Read Wonkette for the details.
Category: Theocracy
Sucking at the government teat
Of course not! Somehow, it’s never government money when it goes into their pockets:
Liberty University, the evangelical private Christian school founded by dead apartheid-supporting bigot Jerry Falwell, received $445 million in federal financial aid last year. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the way, received $420 million from the federal government.
That massive sum was thanks to the growth of Liberty’s online program, which enrolled 52,000 students last year. The school is the No. 1 recipient of Pell grant money in the state of Virginia. While it may seem like the federal government is basically subsidizing this formerly financially challenged ultra-conservative religious private school, LU’s executive director of financial aid sees it differently:
For Ritz — a financial aid veteran who got his start at a small Bible college — Liberty’s use of federal financial aid does not run counter to the university’s conservative values. Liberty does not receive the federal money directly, Ritz said, but through students, who use it to pay for tuition, room and board and other expenses.
“These funds are authorized by Congress and Congress is elected by voters. . . I’ve always been in the position where I believe I’m a steward of those federal funds. I’m a steward of tax-payer money.”
The libertarian delusion
Bill Moyers. You should go read the rest:
The free market doesn’t live up to its billing because of several contradictions between what libertarians contend and the way the real world actually works. Fundamentally, the free-market model assumes away inconvenient facts. Libertarians presume no disparities of information between buyer and seller, no serious externalities, no public goods that markets can’t properly price (Joan Fitzgerald’s piece in our special report in the Winter 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine discusses one — water), and above all no disparities of power. But in today’s substantially deregulated economy, bankers have far more knowledge and power than bank customers (witness the subprime deception); corporations have far more power than employees; insurers have more power than citizens seeking health insurance. Labor markets can’t compensate for disparities of power. The health insurance “markets” created by the Affordable Care Act can’t fully address the deeper problem of misplaced resources and excessive costs in our medical system.
Doctor refuses to treat baby with two mommies
If she “prayed” on this, and this was what she came up with, well, she just didn’t pray long enough! Unless Jesus was just kidding about hanging out with the scorned and the heathens:
The Contrerasas were told to make an appointment with Roi once Bay arrived. The baby was born at home and when she was six days old – they went in.
But instead of seeing Dr. Roi, another doctor greeted them.
“The first thing Dr. Karam said was ‘I’ll be your doctor, I’ll be seeing you today because Dr. Roi decided this morning that she prayed on it and she won’t be able to care for Bay,” Jami said.
“Dr. Karam told us she didn’t even come to the office that morning because she didn’t want to see us.”
The new mothers were shocked, hurt and angry.
“It was embarrassing, it was humiliating and here we are, new parents trying to protect her,” Jami said. “And we know this happens in the world and we’re completely prepared for this to happen other places. But not at our six-day-old’s wellness appointment.”
Bay’s parents proceeded with the appointment with the other doctor then found another pediatric group for their baby.
Continue reading “Doctor refuses to treat baby with two mommies”
How Scientology started
Fascinating:
Did you know….
Same-sex marriage is exactly the same as incest?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu7Gqm3q21Q
Cat Stevens still can’t abide ‘blasphemy’
The hippie-era troubadour and Muslim convert Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, is on the comeback trail and already putting his foot in his mouth. For a recent Rolling Stone article, Stevens was asked about his declaration that “[Salman Rushdie] must be killed. The Quran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, then he must die.” He said this way back in 1989, shortly after the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against Rushdie for blaspheming the prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses.
One might assume that the 2015 version of Cat Stevens, singing and playing again in the secular world, would unambiguously disavow his old statements about Rushdie, who was forced into hiding for many years because of the fatwa. But one would be wrong. Instead, Stevens told RS:
I’m a firm believer in the law… I was never a supporter of the fatwa [against Rushdie], but people don’t want to hear that because they keep saying that I believe in the law of blasphemy. All I’m saying is, how can you deny the Third Commandment? It’s an Islamic principle that you must follow the law of the land where you reside.
Swamp Rabbit and I scratched our heads when we read this. Was Stevens saying that Rushdie shouldn’t be killed, period, or that he should only be killed in countries where Islam and the law are the same thing?
The rabbit took a swig of Wild Turkey — to help him think more clearly, I guess. He said, “Sounds to me like Yusuf ain’t honest enough to admit he talked like a jackass back in the day. He should apologize to Rushdie, or keep his yap shut.”
I almost agreed with the rabbit. Stevens should be able to say whatever he wants to say, but no way would I ride the peace train with a guy who can’t quite renouce the ultimate form of censorship. Even if I could afford the ticket.
Holy torture
Conservative Christians are invoking their God-given right to support torture. Somehow, this does not surprise me. After all, conservatives are people who like to ignore the transcendental and instead refer to the Bible as a cosmic penal code.
The Catholic Church has an unfortunate history in these matters (as do the Protestants) but I don’t think anyone should claim those episodes as templates. Or as truly Christian. But that’s just me!
The author quotes Thomas Aquinas reducing criminals to beasts. Maybe Tom was just having a bad day:
Perhaps before he had a chance to clarify his writings on the matter, St. Thomas Aquinas declared he would write no more. On 6 December 1273 he reportedly experienced a long episode of ecstasy during Mass, and later said that such things had been revealed to him that his previous writings seemed nothing in comparison.
You see? He had a transcendent experience that put his writings in a whole new light.
This has always been the problem with religions. Somebody has a transcendent experience, he or she tells their friends, who eventually try to form a group and try to codify the sublime. It’s silly. And conservatives do love their rules, so when you give them authority to use a Bible as a blunt instrument, they’re never happier. Imagine how disingenuous the author of this statement must be:
If we choose not to torture someone so we can save a life, then we are placing the dignity of the criminal over the life and dignity of the innocent person who is about to die.
You have to love that. You’re not “choosing” to torture, the circumstances force you. It’s actually the Christian thing to do! But here’s the hole in that little scenario: The times of which we speak are not episodes of “24.” Nope. There is no timer on a nuclear bomb, we do not “know” anything. We torture on the off chance we’ll get some useful information. And if the person we torture gives us gibberish (because he’s being tortured), let’s torture him some more.
For many years now, representatives of our nation (propped up by the bed-wetting night terrors of our neocon establishment) used this morally bereft argument to torture. And conservative Christians embrace it! The author argues at great length and with a deep fervor that God wouldn’t have a problem with torture. She quotes the Old Testament (conservatives love the Old Testament — none of that pesky “turn the other cheek” stuff) to illustrate that God is actually quite bloodthirsty. So there!
You know, you can argue all you want about torture (incidentally, we did sign the Geneva Conventions, promising not to use it), but don’t go fucking blessing yourself over it. Just don’t.
Everyone knows the Devil can quote Scripture for his purposes — and in this case, does.
Assholes of the week
Talking about standing up against the tide! This idiots are just trying to delay the inevitable:
Gay rights activists were ecstatic: Come Jan. 6, they thought, Florida same-sex couples would be lining up at courthouses around the state to get married.
But that is not what the people who issue marriage licenses in Florida — county clerks of court — say.
They are trying to determine whether a Tallahassee law firm is right when it says that every Florida clerk, except the one in Washington County, would be committing a crime if he or she issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The firm of Greenberg Traurig, legal counsel to the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers, this week updated a memo it sent July 1 that says the same thing: If you issue a marriage license to two people of the same sex, you’ve committed a first-degree misdemeanor and could spend a year in the county jail.
WTF is the matter with Texas?
Yes, Donnie, it’s EXACTLY the same, you shameless fuck:
Pastor and Christian activists Donnie Swaggart said during a broadcast of the Houston, Texas talk show Frances and Friends that LGBT activists are like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in that they want to destroy Christianity and behead its practitioners. According to Right Wing Watch, Swaggart — the son of disgraced 1980s televangelist Jimmy Swaggart — made the statements in response to local efforts to enforce the city of Houston’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
“All of this is to shut the Bible up,” Swaggart said. “They want the Bible gone. And I’m going to make a statement: These people that are trying to do this in Houston, the only difference between them and ISIS, those thugs in Iraq, is those here cannot chop our heads off. That’s the only difference. The heart is the same. The heart is the same. If they could silence us that way to intimidate others, that’s exactly what they would do.”