sure Mr. Price is aware of that, but that’s not as important as preventing people from having healthcare, especially those awful women. The way Price and his fellow travelers feel about it, contraception is a lifestyle choice, not a health issue.

Planned Parenthood clinics told NPR that, since the election of President Donald Trump, they have received more calls than usual from women interested in booking appointments for IUDs. An IUD is one of the most effective methods of birth control, since it is more than 99 percent effective. Without coverage provided by the mandate, a woman who works full time at minimum wage may have to pay a month’s salary for the cost of getting an IUD, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Women who use contraceptives consistently and correctly only account for 5 percent of all unintended pregnancies. But with financial barriers to access — especially access to effective but costly methods such as IUDs — women’s ability to prevent unintended pregnancies is significantly hampered.

41 years ago, I got an IUD through planned parenthood. At that time, I was a paid member, so it didn’t cost me a thing. I don’t remember the membership cost, but it was around 25 or 35 dollars. Way back then, people in general were favorable towards accessible, inexpensive birth control. There was still a very heavy stigma attached to single parenthood, and it was still considered to be shameful to be pregnant out of wedlock. The stigma was starting to fade in 1975, but it was still strong enough that the reasoning was contraception and pregnancy prevention was better than a bunch of single mothers. It was also easy  and hassle free to obtain an abortion back then. How things have changed.

In addition to what is happening in the courts, it is possible that an executive order could greatly expand exemptions for companies with religious or moral objections. A leaked draft of an executive order, first obtained by The Nation and Reveal earlier this month, would significantly weaken the contraception guarantee.

The order would appear to exempt any “closely held for-profit corporations” with moral or religious objections to meeting the requirements of the provision and lets them exclude coverage for contraception. Under the Obama administration’s religious accommodation, insurance companies have to provide separate coverage to women at no additional cost. Kinsey Hasstedt, senior policy manager for the Guttmacher Institute, said the draft is cause for concern, even though an official order has not been released.

“The leaked draft executive order would expand accommodations so it would be simpler for employers to reject some or all birth control options,” Hasstedt said. “It would be a dramatic expansion of exemptions.”

This draft uses broad terms to define religious freedom and requires the Department of Justice to defend “religious freedom.” It does specifically mention objections to abortion, contraception, and premarital sex, however.

The Religious Reich Republicans have been salivating for ages over the chance to kill off accessible, affordable contraception, and it looks like that chance has arrived. Think Progress has the in-depth coverage on this issue.

Sunday Facepalm.

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Did you know the latest Lego Batman flick promotes the …. Gay Agenda!?! It does. Even worse, it promotes gay adoption, oh no! I haven’t seen the latest Lego superhero flicks, but I’ve seen the others, and they are nice, lightweight fun. I even have a little Lego Batman somewhere. It’s possible Batman met the rats and lost. Anyroad, John-Henry Westen of Life Site is a tad upsetty over all the homo queerness infecting Lego Batman.

It was chock full of pro-gay propaganda. Think the sexual innuendo of the Flintstones minus the real humor. It seemed the creators were so anxious to subtly indoctrinate the little ones into the gender ideology that making it humorous came as a distant second thought.

You watch The Flinstones for sexual innuendo? And humor? Really. I think some xians should simply not be allowed to watch television or movies. That stuff isn’t mentioned in the bible, anyway. Mr. Westen couldn’t actually be bothered to be specific about what bothered him, or provide examples of that chock fullness of the gay. Instead, he quotes a rambling, rather strange review by Michael Hamilton at PJ media, who apparently had a really difficult time with a few “my two dads” references, along with Batman and The Joker resolving their relationship into one of happy hate, realizing that a superhero will always need a villain, and I guess in this case, The Joker really needs the attention of a superhero, or else it’s just not fun. I’m sure I’ll see this at some point, and enjoy it in the same way as the others. They all fall a little flat here and there, humour wise, but I’m not a sprog, either, so what do I know about what they might find screamingly funny? Mostly, the latest Lego effort is about the importance of family, even for stoics like Batman, and sometimes, you have to make that family yourself. That seems a good message to me.

I have to wonder if either of these men watched the 1960s Batman, because I did, and that was one of the most flamingly camp shows ever. I loved that show, and I can guarantee it had a hell of a lot more innuendo than a slew of Lego movies will ever have. To the Batpoles! And as far as Jokers go, Cesar Romero was the most flamboyantly fabulous Joker ever, and always will be. I think the Christian homophobes are better off coping with the minor league jokes of Lego movies, but definitely stay away from Batman.

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Cesar Romero as The Joker. He had style.

A Slick Chick-fil-A Deal.

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Singer-songwriter Grace Slick, lead vocalist for for the iconic 1960s band Jefferson Airplane and its successor, Jefferson Starship, licensed Starship’s 1987 hit “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” for the anti-LGBT company Chick-fil-A to use in a commercial — but she plans to donate all the proceeds from the commercial to Lambda Legal.

“I am donating every dime that I make from that ad to Lambda Legal, the largest national legal organization working to advance the civil rights of LGBTQ people, and everyone living with HIV,” Slick wrote in a commentary published today on Forbes magazine’s website. She said that instead of allowing someone else to profit from the commercial, she saw this as an opportunity to make money for pro-LGBT organizations. “I decided to spend the cash in direct opposition to ‘Check’-fil-A’s causes — and to make a public example of them, too. We’re going to take some of their money, and pay it back,” she wrote. The commercial aired during the Grammys February 12.

A nifty move from the Chrome Nun. Full story at The Advocate.

I Pee With LGBT.

Taking a Seat, Making a Stand.

Learn what you can do to stop SB6 at http://www.stopsb6.org.

Disguised as a safety issue, the Texas Privacy Act, also known as SB6, seeks to ban transgender individuals from using the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

It is and always will be illegal to harm or harass someone in a restroom. There has been no increase in public safety incidents in Texas cities that currently allow people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

Passing the bill would harm Texas business to the tune of billions of dollars. Just ask North Carolina.

A bathroom is not where women and children are at risk. Where our public bathrooms are concerned, transgender people are the real targets: 70% of transgender men and women report having been verbally or physically attacked while using a restroom.

Learn what you can do to stop SB6 at http://www.stopsb6.org.

Real Men and Real Women…

Walt Unks, Winston-Salem Journal.

Walt Unks, Winston-Salem Journal.

A billboard between Winston-Salem and Greensboro has caught the eye — and the ire — of some who think it is a slam on gender equality. The sign reads, “Real men provide, Real women appreciate it.”

The billboard belongs to Whiteheart Outdoor Advertising, a company operated by Bill Whiteheart. He is a former Republican member of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners and was known for being socially and fiscally conservative, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

The billboard was purchased by a company that wishes to remain nameless, Whiteheart said. It went up Friday and will remain for about 30 days.

A Whiteheart billboard costs about $2,000, he said.

Whiteheart said his company’s job is to convey a message, not to take sides on it.

[…]

The owner of a Winston-Salem women’s boutique called Kleur has organized a demonstration against the billboard’s message for Sunday at 11 a.m.

“We are NOT protesting that the sign is capable of existing, or the people who put it up, or the ad agency, or the right to put it up. We are protesting patriarchy and sexism, and that this antiquated way of thinking about women exists at all,” the group’s Facebook page said.

The protest takes place at the billboard’s location on I-40 West, headed into Winston -Salem from Kernersville. It is about 85 miles northeast of Charlotte.

Via News Observer and Charlotte Observer.

Marriage Equality Reduces Teen Suicides.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Wenig.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Wenig.

A new study reveals something remarkable: marriage equality cuts down on teen suicide. This shows just how much social justice issues matter, and that they can be, all too often, a matter of life or death. LGB teens are prone to suicide, given that they often find themselves with no support system, no safety net, and see a bleak future in which they can all too easily envision never being accepted, and never having the same human rights as other people.

A new study found some stunning results: After same-sex marriage became legal on a state level, the rate at which young people attempted suicide in that state dropped significantly.

Published this week in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, the new study used data from the hundreds of thousands of students who participated in the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) between 1999 and 2015. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, and Boston Children’s Hospital looked at 32 different states that legalized same-sex marriage in that span of time and found a consistent drop in teen suicide attempts in each state after marriage equality arrived.

Overall, the suicide rate attempt among all high school students dropped 7 percent in the year after marriage equality arrived in a state. For students who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or who were still questioning their orientation — a group whom the suicide attempt rate is much higher — the drop-off in suicide attempts was 14 percent after the arrival of marriage equality.

Because the effect was specific to each state as it legalized marriage equality, it cannot be dismissed as mere correlation. In fact, during the same span of time, suicide rates in the country were actually increasing across almost all age groups.

[…]

Regardless, the study offers a profound addition to the wealth of research already documenting the impact of what psychologists call “minority stress.” For example, a study published earlier this month in Australia found that LGB people who had strong social support and affirmation had normative rates of depression and anxiety, while only those who experienced rejection or had past experiences of trauma experienced higher rates. Several other studies in the U.S. have found that simply living in more conservative communities can have a negative impact.

Republicans, who so often tout themselves as being so very “pro-life”, but could not care less about the lives or health of women, and support the death penalty, are also staunchly against marriage equality. The fact that equality helps to maintain life is one which will, no doubt, not sway them in the least. For all their claims of pro-lifery, they don’t seem to be the least bit concerned with LGBT people dying. It’s rather difficult to not get the feeling they are cheering behind closed doors, so I imagine this news will be met with a renewed determination to kill marriage equality. Seeing as the Trump Regime is all set to rescind the Obama administration’s guidance protecting transgender students, which is little more than a license to harass and bully transgender kids, I’m sure an uptick in violence against transgender people and suicides will be seen. This is not a good. This is evil, absolutely evil, repulsive behaviour that any decent person should be ashamed of, and be willing to fight against, tooth and nail. Once again, the rethuglicans prove they are people who are pro-death, and they will go to any length to ostracize those they deem subhuman, and hope they will be driven to death, one way or another.

Full stories at Think Progress: one, two.

DC: Leading Lesbian Superhero Is Back!

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Batwoman returns as part of DC’s Rebirth event.

Kate Kane, a.k.a. lesbian superhero Batwoman, is back! Part of DC Comics’ Rebirth event, Batwoman: Rebirth quickly gets new readers up to speed. The first issue in the series is available in comics stores and at Comixology today. When Batwoman debuted in 2011, she became the first LGBT character to star in an ongoing monthly comic book from a mainstream publisher. Marguerite Bennett (DC Comics Bombshells,Batgirl,Earth 2: World’s End) will be writing the new adventures of the heroine, with art by Steve Epting.

“There has never been a heroine I have loved more than Batwoman,” Bennett says. “Her flaws, her ferocity, her struggle to rise above her own history and find a way to serve the greater good and those she loves — she’s always cut me straight to the bone. To be a queer woman and to see a queer woman as not just a part but a pillar of the Bat family was life-changing, inspiring, and gave me the courage to pursue this career in comics. The opportunity to add to Kate Kane’s story and legacy is both an honor and a sincere dream come true.”

You can see much more at The Advocate.

Global Investors Warn Transphobic Texas.

FILE PHOTO - A bathroom sign welcomes both genders at the Cacao Cinnamon coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina, United States on May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo

FILE PHOTO – A bathroom sign welcomes both genders at the Cacao Cinnamon coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina, United States on May 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Photo.

A group of global investors with $11 trillion in managed assets told Texas on Tuesday not to enact legislation restricting access to bathrooms for transgender people, saying it is discriminatory and bad for business.

The “Texas Privacy Act,” or Senate Bill 6, has been marked as a priority for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican and conservative Christian who guides the legislative agenda in the Republican-controlled state Senate. He said the measure protected the privacy and safety of Texans.

The bill on a flashpoint issue in the United States is similar to a law enacted last year in North Carolina that led to economic boycotts and the loss of major sporting events, costing the state an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

“The bathroom bill was bad for North Carolina and it will be very bad for Texas,” New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a Democrat, told a teleconference, adding it was the first time investors of this size opposed the legislation.

[…]

Springer said institutional investors including BlackRock, Alliance Bernstein, T. Rowe Price and state comptrollers and treasurers from places including New York and California sent a letter on Tuesday to Patrick and other Texas leaders calling on them to drop the legislation.

“As professional investors, we know that discrimination is simply bad for business,” Matthew Patsky, CEO of Trillium Asset Management, which signed the letter, told the teleconference.

The investors did not give specific actions they would take if the legislation were enacted.

Might be nice if they had some specific actions in mind, because I imagine they will be needed. Hateful bigots hold onto their hate like it was their last breath. A warning isn’t much good without an action to carry it through. It’s a nice thought and all, but nice thoughts don’t go all that far.

Patrick has previously said the threats of economic damage to Texas were overblown. A prominent Texas business group estimates the measure could cost the state billions of dollars.

[…]

A National Football League spokesman said this month Texas lawmakers could hurt the football-loving state’s chances to attract a future Super Bowl if they enact such a law.

Ah, hand-egg. Well, that might do the trick.

Full story here.

Sunday Facepalm.

Religious Right bootstomper Carol Swain is quite upset about that dreaded gay thing. Specifically, her life is just being ruined, ruined I say, because some people might think she and a friend might be gay, oh no! I can’t even work up a response to this. Who the fuck cares? I’d assume people who actually know her know that she’s a bigoted piece of goods, along with her being hetero or whatever. Why would she care if strangers might have a random, passing thought about her? Not that I expect that happens much.

Last week, Religious Right activist and college professor Carol Swain spoke at the Family Research Council about her latest book, “Abduction: How Liberalism Steals Our Children’s Hearts and Minds,” where she complained that she cannot even go out in public with her female friends without worrying that people might think that they are gay.

[…]

Even now, as an adult, Swain complained that when she goes out in public with her female friends, “we have to wonder, do people think we’re gay?”

“We don’t care,” she said, “but just the fact that we live in a culture where you can’t have close relationships between men and women with women without wondering whether someone is going to think there is more to it, that is not the way society is supposed to operate.”

Oh yes, you do care. You care very much. After all, you have to have something to keep the edge of your unspeakable bigotry nice and sharp. You have to find yet another way to try and get small minded people panicky, so they’ll fork over money…to you. Convenient, that. I’m happily and visibly bisexual, and I don’t care if people think I’m hetero, nor do I care if they think I’m gay. Haven’t you heard, Carol? Love, it makes the world go ’round. You should try it sometime. Go ahead, go out with a friend, and hold her hand! It feels nice, especially when you don’t care what people think.

In Ms. Swain’s book, she opines about how when she was a little girl, she never had any thoughts about whether or not she might marry her best friend, and thinks openness and acceptance are just fucking everything up. That’s not the case, Ms. Swain. You didn’t think about marrying your best friend because she was a girl, and you were hetero. Other girls had a boy for a best friend, and if they were hetero, they may well have thought about marrying their best friend. Other girls thought about marrying their best girlfriend because they were not hetero. And so on. Y’see, everyone isn’t hetero, and you don’t get to use your personal experience to extrapolate a justification for oppression, bigotry and hatred.

Via RWW.

Religious Freedom, A License to Discriminate.

Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s President’s Club Meeting in December. CREDIT: AP Photo/Cliff Owen.

Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s President’s Club Meeting in December. CREDIT: AP Photo/Cliff Owen.

It’s no secret that the constant rethug push for “religious freedom” is nothing more than ugly bigotry, and a way of oppressing already marginalized peoples. They are finally coming out and admitting as much.

The Heritage Foundation has been called “a driving force” behind the Trump White House due to its many close ties with the administration. This week, Heritage issued a new report drawing a strict line in opposition to any kind of nondiscrimination protection for LGBT people, citing “religious freedom” as such a vital right that any LGBT law would be a burden, regardless of whether it offered even the broadest of religious exemptions.

Heritage’s new report, “How to Think About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Policies and Religious Freedom,” takes the position that laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations would be “unjustified.” To arrive at this conclusion, author Ryan T. Anderson undermines the legitimacy of LGBT identities and dismisses the reality of discrimination that LGBT people experience, shrugging off the consequences of that discrimination.

Anderson’s approach is to simply redefine terms in a way that suits Heritage’s anti-LGBT agenda. Wedding vendors that have been penalized for not serving same-sex couples, for example, weren’t “discriminating” against people because of their sexual orientation, but they simply refused service “because they judged in conscience that they could not endorse certain morally relevant conduct.” This is an argument that courts have roundly rejected, because only gay and bi people would enter a same-sex marriage, so it’s de facto discrimination based on sexual orientation, but the report simply denies that it’s “discrimination” or even “mistreatment” at all.

The Heritage Report also insists that sexual orientation and gender identity are not comparable to traits like race and sex because they are “subjective identities,” and thus not “verifiable.” They can only be defined, the report claims, based on “actions,” such as same-sex weddings or gender confirmation surgeries — not identities that people experience at every moment of their lives. This is nothing short of erasure of the LGBT human experience, diminishing it only to “actions” that religious conservatives can reject as “immoral.” It is in no way an accurate representation of how LGBT people experience their identities — and certainly runs contrary to everything psychology has learned about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Crucial to the report’s thesis is to downplay the extent that LGBT people even experience discrimination. This contradicts numerous studies that have shown rates of discrimination that cannot be characterized by mere anecdotes. The recent massive U.S. Trans Survey, for example, found that nearly 1 in 5 transgender people have lost a job just for being transgender. And statistics like those do not even count the invisible discrimination that takes place; studies like résumé tests are showing that many LGBT people are discriminated against without even knowing it.

[…]

Heritage has drawn a new line in the sand by saying that its opposition to LGBT protections is uncompromising and that it is not even open to considering exemptions. It’s nothing short of an admission to what LGBT advocates have been arguing all along: that conservatives are simply using “religious freedom” as a pretext for allowing discrimination against LGBT people.

[…]

Republicans are expected to re-introduce the “First Amendment Defense Act” any day now, which will create a special license to discriminate solely for those who oppose LGBT equality. And President Trump has promised to sign it.

Think Progress has the full story.