Oct. 7th, 2015

kengr: (antenna girl)
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/alabama-supreme-court-justice-tom-parker-state-courts-must-defy-supreme-courts-gay-marriage-
After making the case that the Obergefell decision does not even apply to Alabama, Parker absurdly asserted that the Supreme Court had no grounds upon which to issue the decision in the first place because gays are not being denied equal treatment under the law since everyone is free to marry someone of the opposite sex.

Gee, one of the big arguments made in Loving v Virginia was that blacks weren't being discriminated against because everyone had the right to marry someone of the same race.

That's what's so amazing about these people.

If you check the records, you'll see pretty much the same arguments that were used against blacks have been used against gays. And not just about marriage.

Back when they were integrating the military you got the same arguments that were used against letting gays be in the military. I mean *word for word*. Just swap a few phrase from being about race to being about homosexuality.

Ditto for more general civil rights for blacks. I don't think anybody said being black was a sin (except maybe for the Mormons before that revelation that changed their doctrine about admitting blacks) But there were a lot of people who said it was God's will to keep the races separate.

In my not-so-humble opinion, this is symptomatic of a xenophobic mindset and/or a certain sort of narrow mindedness.

It'd never fly, but just imagine the time we'd save in the courts if we listed those sort of arguments in "fill in the blank" form and passed a law (probably need to be a constitutional amendment) saying that such argument were not legally admissible.

Or at the very least, that they required *strong* proof in their favor.

Of course, these sorts of people would complain that they were being discriminated against.

To which my reply is "it is not, nor should it be, illegal to discriminate against stupidity, ignorant prejudices and the like"
kengr: (antenna girl)
The Pope's comments about public officials having the right to be conscientious objectors on religious grounds has been used to defend Kim Davis and others (though not by him).

People seem to forget something. Conscientious objectors to military service have a choice of going to jail, or being put in a job that doesn't have them doing the things they object to.

It does *not* get the rules of the military or their job changed to suit them.

Kim Davis claims that status, but doesn't think she should go to jail, and she wants the duties of her job changed.

Sorry, those aren't the choices.

The ones she *actually* has, under the law are:

1. let her office issue licenses that use the same *unaltered* form as the rest of Kentucky, with her name in the blanks where it belongs.
2. step down from her office, she can go back to just being one of the deputy clerks (with the cut in pay and authority) and she can then not issue licenses as long as she doesn't stop the *other* clerks from issuing them.
3. quit
4. go to jail (again) for contempt of court.

My stance on religious freedom is that you have an absolute right to practice your faith. Right up to the point where you are trying to make *others* behave the way your faith dictates. At that point you are violating *their* religious freedom.

I can only hope that some day the Supreme Court can declare something similar rather than dancing around the issue. Hobby Lobby was a bad decision.

BTW, they are in trouble again...

Trans woman wins decision against Hobby Lobby

They haven't complied with the decision yet, either.
kengr: (antenna girl)
An item on the local news the other night caught my attention. Seems we had 145 shootings in Portland this year.

And most weren't gang related or while committing a crime (other than the shooting itself being a crime). And almost all were by young men in their teens and twenties.

What was the reason? According to the expert they interviewed it's because these young men have no skills in conflict resolution. They get upset with someone, and if they have a weapon, that's their idea of a solution.

This fits *so* well with a lot of stuff. Because if you think about it, guys that don't have guns will resort to some other weapon. To their fists if that's all they have.
Read more... )

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