All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment

Now that you mention it, let’s just take a look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act, shall we? Let’s take a look at the law that says no, actually, you may not discriminate or segregate on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. It does not say “sexual orientation” in that short list, nor does it say “gender.” Both should be added. But the fundamental point is clear: you don’t get to discriminate or segregate for bad reasons.

Title II is INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AGAINST DISCRIMINATION IN PLACES OF .PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION.

SEC. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, and privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. [Read more…]

God says I can tell you to get out of my store

Now Arizona is doing it.

PHOENIX — State senators voted Wednesday to let businesses refuse to serve gays based on owners’ “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

Fuck sincerely held religious beliefs. Many of them are awful; anti-human, inhumane, hate-based, discriminatory, a pretext for treating a particular set of people badly. Sincerity doesn’t make them any less so. [Read more…]

In the name of his highness

Why BenBaz Aziz was put in prison for a year.

Photo

In the name of his highness the prince of Kuwait

case no 108/2012 CID

sued by Public Prosecution

Against: Aziz ben baz

Reasons:

1- he broadcasted opinions include sarcams and insulting to islam via internet.

2- national security has reported CID that the blogger has insulted god and prophet abraham through a picture he posted.

3- he calls for atheism and insulting islam.

Sentence: 1 year + fine 250 dollars

 

Fact-checking the orcs

Vox Day is annoyed that people are annoyed that there aren’t enough female characters in video games. He has a post about it, titled Why we don’t put girls in games. That’s silly; everybody knows why. It’s because “we” don’t want to, because “we” think “girls” are very nice for a few limited purposes but other than that they’re just a pain in the ass.

Yet another clueless wonder is yapping about the absence of the unnecessary from video games: [Read more…]

A living child in the womb

Next trick in the anti-abortion playbook? Ban D&E procedures. South Dakota is working on it.

…the state has become a testing ground for messaging, ballot initiatives and trial-balloon legislation meant to provoke a Supreme Court review of the durability of the Roe v. Wade decision. Now, South Dakota may be laying new groundwork to end legal abortion at any point after the first trimester—first in the state but, also, if history repeats itself, for the country. What happens in far-off South Dakota, in other words, very likely won’t stay there.

Anything. Anything to make sure women can’t be in control of their own lives. Anything to keep women enslaved to fertilization. [Read more…]

Lamenting the rise of increasingly vocal women and minorities

Huh. It turns out that some guys in the science fiction community are still not happy that women and minorities in that same community won’t stfu.

Just when readers thought the dust had settled on last week’s debate about “political correctness” in sci-fi publishing, a group of highly influential writers spent the past few days lamenting the rise of increasingly vocal women and minorities in their community. [Read more…]

A legacy

Brilliant. An unvaccinated Berkeley student rides a BART train. It turns out he has measles! Hahaha what a riot; joke’s on him, right? Well no, it’s more that it’s on everyone who was on that train.

Phil Plait explains the background.

People who are unvaccinated have a much higher risk of contracting it than people who are vaccinated. The young man, confirmed to have a case of measles, was unvaccinated and had recently traveled to Asia, where he may have contracted the disease. [Read more…]