Ladies, don't abort your gay fetus!
They just get crazier everyday, don’t they?
Maine State Rep. Brian Duprey has introduced legislation that would prohibit a woman from obtaining an abortion if the fetus is gay.
I am so not making this shit up. Rep. Duprey claims that his bill looks into the future to a time where science can A.) map a gay gene, B.) test for said gene at some point before the end of the second trimester and C.) bar these hypothetical women from obtaining an abortion if the gene is present. Why do I feel like I am living in a Philip K. Dick novel?
I really don’t know what to say about this, so I am going to close with Rep. Duprey’s own damning words:
"I have heard from women who told me that if they found out that they were carrying a child with the gay gene, then they would abort. I think this is wrong," said Duprey, who got the idea while listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Enough said.
Isn’t a persecution complex a marvelous thing?
Only in America can a religion that has virtually taken over the government and society claim persecution. This week, it is the
Liberty Legal Institute crying foul over the decision by the Supremes to hear a oral arguments on whether a
Christian monument in front of the Texas state Capitol violates the First Amendment.
Supporters of keeping the monument on the Capitol grounds say the traditions of Western law are rooted in the Ten Commandments. America can't scrub the role of religion from its history, said Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Legal Institute, which defends religious freedoms and First Amendment rights and filed briefs in support of keeping the monument.
"What they're really advocating on the other side is a religious cleansing from our history," Shackelford said. "It should be treated with respect as our part of history, not some new form of pornography that has to be banned from our public arena."
Funny, that’s not the history I learned. I remember learning about Puritans escaping religious persecution—you know, fleeing the Church of England because it didn’t tolerate their particular brand of Protestantism. I also remember hearing something about the Founders being Deists, meaning that while they believed in the existence of God, they were pretty sure he stopped giving a shit about us lowly earthlings sometime around noon on the seventh day.
But I am sick and fucking tired of Christians accusing me and mine of ignoring our religious past. Yes, I understand that we are nation built upon Christian ideals, but inherent in that is the belief that those ideals and beliefs should not be forced upon anyone. Am I offended by displays of the Ten Commandments? I must admit, I don’t go into shock when I see them, nor do I feel that my personal beliefs are being trampled by the mere visage of a nativity scene at Christmas. What offends me is the conviction that a Christian is somehow more American than I am, and that the First Amendment exists solely to persecute and marginalize religious expression. We can wax poetic about religious freedom in a post-Saddam Iraq, but we have yet to fully embrace those ideals in our own country.
Am I pleased to note, however, that the Liberty Legal Institute hasn’t let me down: They are pulling a
Newdow on Thomas Van Orden, the plaintiff in this case.
He generally refuses to discuss his background or why his law license was suspended several times for issues ranging from taking money for work he didn't perform to failure to pay fines. He is around 60 years old but won't give his age.
He told The Washington Post that depression cost him his practice and his family. In 1995, the State Bar ordered that a psychiatrist or psychologist certify whether he was mentally capable of practicing law. Although his license remains suspended, Van Orden still has the taste and sharp mind for practicing law.
Yep, he’s old, broke and crazy. Fortunately for us, that doesn’t make him wrong.
Check out
Amanda’s take on the Liberty Legal Institute.
I am in a very fortunate place in that I am neither a parent nor easily offended, so maybe that is why I am constantly fascinated by FCC complaints. I keep imagining mormon families watching
a particular episode of "Angel," and sitting there aghast, horrified at...vampires!! Oh dear! I thought the show was all about cherubs and seraphim. Even funnier is the shit they choose to complain about:
One scene involved Angel in an intimate moment with a female character in which Angel's hips are seen "moving back and forth," the Parents Television Council said in its complaint.
In the scene depicting the female vampire biting the neck of her partner, also a vampire, both characters had clothes on and "their breathing is heavy," the complaint said.
His hips are seen "moving back and forth"? What fucking year is it, people? Reminds of me Elvis Presley being shown only from the head of femur and up. And what astounds me most is the amount of time it takes to file a complaint with the FCC....time that would be better spent getting off your fat mormon ass and changing the fucking channel.
idaho? you da ho!
Idaho State Representative Ann Rydalch wants abortion providers to show women pictures of their fetuses before performing abortions. Well, I for one think this is a great idea. After all, we all know that women are nothing more than glorified children who are incapable of making decisions for themselves, and need good people like Ann Rydalch to look out for their best interests. I wonder, though, what will happen if a woman refuses to look at the pictures? Are we going to force her eyes open, demand that she look at the fundie porn and recognize the errors of her ways?
Personally, I think Rep. Rydalch should expand the scope of this legislation. Women should have to look at pictures of pretty babies before buying tampons, so they can see what they are giving up every time they don't rut during ovulation. But why stop there? We should be forced to look at doctored pictures of our tonsils before having them removed. Or look at pretty cancer cells before radiation therapy. Maybe even look at pictures of Pam Anderson before having a mastectomy. It's only fair--why stop at abortion, when there are so many other areas of women's health to take over?
like virginia woolf once said...
...everyone needs a room of one's own. That said, I'm going to be double-posting on this blog and Jen's from now on. Here is what I said over there:
Kansas is taking up the charge on violating doctor patient confidentiality and women’s privacy rights, apparently hoping to succeed where John Ashcroft failed. The Kansas attorney general is requesting the medical records of 90 women who had late-term abortions.
Playing the “won’t somebody please think of the children!” card, Attorney General Phill Kline is claiming that he needs these private medical records to determine if any of the abortion seekers were young women under the age of sixteen and he has a "duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children." Of course, that doesn’t explain this:
The clinics said Kline demanded their complete, unedited medical records for women and girls who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies in 2003. Court papers did not identify the clinics.
The records sought include the patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.
Whoa, whoa, whoa…details of her sex life? A psychological profile? I thought the point was to find statutory rapists? If so, why are adult women’s records being sought, and why are we asking for the details of a teenager’s sex life. In Kansas, anyone under the age of sixteen
cannot consent to sex, so why do we need to know if she was on the pill, or if she initiated sex? Isn’t this just another means by the anti-choicers to demean and humiliate women who take control of their own reproduction and health?
It’s a new twist on the Kobe defense—if we can’t get these uppity women to consent to an invasion of their bodies and lives, then we’ll just have to do the patriarchal two-step: call them harlots and whores, and let society punish them for us.
sometimes one blog just ain't enough
As Jen mentioned yesterday, she and I are joining forces to create a blog of epic proportions, guaranteed to be fascinating, scintillating, and thought provoking, or at the very least, one that will not bore you to tears. We’ll be discussing politics, religion, and starting May 22nd, we’ll give you full summaries of the final season of Queer as Folk. It’s going to be fabulous!
So, a little history (which I am stealing from a post on my long-since abandoned diary): Jen and I met initially at debate camp in 1994 (don't laugh), but I honestly didn't think much of the cute little bubbly blonde. A few years later, I saw Jen at a friend's party, now with red hair and a Sloan t-shirt. What followed was the world's greatest platonic love story.
I like to take credit for Jen's current domestic bliss. Years ago, she called me, distraught, because one of her good friends, Ian, admitted to being in love with her. I told her to go for it. Now they are happily married, and celebrated their first anniversary last September. Now, did I will this marriage into being? Of course not! But that doesn't mean that I'm going to let someone else take the credit!
These days, Jen and I are more likely to discuss a mutual dislike of a girl named Precious than to take road trips for rock shows, and she still doesn’t agree with me that The Scissor Sisters will save rock and roll, but it is exactly that kind of discord that will make our blog a major success.
So, raise a glass of champagne (perhaps some Cristalino) and toast our joint venture!
anti-choice in arizona
I’ve often said that for fundies, life begins at conception and ends at birth. That is the only way to rationalize their zealous attempts to protect fetal life at all costs, while supporting policies that send kids off to die in illegal wars, or cut welfare and Medicaid for the poorest members of society (usually single mothers). So, while I wish I could summon up the proper degree of outrage, frankly, I’m not surprised that Arizona is re-writing its fetal homicide law to cover a “fetus at any stage of development.”
I’m so torn on the issue of fetal homicide laws. On the one hand, I think that anyone that knowingly attacks or kills a woman with the intention of killing her fetus should be charged with murder. Particularly when leading cause of death for pregnant women is murder. On the other hand, I’m wary of attempts to categorize the fetus as a person with the same rights as an extant woman. There has to be a way to balance both of those interests, and amazingly, the current law in Arizona (the one they want to scrap for this new legislation) does just that.
Currently, the statute permits an assailant to be charged with manslaughter for killing a fetus.
But those charges can only be brought if the injuries to the mother were severe enough to be life threatening to her. So a minor injury to the mother would not be enough to trigger charges of manslaughter, even if the fetus died.
The law also requires proof that the attacker "knowingly or recklessly" caused the death of the fetus.
emphasis mine
This law recognizes that the primary concern should always be the woman, and threats to her bodily integrity should always be taken into consideration prior to that of her fetus. But this new legislation takes things way too far. According to Arizona Sen. Bill Brotherton:
"The penalties involved here for injury to a fertilized egg and injury to the mother, who already obviously has been born and is living, are either the same or greater,'' he said.
"I don't know if that's a fair situation,'' Brotherton continued. "I don't know if I see these types of death being the same."
emphasis mine
The law permits penalties for the death of a fertilized egg, people! A fertilized egg! Now, I know the fundies are all about life beginning at conception, but we are talking about a point when
the woman is not even pregnant! The National Institutes of Health
defines pregnancy as the implantation of a fertilized egg into a woman’s uterus. The Arizona legislature is attempting to impart personhood onto a clump of cells that are barely a week old. In the United States, there is a
50% spontaneous abortion rate before the first missed menstrual period—those are pregnancies that are miscarried
before the woman even realizes that she is pregnant. Under the proposed Arizona legislation, an assailant would be liable for the murder of a fetus that a woman probably didn’t even know she was carrying.
And the worst part about all of this? Arizona Senator Dean Martin (I’m
so not making that up!) is appropriating pro-choice rhetoric to support a law that can only be used to usurp a woman’s right to chose:
And Sen. Dean Martin, R-Phoenix, said the bill is pro-choice. "If we're going to go on to the right to choose, then a woman should have the right to choose life as much as anything else," he said.
She
did choose life, you schmuck, she didn’t terminate her pregnancy! But there is nothing in the current Arizona statute that claims that a woman who chooses to remain pregnant has no rights. Read the law again: a person that knowingly attacks a pregnant woman and causes the death of her fetus is guilty of manslaughter—that affirms a woman’s right to choose to continue a pregnancy, while still recognizing her rights to her own body.
For more on this, check out
Feministing
wherefore art thou, alan guttmacher?
I work with this guy who drives a complete piece of shit car. It breaks down at least once a week, spews foul smelling black smoke into the air, and actually caught fire the other day. Of course, this guy just keeps throwing money into it, seemingly with the hope that this will be the $200 that finally makes this death trap on wheels a viable mode of transportation.
Now, I'm in no position to criticize him--it's his money to waste however he sees fit, right? Then I read shit like this:
While slashing funding for local schools, food stamps and health care for veterans, President Bush’s FY 2006 budget would increase spending on abstinence-only-unless-married education programs by $39 million, bringing the total request for these programs to $206 million in federal funds.
See now, that's
my money being wasted on a program that could only be considered successful if its stated purpose was to increase the number of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infection rates among teenagers.
And the result isn't throwing money at someone's jalopy, and hoping against all hope that the fucking thing runs. This is spending money on a program that can only put kids lives in danger. When the only discussion of contraception in a sex ed class revolves around failure rates, you give kids the impression that they might as well forego any protection, since it's bound to fail anyway. Every credible study has shown consistently that abstinence only education does nothing to delay the onset of sexual activity--but students who receive comprehensive sex ed programs report greater usage of birth control and condoms. Is it any wonder why the states that preach abstinence until marriage have the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country? Compare that to places like Belgium or the Netherlands, where free contraception and comprehensive sex ed are the norm--as are lower teen pregnancy and abortion rates.
My co-worker called in to work today--his car won't start again, and he needs to get it to a mechanic. I wonder if some people will ever learn.
meet the new boss...
...same as the old boss. Or something like that.
Anyway, nothing like re-directing people to a different blog on your first post, but I'm doing a trial run guest blogging stint at Jen's blog, so check out my thoughts there. I promise to do something here really, really soon.
But then again, I'm both a serial procrastinator and prevaricator.
