UPDATE. Hey, America's libertarian flagship says the law's not so bad, liberals are just trying to "signal" to their liberal buddies by opposing it -- you know, like with the hanky code. Who would have guessed they'd take that approach?
UPDATE 2. Speaking of signaling, here's neo-neocon:
I’ll also add that I wonder if the forces driving the anti-Indiana campaign would be interested in making an exemption for devout Muslims who run businesses and don’t want to be forced to be part of gay marriage ceremonies. Somehow I think they might.'cuz you liberals luvvv gays but you luvvv Muslims more I bet. The brethren seem to think this is some sort of team sport that you win by projecting as hard as you can.
UPDATE 3: Ross Douthat is Just.. Asking... Questions!
4.) In the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of sexuality in our society’s elite level institutions? Was Mozilla correct in its handling of the Brendan Eich case? Is California correct to forbid its judges from participating in the Boy Scouts? What are the implications for other institutions? To return to the academic example: Should Princeton find a way to strip Robert George of his tenure over his public stances and activities? Would a public university be justified in denying tenure to a Orthodox Jewish religious studies professor who had stated support for Orthodox Judaism’s views on marriage?...What if a Muslim didn't like gay people, would you not like the Muslim -- oops, I see neo-neocon had already covered that; okay then,
6) Should churches that decline to bless same-sex unions have their tax-exempt status withdrawn? Note that I’m not asking if it would be politically or constitutionally possible: If it were possible, should it be done?Also, what if Superman fought Batman on a red-sun planet? Who would win? Who would win in a fight between Bon Jovi and a blade of grass? Just asking questions, here. Finally, what if we could make everyone get gay-married because you love gay people so much? You wouldn't like it? AHA HYPOCRITE! Off to the club to celebrate a great rhetorical victory with the rest of the fuzz-chinned pipe-suckers.
UPDATE 4. Dana Houle points out that some of the wingnuttier wingnuts used to consider Mike Pence a statist trimmer. This suggests that he hopes the new law will shore up his base. It sure has worked on Rod Dreher, who wails that opposition to the law means we're in "post-Christian America" and pledges allegiance to the GOP:
Because religious liberty is the most important political issue to me, it is hard to imagine sitting out the 2016 presidential election, as I have done the past two times because I couldn’t stomach the Republican nominee. It is impossible to imagine voting Democratic in 2016, because the Democrats are actively committed to legislating contempt for traditional Christians like me...
Voting Republican is no guarantee that religious liberty would be strengthened in SCOTUS rulings in the future, but there is some hope that a GOP president would nominate justices sympathetic to religious liberty concerns. With President Hillary Clinton, or any conceivable Democrat, there is no hope at all.I always knew he'd come back to the fold.
UPDATE 5. Pence has spoken -- Washington Times:
The situation has been upgraded to Hilarious.
UPDATE 6. Yeah, it appears "You and your fag friends are the Real Oppressors" is today's Shorter Entire Right-Wing Universe. Among others, Ben Domenesch portrays homosexuals as crafty demons who acted all needy and cuddly and then suddenly ass-raped Uncle Sam:
The notable thing about Culture War 4.0 is its consistent rejection of tolerance in favor of government enforced morality. Remember your Muad’Dib: “When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”...
It was all well and good when tolerance was about conservatives and religious types swallowing their objections and going along with things – but now that the left is being asked to do the same thing? Forget about it.So, I guess gay people are in charge now! At least our het concentration camps will be tastefully designed.
UPDATE 7. Come on, dude, you're making this too easy:
Actually, I think Down Our Throats would make a good title for the off our backs of the anti-gay movement, when it inevitably emerges.
Libertarianism so often takes positions based on almost, but not quite, getting it.
ReplyDeleteThen going tremendously off the rails
The free market rejects bigotry. File that under stopped clock being right twice a day, eh.
ReplyDeleteRelated, Pence is an example of how to become a conservative hero and presidential candidate. Even before this fiasco, he'd been a catastrophe as governor of Indiana, fighting to impoverish counties and blue collar workers, which includes just about everybody. Although this next step of trying to impoverish businesses with his religious discrimination law to bolster his presidential delusions is not playing well here, it should help him nationally.
Some top-rated comments from the article:
ReplyDeleteTim Cook should really just bugger off—it's practising one's faith and opposing the homosexual agenda that takes true courage these days!
---
You're projecting again, trash. It is the homosexual activists who feel self-righteous in denying others their rights.
Pay no attention to the bigots behind the curtain.
It is the homosexual activists who feel self-righteous in denying others their rights.Well, to be fair, all those blue states passing constitutional amendments making opposite-sex marriage illegal was a bit of an overreaction.
ReplyDeleteit's practising one's faith and opposing the homosexual agenda that takes true courage these days!Add "courage" to "patriotism" on the list of things Merriam-Webster got wrong.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mollie Hemingway will speak up for the First Church of Cannabis, which just filed papers with Indiana's Secretary of State.
ReplyDeleteThis dishonest bigotry reminds me of nothing else so much as the gas from the racists in the 90's. Feeling a bit cornered and trying to restore their reputation in history, they spoke of segregation not of being about keeping black people down, but as a tool to prevent miscegenation.
ReplyDeleteIt is always a bit amazing how well this petty chicanery works, though. Everyone knows what the Indiana bill is about, but by avoiding the g-word, they get this one lame debate strategy to roll with. The strategy is about as good as "no take backs," but it can work if the establishment wants it to work.
It's just like Nordliner's fainting over the presumption that Rush Limbaugh is a misogynist, or that Jonathan Gruber was the only one in the entire country who accurately defined the ACA. They cherish the denial of simple and obvious reality for whatever reason. They don't like to be called bigots, or women-hating panty-sniffers or helplessly cynical lying assholes (although they have zero problems sending invective the other way), but only the rubes actually have the conviction of their beliefs and defend the indefensible on actual terms. They are still stupid hillbillies whose God is a fearful, hateful dink, but they at least walk the walk. Shills like Hemingway and Nordlingers are pissy little cowards, throwing shade at decency (on their own terms), but then hiding in it when their obviously awful motives get called out. These assholes deserve everything they'll get, including the Götterdämmerung of a Hillary presidency (I'm safely on the anti-anti-Hillary take, without having any real enthusiasm for the probable candidate), which will be a carnival of rendered hairshirts, screaming stupidity and rank misogyny.
ReplyDeleteAs MDS and others have noted the comments on that Hemingway piece kind of give the game away. Its absolutely bewildering to read people who say the quiet part REALLY LOUD while at the same time insisting that you are crazy for listenign to them in the first place. Do, please, explain to me how a Federal RFRA law that pertains to Federal/Government action vis a vis religious minorities is identical to the one passed by Indiana? Do, please, explain to me which practices the new law was designed to debar? Oh, what's that you say? Its designed to make homosexuals "butt hurt" and destroy their "gay agenda?" It protects the "private property" rights of business owners who wish to "refuse service" to "anyone they want." But it is not aimed at homosexuals and is nothing new? Has nothing to do with laws on public accommodations or interstate commerce or anything else?
ReplyDeleteThey write like they received a traumatic brain injury between the first part of their own posts and the second part--or they think you did.
segregation . . . as a tool to prevent miscegenation
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing that argument back when I was in high school and the public schools were being integrated. Even as a teenager, I thought "So, the worst thing about integration is that people will like each other?"
In a funny kind of way I think she will feel relieved. The public story is that the law is evenhanded and not meant as a kind of bill of attainder passed to please one, small, bigoted, fringe movement. So anytime they can point to someone non evangelical using it they will be thrilled.
ReplyDeleteThe law was just another attempt at narrowcasting and they are disconcerted to find out that people who are not their desired target audience noticed it. So anything that blurs the lines between what they really meant to accomplish (suck up to the evangelicals) and what they actually accomplished (possibly make cannabis legal) is something they will publicly embrace.
Even worse: they will have beautiful babies together!
ReplyDeleteRepeatedly reading these sorts of pieces probably do cause brain injury. If not directly, then after with the whiskey and the hitting yourself with a hammer to try to make it stop.
ReplyDeleteWell of course, and it will be useless pointing out that his policies drove the local economy into the ground and created lots of bad feelings. What's important in conserv-a-land is principles, not results.
ReplyDeleteWell, Indiana, why don't you just put in the clause that the guy in Georgia did before their vote on this measure (and Molly, push for that, why don't you). Funny how after the non-discrimination clause was put in, the measure failed.
ReplyDeleteI would love for Jesus to come back for just one day. "We passed a bunch of laws to exclude gays, just like you wanted, Jesus!" I would love to see them see the look on his face.
ReplyDeleteI'd be sad when they crucified him all over again, though.
Omigod did they learn about projection? I looooove it when wingnuts play with words they don't understand!
ReplyDeleteThey cherish the denial of simple and obvious reality for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteThis. The Powell Memorandum's idiot love children, primarily in the form of Fox News, have created a consenus reality of pure bred peckerwood nonsense for these folks. They are beyond reason at this point, and that is frightening as hell to me: these jokers don't want to roll back the New Deal, they want to roll back the damn Enlightment itself. The Dark Ages, when the rich priests told folks how could lump it and love it for Jebus, is their idea of the promised land.
I'd said it before and I'll say it again: Modern conservatives are objectively anti-Civilization.
You are so right. I can feel the abyss gazing right back even as we speak.
ReplyDeletePence and his true believer pals were probably COUNTING on the Martin Niemoller effect... they must have believed that straights, at least in Indiana, who were not affected by the bill, would not put themselves out to oppose it. Imagine their shock...
ReplyDeleteThe true believers will just point to the backlash as evidence of the exact kind of persecution this law was meant to prevent.
ReplyDeleteNever mind the commenters: Mike Pence had to shuck and jive so hard on This Week yesterday that it was practically a pasty white remake of Disco Godfather. George Steveson kept asking him flat out about the stereotypical baker wanting to slam to door on the filthy homos, and Pence did nothing but spray bullshit. Yet even while lying nonstop, he couldn't bring himself to say, "Oh, of course it doesn't do that, George." Not even in the Land of Make-Believe.
ReplyDeleteOT: My secret revelatory e-mail missive disappeared into the ether, so while I have you here, I was wondering about your previous reference to still being "stuck" in Greater Boston. I'm currently expending a lot** of effort on potential scientician computering jobs in the Boston area, which seems to have a non-zero number of them available. Should I be focusing my attention elsewhere?
**Well, okay, due to my psychological pathologies, it's more "a lot of agonizing about not putting enough effort in, along with playing too much Dragon Age." But still.
"Come, let me take you to your reward.."
ReplyDelete"Oh boy, Heaven! I made it! I made it!....say Jesus, isn't it getting a bit warm down here..."
Sometimes an anther is just an anther
ReplyDeleteDaithy, Daithy, give me your anther, do...
A stigma, however, is never just a stigma.
Oh, why didn't I listen to you? I've literally wasted over an hour arguing with those morons over at the Hemmingway piece. I've lost brain cells I'll never get back.
ReplyDeleteit's hard out here for a simp.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is better not to get out of the boat.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Civil War, Session 37: The Libertarianizing.
ReplyDeleteGone? No, it's not even past.
Their stigma is being use to beat their dogma.
ReplyDelete"You can't make me take your money!!! I'M FREE!!11!"
ReplyDeleteMeet 10 Americans--None Of Whom Live In Indiana--"Helped" by Religious Freedom Bills Like Indiana's
ReplyDeleteFixed
They just filled papers? Are they going to ignite them?
ReplyDeleteOh, wait...
I propose we all offer Mollie the peyote. That's what the RFRA was supposed to have been about, after all; it Castaneda over all of religious practice.
ReplyDelete(Okay, that really was awful.)
"true courage"
ReplyDeleteUh-huh. Leave it to Wingnutistan to ascribe "courage" to trolling and "practicing one's faith" to bigotry. But then, what do you expect, from the people who, when practicing hatred, call it "patriotism"?
Praise the Lawd & pass the Douthat!
ReplyDeleteThey want to behave terribly and they want to be praised for it. There they are standing at the rails of the Titanic, shouting at the people in lifeboats "No, Your boat is sinking!"
ReplyDeleteA kith is jutht a kith,
ReplyDeleteA thigh is jutht a thigh...
That's why the population of Galt's Gultch stays about 3, no matter how many move there. Three free people, the three that haven't starved to death...yet.
ReplyDeleteYou know this law, and others like it, is a result of the Hobby-Lobby ruling, which has got to be revoked, and soon.
ReplyDeleteGalt's Gulch is going to look like Sawney Bean's cave about 48 hours after the pizza place stops delivering.
ReplyDeleteSawney Bean
ReplyDeleteThanks ever so much for that lovely knowledge dive!
One True Scotsman, indeed.
Frankly, if he hadn't already gone to the great blog in the sky, I think this would have given him a rage heart attack.
ReplyDeleteI thought one of our principles was that we were against the state stepping in to take over the parents' job, e.g. the nanny state SHUT UP GROMET YOU KNOW THAT OUR PRINCIPLES ARE PURE AND CANNOT BE QUESTIONED.
ReplyDeleteThe important thing is that America is angering God and has been ever since liberals started the War on Christmas by electing that socialist Eisenhower.
I like that you're rational and genuinely trying to make them see the facts, and they're emotionally over-the -top and rebut with sheer idiocy. Then they claim you're emotional and over-the-top and they are in command of the facts.
ReplyDeleteNice at bats, Aimai. Especially for a road match.
HA-HA-HA! Now THAT'S entertainment!
ReplyDeleteJoe Pernice wants to take a lover and move back to Somerville, show her around the neighborhood, re-case the place and settle down, so it has that going for it
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHK_N7Gjjtc
Castaneda love! And only the bigots try to wriggle free!
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for one (or more) of the more frenzied talibangelicals to start demanding that birth control no longer be sold in the state because allowing it is a direct assault on their religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteSadly, 10 years ago, I would have written that as snark. Today, with GOP legislators talking about writing laws to compel Sunday church attendance--and halfwits like Sen. Rand Paul echoing such notions before national audiences--well, I'm not so sure I won't finish my days on this Earth before America turns into the Christian version of Afghanistan.
I think you're some kinda gay communist!"
ReplyDeleteAs The Housemartins wrote, "Take Jesus, Take Marx, Take Hope"
Now, if you had used castanets, that really would have clicked.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly won't fauna over the flora.
ReplyDeleteI upvoted you over there so you got that going for you.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet
ReplyDeleteIf called by a panther
don't anther.
despite RFRAs being around since 1993, no one can provide any evidence to substantiate the outlandish claims made against them.
ReplyDeleteNo, really?!! I'm SHOCKED no one says the peyote or kirpan case is anti gay discrimination!
Apple CEO Tim Cook has come out against RFRAs in the Washington Post.
No, he hasn't, he's come out against DISCRIMINATORY so-called religious freedom bills. Jesus, it's the FUCKING HEADLINE of the link, nimrod.
Anyhoo, the question I always want those claiming religious freedom means hatin' on the gays to answer is, what teaching of Jesus are you being restricted from following by having to treat all customers the same in a business? "Judge not lest ye be judged?" "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?" Or maybe Paul's "Love is not irritable and does not count up wrongdoing?"
I had to turn off my email so I didn't know if they were responding any longer. It is that bad. Its like being a gambler, sure that the next time you put in a nickle you will hit the three cherries. Only in this casino when you win they hit you over the head with shrieks of rage and flying spittle. So pretty much not a good idea all around.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough they are outraged, for the purposes of their comments, that Apple does business in China but they are not similarly outraged that Hobby Lobby does. How does that work? Tim Cook is a hypocrite because he's not all that pro-gay? And Hobby Lobby is not hypocritical/lying about their motives in banning birth control for their workers because they embrace China's abhorrent practices for the sake of cheaper plastic flowers?
ReplyDeleteIn the ideal Free Market world, the bigoted business-owners would be able to sue boycotters for lost revenue. But that will obviously never happen because of Liebrul Judicial Activists.
ReplyDeleteI think you are spot on. And thats why no one who opposes it should move forward and try to take advantage of this giant loopholes in this law out of spite, because it will just provide a fig leaf for the legislators and proponents. We should should leave it be and patiently wait for the wingnuts who can't help themselves to begin denying service to gays so it becomes clear without a doubt what this law was intended to do.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, welcome our new medieval overlords!
ReplyDeleteBut all those Jesus sayings only apply to people who feel sorry about their sins. The homosexuals aren't sorry -- they brazenly shove their agenda down our throat! We good Christians, otoh, are more like, "We wish we didn't have to resort to passing a law to get our way... alas... poor America..." And it's this picturing of ourselves as reluctant that makes everything we do A-Okay. It also helps to be persecuted for your beliefs -- like if your voice your opinion and almost everyone in the world calls you "bigot" and "moron"? You're just like Jesus now!
ReplyDelete"Think of yourself as meek, and whatsoever you doeth shall be right in the eyes of THE LORD; call yourself the REAL victim, and you shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven" -- pretty sure that's in the Bible, tigrusmus. Almost a direct quote.
The longer term consequence of Red State governance these days is that all the more intelligent young people have to leave to get good educations and good jobs. Obvious social and economic spiral-down results.
ReplyDelete"I, for one, welcome our new old medieval overlords!" FTFY
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure this is a lyric from the Firefly theme song.
ReplyDeleteYou must have known the mangoes were a lie.
ReplyDeleteUh, I'll pass.
ReplyDeleteAnd the only people who'll do what work remains will be undocumented, leading to even more nativist hysteria.
ReplyDeleteIt's self-perpetuating!
"What'th an anther? And why do you athk?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps you're right, but I can't help but enjoy the idea of a bunch of fundagelicals squirming as their Rastafarian brethren set up shop in their midst.
ReplyDeleteObvious social and economic spiral-down results.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention genetic.
Dinnertime in Galt's Gulch:
ReplyDeleteOof, I just poked around over there, upvoted you, and posted a couple times. The Tim Cook stuff is super weird. I made a comment pointing out that Apple's decision to do business in China does not restrict the rights of American citizens, which is what we're talking about. I then asked a direct question. SteveAR ignored the question and replied, "Try again." I suspect there's not going to be a good end to discussion with this guy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm cuttinghim off. He's really just an incredibly mean and hysterical person. It was fun poking him for a while but now its like trying to keep a really smelly wild animal as a pet.
ReplyDeleteI thought the very same thing the moment I heard it.
ReplyDeleteI'm playing by his rules. He demanded I state accurately what the law says -- so I did, and linked to USA Today (above reproach!).
ReplyDeleteHis two previous replies to me, wherein he just said "Stop lying, try again," landed within 5 minutes of my previous comments. This time we're going on 30+ minutes waiting for his reply. I will be surprised if, when it arrives, it is not more refusal to address what I've actually said, even though I've played by his rules.
Still, hope springs eternal. (I tend to be a bit of a Charlie Brown in internet discussions, entering into long negotiations with Lucy about where the football is going to be.)
Well, federal RFRA was originally intended to cover the states, until the Supreme Court held that was overstepping some bounds. Most of the state RFRAs are modeled more or less exactly on the federal law, which actually did have noble intentions, in that it was a response to a Supreme Court opinion (written by Scalia) that lowered the level of scrutiny that state or federal laws had to meet in order to comply with the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The idea was to protect religious minorities, such as the Native American plaintiff in Employment Division v. Smith, who'd been denied unemployment benefits by the state of Oregon because he'd ingested peyote as part of a religious rite.
ReplyDeleteIt's only been recently that the religious right has seized on RFRA and the state RFRAs as a way for Christianist nuts to deny service to gay couples and transfolk (and sluts, as in the case of Hobby Lobby). Part of the push has been to define "person" to include businesses of various sorts, though the Supreme Court didn't feel the need to leave this issue to Congress. This is especially true in those places, like Indiana, where there is no legal protection for LGBT people. In fact, due to that lack of protection, businesses could discriminate all the livelong day and there's not much to be done about it, meaning this law was wholly unnecessary.
I happen to teach legal research and writing, and we're wrapping up our yearlong simulation which uses Arizona's Free Exercise of Religion Act (our facts involve a for-profit corporation that offers nondenominational spiritual counseling and their use of FERA as a defense against claims of negligent hiring and supervision brought against the company by a young woman who was ripped off by one of their counselors under cover of spiritual counseling). So I've become fairly familiar with these laws and how they work, and while I loathe the Hobby Lobby decision (for many reasons, including the fact that it allows business owners to benefit from the corporate form in terms of no personal liability but still treat the corporation as a personal extension of themselves), I've not yet seen a single lower court use it to deny anyone else legal protections. Most courts that have had to consider the issue in conjunction with the ACA have done so in suits brought by religious nonprofits such as colleges, and have pointed out that while there was a less restrictive means available of providing health care available to Hobby Lobby, that less restrictive means was what's available to those institutions. Which, essentially, means shut the fuck up and file the form already.
Good for you. I had a long quote from a Fox news analyst (got it from Atrios's site) which basically gave the facts and pointed out how different the Indiana RFRA act is from the earlier ones but I decided to go cold turkey on the thread before I posted it.
ReplyDeleteThe main difference is that other states' laws (other, than, I think, Texas), don't explicitly extend protection to for-profit businesses offering services to the public.
ReplyDeleteNot for lack of trying, though -- Arkansas is trying to amend theirs to add that, though they got shot down by Wal-Mart. Arizona got shot down by the NFL.
You did yeoman work over there, but going up against blind, unreasoning hate is hard.
ReplyDeletesegregation . . . as a tool to prevent miscegenation
ReplyDeletewell the segregation boner is connected to the miscegenation boner. It's easy to connect those wet boners
Ugh. He wrote back. He seems very caught up in a fantasy that there is a sort of black cloud of gays descending from space onto America intent on ruining Christianity. He says gays have already turned Christians into second-class citizens in other states. It's weird. It's like he doesn't know any gay people. But if that's the case, how does he imagine they are so everywhere? I honestly just don't understand what personal experience is informing his impression of the world.
ReplyDeleteHere's a good explanation of how this law is its own little horror show and in fact isn't the same as all the other RFRAs: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/what-makes-indianas-religious-freedom-law-different/388997/
ReplyDeleteSmall change got rained on by his own .38.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Zog will get paid by each of his fellow troglodytes for using a stick to roast their reptiles. If they don't, that's an affront to capitalism and they're all worthless moochers, right?
ReplyDeleteYou can swallow a camera so doctors can look in your ladyparts. I know because an elected representative said so.
ReplyDeleteRoll with it, baby!
ReplyDeleteBut if that's the case, how does he imagine they are so everywhere?
ReplyDelete""We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
- Karl Rove. FAUX Nooze. Hate radio.
~
It's like he doesn't know any gay people. But if that's the case, how does he imagine they are so everywhere?
ReplyDeleteThe same way that most conservatives I know are convinced that we're being overrun with Mexicans even though they've never seen any Mexicans: It's on the (Fox) news! Everyone's talking about the gays, so we're OBVIOUSLY being overrun by them.
I think you should explain to they guy that the only documented protection proven to prevent teh ghey from taking over your mind and body involves wearing two wetsuits, a dildo, and an auto-asphyxia setup with ropes and pulleys.
Relevant:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/KNM5g2ARGyY
He says gays have already turned Christians into second-class citizens in other states.
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE knows that, therefore no evidence required. Still, any class at all would be an improvement.
SteveAR is a professional troll of many years without an ounce of self-awareness who bounced from liberal blog to liberal blog yapping like a terrier. He is literally - and I mean this literally - impervious to facts. He will ignore facts, ignore reason, and simple restate his argument over and over telling you that you're an idiot and that he's beaten you.
ReplyDeleteI believe he probably meets some clinical definition of insanity.
I’ll also add that I wonder if the forces driving the anti-Indiana campaign would be interested in making an exemption for devout Muslims who run businesses and don’t want to be forced to be part of gay marriage ceremonies. Somehow I think they might.
ReplyDeleteneo-neocon derails her own anti-anti-RIFRA argument in order to remind everyone that Muslims suck. What happened to her? My guess is that she had a stroke on 9/11 and has been reduced to tics and Tourette-like shouting ever since.
so prefers a cloud of ink and denial
ReplyDeletePlease, leave the poor octopi out of this.
In the ideal Free Market world, the bigoted business-owners would be able to sue boycotters for lost revenue.
ReplyDeleteHoly fuck, that just might be what ALEC is intending to order off the menu next.
If the Indiana bill were identical to the one already enshrined in federal law they wouldn't be bothering with it, now would they?
ReplyDeletebigoted business-owners would be able to sue boycotters
ReplyDeleteActually attempted during the Montgomery bus system boycott. Unsuccessfully, so it's no wonder they want to try it again.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/indiana-governor-insists-new-law-has-nothing-to-do,38330/
ReplyDeleteI can't believe they're still pulling out the "who do you love more, liberals??? queers or mosulmen???" card.
ReplyDeleteor saying that you hate garage punk bands.Well, I do. Yet here I am, with not merely the Constitutional right, but the Constitutional obligation, to operate a skateboard shop. Because otherwise, I'd be the victim of religious persecution. It's quite the pickle.
ReplyDeleteHa. When I was in high school my boner didn't make a connection with anyone. Shows what those fundies know.
ReplyDeleteSteveAROh, Jeebus, that deranged fuckwit hasn't autoerotic asphyxiated himself yet? Cut your losses while you can. He's the schmibertarian Serdar Argic, if Serdar Argic were lobotomized with a corkscrew.
ReplyDeletea sort of black cloud of gays descending from space onto America intent on ruining Christianity.Oh, if only.
ReplyDeleteI approve this message!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMie4Ov2uT0
and an auto-asphyxia setup with ropes and pulleys.As the Black Hive Cloud of Space Gays is my witness, I swear I hadn't yet read this bit when I made my own SteveAR observation. It just naturally springs to mind for some reason.
ReplyDeleteMaps are socialism!
ReplyDeleteHe will ignore facts, ignore reason, and simple restate his argument
ReplyDeleteover and over telling you that you're an idiot and that he's beaten you.Yeah, when you put it that way, he's sorta the conservative version of Lawyers, Guns, and Money's joe from Lowell, only lacking the intelligence and charm.
well the segregation boner is connected to the miscegenation boner.
ReplyDeleteNow hear the word of the Lord!
The Indiana National Guard?
ReplyDeleteOh, they want more than just winning. They want the spoils that go with it. By which I mean they want to spoil it for everyone else. Spoil what? "All of it, Katie"...
ReplyDeleteThe Home of the Klan™ wouldn't have it any other way...
ReplyDeleteProperly worded, this would be a corollary of CP's 5 Minute Rule...
ReplyDeleteHeh. "ZOG"...
ReplyDeleteRahm is trying to poach Hoosier bidnesses already.
ReplyDeleteYou are also a bit of a Gunga Din...
ReplyDeleteBut if that's the case, how does he imagine they are so everywhere?
ReplyDeleteSame way Reds were imagined to be under every bed during the Cold War...
Jesus, what big horns you have...
ReplyDeleteShe'll just reject your ethnomethodology...
ReplyDelete"Poots forth", I think is the phrase you're looking for...
ReplyDeleteWhich they preach never endingly
ReplyDeleteThe Thurmond boner connected to the maid boner...
ReplyDeleteWell said, but I think I'd make an exception for, e.g., the First Church Of Buggery and their mission restaurant which will gladly serve anyone who first accepts their sacrament.
ReplyDeleteI'm arguing with the same guy myself.
ReplyDeleteApparently SteveAR doesn't like to give answers to direct questions.
Apparently the Doughy Pantload has jumped full Cheeto on the "Gay? Who said anything about gay?" bullshitwagon. I say "apparently" because I didn't read past the headline, "Where do literacy test laws mention Negroes?"
ReplyDeleteExcept for complete control of the nation's political system, executive boardrooms, universities, and wealth, what do white male Christians even have any more?
ReplyDeleteE.G. Rick Perry
ReplyDeleteNever trust a man with two first initials.
The truest tyranny is when the State stops me from reneging on an offer to trade whenever I dislike the skin colour of the other person in the contract.
ReplyDeleteI think you mean its raining men?
ReplyDeleteI'm unbeatable at checkers because I knock the board over every time!
ReplyDeleteBut I'll bet it wanted to.
ReplyDeleteIn conservative circles, sophistry passes for deep thinking.
ReplyDelete(Hm. I've actually eaten at post-integrationist Bessinger's. Their food was meh.)
ReplyDeleteMeet 10 Americans--None Of Whom Live In Indiana--"Helped" by Religious Freedom Bills Not Like Indiana's Except in My Fevered Imaginings
ReplyDeleteAlso too.
If, as Mr. Epps says in the article, the Indiana RFRA depends on for profit businesses having the right to free exercise of religion, then that is yet another way that the libertarian concept of corporations as individuals is being used to assist the religious right in its ends. Much like the "Hobby Lobby" decision. Perhaps you're already all over this, but I'm just starting to see the connections, the ways these two particular right wing factions work together.
ReplyDeleteThey cherish the denial of simple and obvious reality
ReplyDeletePerhaps, on some level, they recognize that their job is to lie, confuse, & propagandize. In this case, the "denial of simple and obvious reality" might be like a mini-victory, or a muscle-flexing exercise.
The homosexuals aren't sorry -- they brazenly shove their agenda down our throat!
ReplyDeleteObligatory.
Hallelujah!
ReplyDeleteToo bad it's Rahm doing it. It would be just revenge for GOP governors doing the same when Pat Quinn raised the state income tax. (It was especially hilarious when Chris Christie rolled into town talking about what a low-tax paradise New Jersey was, before someone pointed out the actual numbers.) Of course, Bruce Rauner thinks he can let the tax raise expire and somehow balance the books; he's already raiding other state agency budgets, including such frippery as the state task force that helps local law enforcement find stolen cars, which has been staggeringly successful. Lock your car doors, fellow Lincolnlanders!
ReplyDeleteHey, America's libertarian flagship says the law's not so badYou could have knocked me over with a feather made of Rearden Metal.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, they approve of this on straightforward right-libertarian grounds: private businesses should have the right to choose whom to provide service to, and market forces will punish them appropriately. Unless the market forces come in the form of organized boycotts; those are evil, because reasons. Regardless, at the end of the day, the important thing is that libertarian principles are upheld by a government erecting arbitrary religiously-motivated barriers to equal participation in the marketplace, including eliminating the ability to seek redress via tort law. Because these people are goddamned psychopathic dumbshits.
(In their defense, much of the reason that modern libertarianism bears little resemblance to the legitimate school of thought of previous generations is thanks to Murray Rothbard. And Rothbard despised the filthy Negroes, feminists, and lesbians, along with the laws that guaranteed them equal rights. So some of them are indeed being consistent with the "principles" of one of their morally and intellectually bankrupt leading lights. The rest haven't been able to find any picturebook versions of Rothbard's work yet.)
for normal people there is Arlington and Somerville.
ReplyDeleteAlso too, Brighton.
Thats true but I don't find much fun about Brighton--I mean, I know people who live there but they work at the Med school. Is there much night life there? Or much street life. Ditto for parts of Alston. Parts are densely packed and filled with young students, but parts are kind of sparsley settled/low rise with little to do.
ReplyDeletebravo, sir - that was an awesome comment.
ReplyDeleteHo Lee Fuk but the projection just never stops. Dreher says "the Democrats are actively committed to legislating contempt for traditional Christians like me..." Yes, it is the goddamned Democrats who are legislating contempt here what with their unified opposition to legislation that legalizes contempt for gays. I haven't had enough coffee for this shit. I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
ReplyDeleteIn the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of sexuality in our society’s elite level institutions? asks Douthat.
ReplyDeleteHere's your answer, Doody: They have the same place they've always had. All anybody is asking of them is to mind their own business. Really. That's the totality of the liberal/gay/post-modern oppression--stay out of other people's business.
However, if your "freedom" depends on being able to tell other people who they should sleep with, and how they should sleep with them, then you really should consider moving to a society that has and enforces a traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of sexuality. There's lots of available places in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen. Go East, young man!
He seems very caught up in a fantasy that there is
ReplyDeletea sort of black cloud of gays descending from space onto America intent
on ruining Christianity.
Killer Kweenz from Outer Space!!!
"They cherish the denial of simple and obvious reality for whatever reason." I suspect the reason was grasped by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
ReplyDeleteOh, the questions that plague Ross Douthat.
ReplyDeleteIn the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional Marxist-Leninist view of the economy in our nation's elite level institutions?
In the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional Ptolmaic view of the universe in our society’s elite level institutions?
In the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional phrenological views of moral physiology in our nation's elite level institutions?
In the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional blood-letting and leach applying view of medicine in our nation's elite level institutions?
I don't know anything about Rothbard except what you just posted, but this makes sense -- if you create a system where anyone can exclude anyone, you will end up with a prison yard society PDQ. The white supremacists over here, the black nationalists over there, everyone sticking to their gang and everyone having to join a gang to survive. If these idiots got their magic system, you really would go from our current semicoherent, continent-spanning, everyone-usually-gets-along-on-the-surface capitalist republic to a Holy Roman feudal chaos where human skulls are accepted in some city-states as scrip, ebola is a daily worry, and the CEO of Nike is building a wall with machine gun towers around Los Angeles to keep the Mexicans in. It would take about two generations, maybe three, unless China put a stop to it with a nice quick invasion. Thanks, libertarians, your ideas about the post office were great.
ReplyDeleteOkay, this was fun, gonna go write the ebook series about it. See you in a month, get your $2.99 ready.
Ross Douthat is Just.. Asking... Questions!All righty, then.In the longer term, is there a place for anyone associated with the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of sexuality in our society’s elite level institutions?The traditonal Judeo-Christian-Islamic ("Islamic"? Ohohoho, what a clever puffy bag of pig shit you are, Ross) view of sexuality is to treat women as chattel, so I'm gonna optimistically go with No.
ReplyDeleteWas Mozilla correct in its handling of the Brendan Eich case?Yes.
Is California correct to forbid its judges from participating in the Boy Scouts?Yes.
What are the implications for other institutions?That they should be leery of openly racist, sexist, homophobic asswipes waving around bullshit justifications they claim their Sky Fairy gave them.
Should Princeton find a way to strip Robert George of his tenure over his public stances and activities?No. Nor should they be able to strip a gay professor of his tenure over his being gay, and be immune from lawsuit over it, the way the Indiana law would permit.
Would a public university be justified in denying tenure to a Orthodox Jewish religious studies professor who had stated support for Orthodox Judaism’s views on marriage?Modern Orthodox? No. Traditional Orthodox, with the aforementioned women-as-chattel viewpoint? It would probably depend on how many female public bus passengers he had assaulted, or whether he had joined in attacking women bicyclists in Williamsburg.
So, what's my score, Ross? With 13 or more points, I hear I get the coveted "Chunky Reese Witherspoon" badge.
YNNN SASQ
ReplyDeleteThe white supremacists over here, the black nationalists over thereYeah, interestingly, Rothbard went there: He obviously loathed MLK Jr., but initially had a lot of praise for Malcolm X. Until he apparently realized that encouraging the success of well-armed black nationalists might end up causing a problem or two for the innately superior white capitalists.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the forces driving the anti-Indiana campaign would be
ReplyDeleteinterested in making an exemption for devout Muslims who run businesses
and don’t want to be forced to be part of gay marriage ceremonies.No.
Somehow I think they might.Well, you think wrong. It must be a weekday ending in -y.
Would a public university be justified in denying tenure to a Orthodox
ReplyDeleteJewish religious studies professor who had stated support for Orthodox
Judaism’s views on marriage?
Does he refuse to teach female students who have paid for his class? Because I think that would be more like what they're claiming the right to do, and yes, I would say denying tenure would be absolutely justifiable.
That was the part that got me. What fucking freedom are Democrats denying Rod? Nothing, except for his ability to openly discriminate if he runs a business and doesn't want to serve a Sikh who he mistook for a Muslim. These people are really and deeply fucking stupid. I don't know what else to say at this point.
ReplyDeleteRoss Douthat everybody:
ReplyDelete...the only remaining question in the same-sex marriage “debate” was what kind of space, if any, an ascendant cultural liberalism would leave to Americans with traditional views on what constitutes a marriage
Well, Ross old buddy, lets spell it out in short words so even you can understand it. The kind of space we will leave you is one that's well away from the levers of power. Eliminationism is wrong. Its wrong when knuckle draggers like yourself make up reasons why your religion-of-the-week should exclude people that make you uncomfortable, and it's wrong for everyone else to say that your retrograde opinions mean you should be expelled from decent society and forced to scratch a meager existence on the fringe of civilization.
Let me expand on that. Back in the day, before Jim Crow laws existed, there was casual discrimination, the day to day oppression for blacks (and other identifiable minorities) that meant that entire fractions of the population wouldn't be able to eat at a restaurant, stay in a hotel or buy a house. The invisible hand of the marketplace in which so many conservatives trust so much did exactly fuck all to remedy that situation, and indeed punished those businesses open minded enough to let black people come in the front door as customers.
Which is why there were things like the red book that let black American motorists know where they were allowed to drive, buy gas, eat and get a hotel room. And that's the kind of crap that a modern country doesn't put up with. Opening a business is not a private act, it is a public one. And in return for roads, and plumbing, power, communications, free public education, and the protection of our police, fire department and armed services, we collectively, as a democratic nation ask that if you open a business and expect to benefit from all of those services, that you willingly serve any customer that comes through the front door with the ability to pay, without discrimination.
So, congratulations, you don't have to live in a gravel pit, you can keep living right there in the middle of a mess of people who will treat you like a good citizen. Nobody is going to cross to the other side of the street when they see you coming or force your kids to learn science in a parochial school. You get to ride the bus to the future just like everyone else, but we're not going to let you and your fellow bigots steer us back to the bad old days.
The situation has been upgraded to Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI thought that happened on Sunday, when Steffie momentarily attempted to commit journalism, and made Pence do the Clown Dance.
It as been, ahem, a few years, but I lived near Cleveland Circle and Beacon St was fun and you could always hop on the T to head somewhere else. The Longwood medical area was easy to get to from there too.
ReplyDeleteI would have forgiven Stephanopoulos aureus a great deal of his prior softballing and sophistry if he had only shouted "Dance, monkey! Dance!" at Pence.
ReplyDelete.....Questions!
ReplyDeleteWas that hotel owner right to refuse to let Michelle Bachmann's husband check in because he *looked gay*?
How long before some "Christian" business refuses to serve an Arab (looking) family?
Or vicey versey? That one I wanna see. Arab gas station owner spots a car with that little chrome fish, and shuts off the pump. He'd be wrong to do that, but still...
And when they do, it's my cue to skidoo!
ReplyDelete"Who would win in a fight between Bon Jovi and a blade of grass?"
ReplyDeleteIf it's more than just one blade, I'm guessing it would be Bon Jovi.
I hope faaaabulous is next.
ReplyDeleteThe space left for those with traditional views on marriage is the space that allows them to have traditional marriages. No one is forcing you to get gay married. You just can't refuse services that you normally offer because you happen to not like something about the person.
ReplyDeleteTheir real and deep stupidity is borne by ignorant hatred and fear, so that makes it especially fun fun fun on the FundyBahn.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't worry about being at a loss for words...sometimes the only reaction to awesomeness is to gape and blink repeatedly.
I think I'd join the First Church of Buggery, but what are the dues like?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Rothbard and other libertarians would admit this but Black people actually did try to leave the South after Slavery ended. Mysteriously--and I know of no reason this worked at all--local white authorities forced them to stay and work for (ahem) slave wages. And then...uh...then...uh... the government stepped in and forced white people to socialize with black people, and integrate their schools, and serve them at lunch counters when black people should totally have just moved away and honored liberty by not intruding where they werent' wanted.
ReplyDeleteIts only Tuesday. I'd recommend you start with a double dose and then keep on sniffing until Friday. That should clear things up.
ReplyDeleteHow are all these things even in the same list--they aren't the same at all. Some have to do with Free Association, some have to do with the Government (judges) being evenhanded with respect to the kinds of people who may come before them in a legal case, some hae to do with tenure, others with something else. I mean--christ on a crutch but are analogies and basic reasoning totally foreign to Rod?
ReplyDeleteThat was brought up on the thread under the Hemingway piece and the commenters literally began shouting "what does that have to do with anything?" And then when it was pointed out to them that the newspaper image (500,000 membership in the Indiana Klan) might offer some clue to how racism might play into the new law they began gnawing at their own limbs and saying "that was a long time ago. Nothing to see here."
ReplyDeleteRemember your Muad’Dib:Oh, for fuck's sake. I have bookshelves full of science fiction, and I am ashamed for this babbling manchild in his Spider Man pajamas.
ReplyDelete“When I am weaker than you, I ask you for
freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger
than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my
principles.”Okay, I'll admit this sums up modern conservatism pretty well, Ben. I mean, you guys are the ones who have spent the entire twenty-first century so far passing multiple bills and constitutional amendments denying freedom to the filthy homosexual deviants. All while appealing to liberal fair play when things aren't going your way.
Anyway, congratulations are in order, Ben. You actually attributed the quote to Paul Atreides rather than passing it off as your own work, which is real progress for you.
Obligatory.
ReplyDeleteWhat's More Dangerous: Religious Freedom or Anti-Discrimination Laws Shoved Down Your Throat?That's easy. I think it's more dangerous when "religious freedom" is shoved down my throat, because that's more reminiscent of Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban.** Anti-discrimination laws are usually much more palatable in practice. (Wait, that's not the comparison you meant, Mikey? Rewrite and resubmit.)
ReplyDelete**Rather than falsely attributing support for Muslim homophobia to liberals, these shitnozzles need to own it, Putin-licking style. "Say what you will about Ahmadinejad, but he has the right idea about the fags."
So, pistil whipped?
ReplyDelete"a good title for the off our backs of the anti-gay movement,"
ReplyDeleteI believe that in this case it will be off our barebacks
Well, you -seem- trustworthy and, Ghu knows, I've followed worse advice from the Internet.
ReplyDelete"Those vicious hypocritical LIEberals! All the time talking about "tolerance", but when its their turn to tolerate hatred they're all, like, huh? Uh-uh!"
ReplyDeleteBastards!
" I mean--christ on a crutch but are analogies and basic reasoning totally foreign to Rod?"
ReplyDeleteThese are all Ross, but the answer is yes for both of them. :)
BTW, read those Federalist comments...boy howdy, I hope you're feeling ok today.
"But now we're being asked to swallow?" Oh, come on!
ReplyDeleteAgain with the "government forced morality." The whole point is that the morality, or otherwise, of citizens has no place in government treatment or in the business world. The government is stepping out of deciding who is good enough for service/food/education/housing. That's the whole point. If you have the money for the offered service: you get it. No morality involved.
ReplyDeleteDoes it not occur to these guys that in the new gay majority world its not gays demanding flowers for weddings that these christianist morons should worry about--its gays refusing to rent apartments or hotel rooms to christian families, or refusing to decorate their god damned mcmansions or do their streaky perms. Rod Dreher would be begging for a new law protecting christians from being discriminated against if he had the sense god gave a newt.
Shaken, but not stirred.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have to oppose an entirely fictional menace to your way of life, what better way than by appeal to an entirely fictional messiah?
ReplyDeleteMua'dib was based on some grunked up version of Islam, wasn't he, (albeit crossed with Jesus) so isn' tthis just another way of blaming cynicism on the Muslims?
ReplyDeleteWhen you open a business, you're not signing up to have some customer's chrome fish beliefs shoved down your throat!
ReplyDeleteAnything to do with reproduction- gay rights or women's rights, sex ed for teenagers- sends them right around the bed I mean bend.
ReplyDeleteArgh, you're right! Quoting Muad'Dib is Ben's sly/embarrassing way of conflating the gay menace with the terrorist caliphate menace. See -- all things that oppose Christianity are just different heads of the same monster that rises from the sea in Revelations!
ReplyDeleteWell anyway their whole argument against "government forced morality" has always been an argument in favor of government forced morality. (Just, you know, the kind they erroneously think Jefferson and Franklin and Washington and Thomas Paine all lived by.)
ReplyDeleteThe right of one (1) person who sells a service/products [with the assistance & support of the Federal, State, County and City said business is located in] to refuse service to person (2) because, well, just because they want to is PARAMOUNT. Why? Religion! Yep. Religion trumps everything.
ReplyDeleteWhat's More Dangerous: Religious Freedom or Anti-Discrimination Laws Shoved Down Your Throat?
ReplyDeleteIn one scenario you give bigots the power to make lives difficult for unprotected minorities and give the minorities no legal recourse, in the other you require everyone be treated equally. Huh, that is a tough call.
Head/rising? What is it with you people? Its always sex, sex, sex.
ReplyDeleteNot a good idea to live in a Gultch; they're high risk of flash-floods. "But ... I harnessed the power of static electricityyyyyyyyyyy..... glub! glub!"
ReplyDelete...the traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of sexuality Hey, why stop with Jedeo etc. values, why not go even further back to Sumerian Times?
ReplyDeleteBryan Fischer tweets: "Indiana will soon find it is impossible to satisfy the homosexual lobby. They will immediately be back for more. And more."
ReplyDeleteBut will there be throat-shoving?
It's gotta be a gag.
ReplyDeleteRemember your Muad’Dib
ReplyDeleteFuck you.
Da noive.
ReplyDeleteWell, we've learned that at least some conservatives swallow.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. I've lived in the Castro for a long time, and those people come back for more more than anyone you've ever known.
ReplyDeleteEvery victory is an upset!
ReplyDeleteWho can forget the good old days when conservatives treated gays like just another part of daily life and never made any sort of fuss one way or the other?
ReplyDeleteWhy aren't they shoving it down our throats in the dead of night, as we've come to expect?
ReplyDeleteMike Pence caves, seeks clarification to religious-objections law
ReplyDeleteDidn't the Dems try to clarify it with a "religious freedon doesn't let you discriminate" amendment before the final vote? That's the only clarification anyone wants, and it was voted down. This is just gonna get sillier and sillier.
You know, I'm getting really tired of this obsession with "freedom" --- unless those knee-jerk morons don't think we should have any laws of any kind, nobody in a society is really "free." SO WHAT??? The childishness is mind-boggling.
ReplyDelete