“Lananguage.” Your language is the language of “stupid.”
(shamelessly stolen from Shakespear’s Sister.)
From Good As You:
I mean just the other day this was chatting with this Jewish friend of mine who keeps kosher, and he was all like, ” Ya know, my religious beliefs tell me that consuming pork is not in my best interest, so I think I’m gonna take that belief to the public, church/state separated realm of governance and try and get pork banned for all.” You can check here to know more about the merit of prayer and the support it provides. After grabbing a hot dog, I then trekked down to visit my Muslin chum, who told me about this new “one woman, one head cover” bill he’s hoping to have enforced on people of all faiths. After briefly imagining the career death of virtually every female celebrity under 30, I continued to my Scientologist pal’s mansion, where he told me to stop being “glib” and start helping him ban psychiatric medicine and drugs in this country. Weirded out, I finally swung by my Atheist friend’s home, where she eagerly told me about her “One nation under self-replicating molecules” changes she was proposing for this nation’s pledge of allegiance.
It was only after visiting all of these folks that I finally realized, “Hey, why let the facts that there are many different beliefs and that we, as Americans, have the right to subscribe to any or none of them stop each of us from pushing our own versions of moral fitness onto the public at large?” My world view has been changed at the hand of extremist religious conviction!
New edition to my regular online reading (for as long as I can stand it):
Fundies Say the Darndest Things
A blog that watches Christian message boards, blogs and news groups and culls the most laughable, craziest things that fundamentalists say on the internet.
What’s really scary is that these folks are ON THE INTERNET, meaning they have access to real information and education. And they still believe this crap.
I think back to my CCD and CYO classes when I was a kid, and if anyone had said some of these crazy-ass things out loud, they would have been smacked down immediately. Even though I disagreed with much of what was taught there, I don’t remember anyone being this batshit nutty, ever. Which just going to show that crazy people believe crazy things, and they use religion as an camoflage for their nuttiness, so no one can say they’re wrong.
Like this guy… who said this:
When God gave permission for some of His male creatures to go take certain female creatures as captives (for the sake of procreation), do you call this rape? Call it rape if you want … but I’m not calling it rape if it’s by the will of the Creator. For only God knows what each of us deserves.
A selection from Stacyann Chin’s speech at the Opening Ceremonies of the Gay Games (this was the part I love so much):
I don’t know why
but the term lesbian just seems so
confrontational to me
why can’t you people just say you date
other people?
Again I say nothing
tongue and courage tied with fear
I am at once livid
ashamed and paralyzed
by the neo-conservatism
breeding malicious amongst us
Gay
Lesbian
Bisexual
Transgender
Ally
Questioning
Two spirit
Non-gender conforming—every year we add a new letter
our community is happily expanding beyond the scope
of the dream stonewall sparked within us
yet everyday
I become more afraid to say black
or lesbian
or woman—everyday
under the pretense of unity I swallow something I should have said
about the epidemic of AIDS in Africa
or the violence against teenage-girls in East New York
or the mortality rate of young boys on the south-side of Chicago
even in friendly conversation
I get the bell hooks-ian urge
to kill mother-fuckers who say stupid shit to me
all day
bitter branches of things I cannot say out loud
sprout deviant from my neck
fuck you-you-fucking-racist-sexist-turd
fuck you for wanting to talk about homophobia
while you exploit the desperation of undocumented immigrants
to clean your hallways
bathe your children and cook your dinner
for less than you and I spend on our tax deductible lunch!
I want to scream
all oppression is connected you dick!
Via Good As You:
Just a month before the 2006 WorldPride Parade is scheduled to be held in Jerusalem (Aug. 6-12), protest flyers are reportedly being distributed to residents of the capital city offering a cash reward to “anyone who brings about the death of one of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
I haven’t always been a fan of our local pride celebrations, and I need to stop taking them for granted.
The anonymous letter also suggests using Molotov cocktails against marchers and adds instructions as to how to make them at home. The explosives are nicknamed “Shliesel Special”, in honor of the Haredi protester who disrupted the Jerusalem Pride Parade last year by stabbing three marchers.
Advance Indiana comments on a recently announce lawsuit from the American Family Association — suing to block same-sex couples from receiving university health care benefits on the basis of Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriages.
I’m blogging this specifically for my mom and other family members — THIS IS THE REASON THESE BANS ARE SO DANGEROUS. Because they aren’t just after preventing same-sex marriages. They’re after outlawing ANY legal relationships between gay people, including health-care benefits.
And the law that Indiana is trying to pass (SJR7) is even more broad than Michigan’s: “Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
Which means that regardless of a legal marriage, a whole host of legal rights that Stephanie and I have today because we own property together could suddenly be considered invalid, including some of our property rights if one of us dies.
Please recognize how dangerous this is, and help me fight this law. The best way that you can do this is by not putting the same bigotted Republican officials back in the state legislature. They have to vote on this law a second time (it’s already passed once) for it to be put on a state ballot.
This news article about a Jewish family being harassed “Jewish family flees Delaware school district’s aggressive Christianity” is a great example of why our first amendment is supposed to guarantee not just freedom of religion, but also freedom from it.
A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they’re suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from “state-sponsored religion.”
The behavior of the Indian River School District board suggests the families’ fears are hardly groundless.
The district spreads over a considerable portion of southern Delaware. The families’ complaint, filed in federal court in February 2005, alleges that the district had created an “environment of religious exclusion” and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.
“… because we watched a debate from the House of Representatives about the Iraq Resolution, and it did seem like – you ever been to Trafalgar Square, where they have the, uh, speaker’s corner where, like, crazy people get up on a box, and go, “Harrumph! And Roosevelt stole my couch!” You know, that kind of stuff? They seem like, like crazy people…
“People who get in involved in politics and run for office are the extremists and people on the fringe. Because regular, reasonable people have shit to do.” — Jon Stewart
This week’s Top 10 Conservative Idiots, No. 249 has a nice roundup of recent domestic terrorist incidents perpetrated by Christian Terrorists within the United States. They gathered the list to contrast with the silly drum-banging that the Bush Administration did recently about the so-called Muslim terrorist cell from Miami — the guys who had no actual weapons, plan, finances or connections and who could no more have bombed the Sears Tower than I could armed with a shovel.
But check out this big fat list of blood-thirsty, fully armed killers, all of whom have at least one thing in common — they hate the hell out of me.
2001: According to the Feminist Majority Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, Over 170 abortion clinics and doctors’ offices in 14 states and the District of Columbia received threatening letters claiming to contain anthrax. The envelopes had return addresses from the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Marshall Service with postmarks from Atlanta, GA; Knoxville, TN; Chattanooga, TN; or Columbus, OH. The envelopes were also marked, “TIME SENSITIVE: Urgent Security Notice Enclosed.” When opened by clinic staff, all letters contained a white powder with a letter stating, “You have been exposed to anthrax. We are going to kill all of you. Army of God, Virginia DARE Chapter.”
2003: A nurse has been charged with firing a shotgun at an abortion clinic in Asheville before it opened on Thursday, according to police. Brenda Kaye Phillips, 44, a registered nurse, was charged a misdemeanor count of damage to property for shooting at the Femcare Women’s Clinic. The same clinic was the target of bomb four years ago.
2003: Klan leader David Wayne Hull was arrested at his Washington County, Pennsylvania, home on February 13 for allegedly planning to blow up an abortion clinic. Federal prosecutors charged Hull, a forty-year-old Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a small Pennsylvania-based group, with receiving, manufacturing, possessing and transferring a destructive device in violation of the National Firearms Act. At a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh on February 18, prosecutors accused Hull of trying to buy hand grenades from a witness cooperating with the FBI. According to an unsealed criminal complaint, Hull told the informant he was “going to blow up abortion clinics.” Authorities say that Hull told the informant he made his car a “suicide bomb on wheels.” In July 2002, Hull attended the “Aryan Nations World Congress,” convened by the Pennsylvania faction of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations. He is also a follower of Christian Identity, a racist and anti-Semitic sect whose adherents believe that white people are God’s chosen people, descended from the lost tribes of ancient Israel, and that minorities are soulless “mud peoples.”
2004: A man who was accused of plotting to firebomb abortion clinics, churches, and gay bars was sentenced yesterday to five years in federal prison. Stephen John Jordi, 36, pleaded guilty in February to a single charge of attempted arson of an abortion clinic. Prosecutors had asked Judge James Cohn to sentence Jordi under a federal terrorism law and sought seven to 10 years. Cohn refused, saying federal sentencing rules require that plots have an international component to be considered terrorism. “This crime was strictly domestic and in no way transcended national boundaries,” Cohn said. Jordi and a government informant bought gasoline cans, flares, starter fluid, and propane tanks the day he was arrested last November after casing several South Florida abortion clinics and talking about bombing one in Macon, Ga., according to the FBI. Prosecutor John Schlesinger said he “respectfully disagreed” with the judge’s decision not to sentence Jordi as a terrorist.
2005: A 24-year-old Shreveport woman and her 18-year-old boyfriend have been charged with attempting to bomb an abortion clinic. Authorities say Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe were arrested and booked into City Jail. Hughes was charged with manufacturing and possession of a delayed incendiary device. Dunahoe was charged as an accessory. Hope Medical Group for Women wasn’t damaged when someone tossed a Molotov cocktail at it about 10:45 the night of December 12th.
2005: A suspicious fire damaged an abortion clinic, and federal agents launched an investigation, authorities said Tuesday. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined local authorities in the investigation of the blaze late Monday at the Presidential Women’s Clinic. No one was injured. Details on the extent of damage were not immediately available. It appeared that lighter fluid or some other accelerant was used to start the blaze, fire department spokesman Phil Kaplan said. A July 2004 fire damaged another Palm Beach County abortion clinic and a 2003 blaze damaged one in neighboring Broward County.
2006: Evidence teams plan to put on protective gear and seal the room as they search for any clues left behind on a contraption that investigators are calling a “weapon of mass destruction.” Technicians will be looking for fingerprints and any other evidence that may have been left on the device, which was pumping a mix of water and a caustic chemical into a sex shop when neighbors found it Sunday morning, detectives said. The evidence crew will be breathing the air inside the room, but won’t have any unprotected contact with the plastic jugs, duct tape, and hoses that make up the device. In Waldo, people have held prayer vigils and protests aimed at an adult bookstore along US 301, trying to keep the “Cafe Risque” from opening its doors on time.
2006: A man who told police he made a pipe bomb to attack an abortion clinic was arrested Thursday, shortly before the device went off in a friend’s home while authorities tried to disable it, according to court documents. … Weiler faces four federal counts including making a destructive device and possessing an illegal handgun. He was being held Thursday. Phone messages left at Weiler’s home were not returned. A car in the driveway had a frame around the front license plate that read “Choose Life” and “God is pro-Life.”
Notice that emphasized quote above — according to our federal government, a plot has to have an “international component” to be considered terrorism. WTF?!?!
Why? Any political act designed to terrorize a group of people is terrorism, including all the above incidents, all of which meet the definition far better than a bunch of disgruntled Miami dudes who basically sat around talking smack and not much else.
One of my very favorite sites is Good As You — it’s a website that keeps up with GLBT news and provides analysis and witty commentary on same. They keep track of what the religious right is saying about us and provide hilarious and logically directed commentary about why they’re wrong.
Every day I find myself thinking “yeah, what they said” to some post on Good As You — and I’m always tempted to link to them with further commentary, but I’d just end up being a shadow blog of their site, which is silly, and pointless when I can just tell you to go check them out and add them to your feed reader or regular reading list. You won’t be disappointed, and you will be vastly enlightened and entertained.
