A Christmas Eve Epiphany

Church sign (December, 2007.) photo by thers/Whiskey Fire. Click for Large photo.

The "C" Word

Only one word has ever been forbidden on Group News Blog.

Not the "N" word, although we strongly discourage it. But the "C" word.

You won't find it it our postings, and it's not allowed in our comments.

Over at Whiskey Fire I was reading the many comments about this photo. One person genuinely thought the "C" word was Chanukah... how sweet.

Then I read the following (which contains the "C" word itself [nsfw]):

Whiskey Fire Comments (Jemand von Niemand)

Every time I hear someone use the word, "cunt", it carries the same force for me that I hear behind the N-word. It's meant to devalue, even dehumanize, the recipient -- because every real man knows a cunt is only good for one thing.

There's so much violence washing around just beneath the surface with the wingnuts in these days; it's a lot of bad juju looking for a way out of the bottle.

And there's so much encouragement of violence, bigotry and intolerance by way of example from our sociopathic, twisted 'leaders' in the public sphere.

It's a big step from using the violence of language (the C-word, or the N-word -- or, as was popular in Nazi Germany, the J-word --) to actual violence... but it's just a step.

How appropriate that on Christmas Eve day, I should have an Epiphany.

He's right.

Everything that exists, exists in language. What we speak, we bring forth.

I've used the "N" word rarely in GNB Comments, usually while writing quick little "joke" responses, trying to punch up the humor, make it more colloquial.

That stops now.

It isn't that I am unwilling to use either word in a serious script if as the screenwriter I say the piece demands it.

Group News Blog isn't that place.

Or at least, I can't imagine now, any work short of serious writing of the highest order in which either of those words might ever be appropriate.

Reading the above quote was almost like taking a body blow. How violent both words are. They are intended to hurt actual people, to mess them up, to keep them in their damn place, to make them less than the real humans (the white males.)

All this is why here at Group News Blog where we are in love with diversity of all kinds -- races, genders, sexual orientations & practices, religious beliefs, physical conditions, plus stuff we don't even know what to name it yet -- you will no longer hear either word again, ever.

At least not from me.

Happy Christmas Eve to all of you. "God bless us every one!"

There's more...

It's All About Listening

The Victorian Web

Through the Looking Glass

The Victorian Web

A-dressing the White Queen

Sir John Tenniel

Wood-engraving by Dalziel

Illustration for the fifth chapter of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1865)

(Alice): "Am I addressing the White Queen?"

(Queen): "Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing"..." It isn't my notion of the thing, at all."

[The verbal humour here results from the confusion of the pun "a-dressing" and "addressing".]

At Orcinus our beloved Sara Robinson has up a post you must go read now.

Go. Shoo.

She's right.

Take them at their word. They absolutely are who they say they are.

Sara was a fundy. I spent many years working with LGATs. Large Group Awareness Training.

LGATs have a justly deserved reputation for mixing pop psychology with new age nonsense, for taking people who aren't as strong as they might be and finding their weak points (while claiming publicly to only want strong healthy people), and especially for pressuring people to take their courses.

"The pressure, the pressure, oh God, they made me take the course" is the constant refrain.

I'll let you in a secret... it's absolutely true.

People are pressured into taking LGAT courses. In most of these organizations, volunteers are trained relentlessly (and really well) at finding people's weak points and converting them into sales. Yes, duh, it really is all about the money. Disguised of course, in enlightened jargon about becoming more effective, building confidence, and increasing self-esteem in an interconnected world in which one makes better choices through taking advantage of opportunities of which they were previously unaware. And so on, and so on, and so on.

That isn't to say some courses from some LGATs don't have positive effects, at least for a while. Others are a fast ride into danger. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

What all of them have in common however in my view, is a carefully hidden intent to get you hooked, deeply, on needing their jargon-filled language and their courses to stay on the high you get there and (so you are intended to think) only there. None of them teach you to think for yourself, give you library citations, or show you where they learned how to do what they do with you. You always have to run home to Daddy -- ca-ching! The cash register rings -- when you want a fix of that sweet, sweet feeling so good.

Eventually you learn you can get that special feeling by selling others. So you learn to sell the program.

You learn to listen carefully to precisely what people say. Whatever it is they say when they say "NO -- I don't want to sign up because..." is precisely the thing you then turn around and use to put them in the program.

It goes like this...

"NO -- I don't have enough money." "People get better jobs out of our programs all the time."

"NO -- I don't have enough time." "People become more organized, more able to get more done. Just by signing this paper you're committing yourself to become more organized."

"NO -- I don't trust you guys." "And I don't blame you. To sign this registration form you'd have to trust someone for the first time in a long time, wouldn't you? Signing up for this course requires you to trust. The course actually starts with your registration..."

Whatever someones says, you listen. Accept it as the truth about them. And then use that to be THE issue which they must work with in order to register into the program.

Never argue with their premise. Accept that premise, and let them know this program will fix it... and they're in. It's that simple.

Sara is saying the same thing. She says (in her brilliant article) the Fundies are telling us who they are with every word they say.

1. Listen.
2. Believe what they say; it is true for them, even if they don't know it. They reveal themselves to us every time they speak or write.
3. Act based on their premise. Close the sale (whatever the sale may be.)

Got it? Welcome to The Looking Glass.

There's more...

Good Girl Syndrome: Why Jamie Lynn Spears is Knocked Up

Jamie Lynn Spears photo jamie-lynn-spears.net Click either photo for LARGE version.

Jamie Lynn Spears Pregnant at Sixteen

Jamie Lynn Spears, sixteen, star of the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101, has announced she is twelve weeks pregnant with the child of her boyfriend, student Casey Aldridge, nineteen.

Jamie's pregnancy should not impact production of Zoey 101 which already completed production of its fourth season.

Sister Britney tonight denied Wednesday night her baby sister is pregnant. TMZ has the video.

I can't count as a paramedic how many teenage moms I've had in the back of my rig. Or how often I've referred someone to Planned Parenthood for birth control. In fact, I referred a teenager there last week.

What isn't surprising to me is this child getting pregnant. Her home life is well known to not be of especially high quality. Born in McComb, Mississippi, just on the borderline of Louisiana, she was raised Baptist. Her sister is an addict. Her family life has been white trash with money. None of this is the recipe for being taught to use birth control religiously.

If she weren't the sister of a train-wreck of a major star (once renowned for her claimed virginity) or staring in her own television show, this would mean precisely nothing. It isn't as if teens don't get knocked up daily.

Don't think however it will force any Wing Nuts to deal honestly with pregnancy or birth control. As Sara has pointed out repeatedly at Orcinus -- read her Cracks in the Wall and Tunnels and Bridges series, and search for her articles on Mark Foley -- the fundies are quick to forgive their leaders human failings, knowing as they do that we are all born sinners.

The Wing Nut mothers will sigh a sigh over poor Jamie, make their daughters promise not to have sex. The daughters will all, "Of course Mommie. I'd never." And then on Friday nights with their boyfriends it'll be "Oh, Lance. That feels so... good."

The red states have a vastly higher teen pregnancy rate than the blue. It isn't an accident. Thanks to their fundy parents, the red states are filled with good girls.

The problem with being a good girl is, you can't use birth control. To have birth control is to admit you were prepared for sex, and to admit you were prepared for sex is to say what a little slut you are. That's worlds apart from being swept off your feet and onto your back, carried away in the moment by how good it feels, than to cold-bloodedly, like, you know, do it.

'Cause only sluts do it.

Good girls sometimes get carried away and make love. That can happen to anyone; who can help being overcome by loooove and passion. But just doing it?

Slut.

Jamie Lynn was raised a Baptist. She's a good girl.

Knocked up. But a good girl.

Thank God.

There's more...

Mike Hukabee: “What Really Matters”

The Bill of Rights. photo The National Archives. Transcript. Click for High Resolution.

Reverend Hukabee Says “Fuck You” To Half the Country

Jewish?

Fuck you.

Mormon?

Fuck you.

Muslim?

Fuck you ya terrorist prick.

Catholic?

Fuck you you Papist lacky.

Hindu or Buddhist?

Who the fuck cares about you you Asian dog eater? You're why we have quotas to keep your kids out of Berkeley. And Standford. (Nothing we can do about MIT, fucking liberal Massachusetts, but at least we own California now with Arnie.)

Atheist or Agnostic?

Burn in hell. Twice.

Wicca?

Any agressive woman is a woman who doesn't know her place, and a woman who doesn't know her place is a WITCH. We BURN witches. Don't ever forget it, you evil nasty whore.

Lesbian?

Hate the sin, love the sinner. We have an outreach program for young lesbians that I'm personally responsible for. Is she your partner? With the red hair? Ya-huh. Sure, just come by this evening and I'd be glad to meet with both of you. Here, let me give you my number...

Mexican?

Be glad we let you work in our lettuce fields. Forty years ago, we'd have strung you up with the spear-chuckers, you fucking wetback. Anyway, you're all Catholics with ten damn kids apiece. You know, ya might consider drowning some of them like extra kittens, amigo. Or try some goddamn birth control like the rest of us, you little fucking brown heathens.

Black?

Oh, they're so cute. Especially the children before they grow up to be dope dealers. I love me them old-time Negro spirituals. Nothing better than the blacks we have down in rural Arkansas, all singing together at my church after a fish fry. Why Lord, we do love each other so. My children were raised by a Negro we let live in our very own house. (I wonder what became of her.)

Praise the Lord...

But to you, my brothers and sisters in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire, I'm just like you. A white, God fearing man who believes in doing the Lord's work though politics, which is why I'm running for President -- to take back this country from the liberals and the hippies and the Jews who control the money and stop your daughters from being impregnated by foreigners out to steal your jobs. But let's forget all that right now.

Now is not the time to think of politics or your son having gay sex in New York City. It's the time to think of the America of your dreams, the America of your fantasies, the America who might vote for me, which is why I'm here to wish you a merry, happy Christmas. In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, please enjoy a politic-free, happy and wonderful Christmas with your white all-American family. And your little dog too.

Amen.

(This ad is up in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire.) h/t Street Prophets.

Mike Hukabee: “What really matters.”

There's more...

Anti-Gay “Church” Owes $11 Million in Damages

“That was such über-pwnage.”

Happy Halloween.

Wednesday in Kansas City, a Federal Jury delivered a verdict against the Phelps family and their homovirulent "church", the Westboro Baptist Church.

The case was brought by Albert Snyder of Maryland, the father of a slain American Marine who died in Iraq, after members staged a demonstration at the funeral of his son Matthew Snyder in March, 2006.

Jurors awarded Mr. Snyder $2.9 million U.S. in direct damages, $6 million in punitive for invasion of privacy, and another $2 million for causing emotional distress. Assuming the verdict is upheld on appeal, this will almost certainly leave the church and family bankrupt.

Heh.

Good. Great. Wonderful! *applauds*

Bankrupt the evil gay-bashing fucks.

I have enormous capacity for forgiveness. Evil is a word I use rarely. The leaders of this group exceed my capacity for forgiveness. They are morally evil at the level of Dick Cheney, those who authorize torture, or who design and execute genocides. They literally would kill gay people if they could. They are evil people.

Run them into the ground, stomp on them, then salt the fucking earth as an explicit example to all.

Taking their money is a GOOD act. Sitting here writing, I find I am moved as an American... I am proud of our Federal Jury in Kansas.

My condolences to Mr. Snyder and his family on the loss of their son, and to every family who has lost family and in their most sacred hours, has had to endure the filthy taunts of these Hillboro perversions of humanity.

Perhaps now, finally, the Phelps Family will be forced into working at WalMart, without health insurance, clocking in and out in order to take a smoke.

Maybe even perhaps, the youngest among them may break free.

Perhaps.

h/t fdl, where TRex brings the snark.

There's more...

Oral Roberts: The Male Organ Pentrating the Vagina

Sex Ed With Brother Oral Roberts

It's got nasty at Oral Roberts University.

Like Daddy, like son, his wife and their daughter. Ohhh.

But we're not going to go there. We're going back all the way to the Big O himself and get us some sex educated.

Put down your drinks. Move them away from your computers (don't want to ruin your keyboards, trust me now y'all.) Swallow that last sip of... soda (don't want to spit it out all over your monitors.) Make certain you are safe (at work) for playing an instructional tape in what to do and not do, and how to not do it, specifically.

Very, very, VERY specifically. Some might call it an over-share. I call it an attempt at communicating what's there for him in his heart, what's on his mind, what he's been attempting to wrap his...hands around. It's a subject Brother Roberts has a, grasp of. Slippery little devil.

Clearly, Brother Roberts has clearly put enormous thought into the details of what SINNERS might do, very specifically, with their organs. He's going to share with us, you and I, in graphic detail, precisely what these SINNERS IN THE EYES OF GOD might do with their organs.

Sit back, relax, crack open a cold one if you've got it, press play and listen with an open heart as:

Brother Oral Roberts brings you The Wawrd of the LAWRD.

Brother Roberts (near the end of the tape):

Look at the orifices of the body, the openings in the body.

Certainly you can't put it, put the male organ or the woman's tongue in the eye.

Maybe you can touch the ear. Certainly not in the orifices of the nose or the naval. But there are a couple or three other places.

There's the mouth. There's the anus, where the poisons of the body are excreted.

You can put it there.

They didn't know how to handle IT.

There was a FIRE that rose up in them. They didn't know how to contain, everybody knows when the sexual arousal reaches a certain point, the person goes INSANE!

By the sacred ovaries of Penélopê...

Sing it Brother! Bring it on DOWN!

There's more...

PeTA Can't Swap Roles. Why Can Pharmacists?

photo from Tattoos Art Gallery

Pharmacists and Illinois Settle Plan B Lawsuit

Two years ago Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law requiring all Illinois Pharmacies to fill Plan B prescriptions without delay.

The mandate is on the pharmacy, not on the individual pharmacists working there. Their personal beliefs are irrelevant to the law.

The law was challenged by a lawsuit known as the Menges lawsuit.

Lawsuit, settled.

The settlement upholds the law -- requiring all Illinois Pharmacies to fill Plan B prescriptions without delay -- by requiring pharmacies put in place a system guarantying a woman gets her prescription without delay and without having to go somewhere else.

Total, bullshit.

Washington Post

Illinois pharmacists who object to dispensing emergency birth control would be allowed to let someone else fill the prescription under a deal that could settle a lawsuit against the state.

Trained technicians or store owners would contact a pharmacist at another location, then follow his or her directions for dispensing the morning-after pill.

The compromise means pharmacists would not have to offer a drug they oppose on moral grounds, but minors who need it (adults can obtain emergency contraceptives without a prescription) would not be turned away.

"It seems to be a thoughtful settlement," Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood, said Wednesday. "This gives them (pharmacists) an out and it still makes sure the woman gets her prescription."

The settlement would end a lawsuit by several pharmacists and Walgreen Co. over a state rule requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception. Because it requires a change in state rules, it must be reviewed by a legislative panel before it can take effect.

"We think it's fair for us as well as our pharmacists. It allows us to continue to care for patients," said Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce.

As Jen says, let's see a PeTA member try that shit on, as a waiter at Applebee's.

FADE IN:

INT. APPLEBEE'S DINING ROOM - NIGHT

Crystal abruptly stops taking an order.

CRYSTAL
Meat is murder.
(Beat)
Raul, our oppressed migrant worker
will prepare your bloody slab of
almost raw muscle torn from the flesh
of a slaughtered animal, a gentle
soul named #237481 according to the
brand in her side covered in feces, some
of which is still in the meat you're
about to eat, carnivores. Here --
have an Alicia Silverstone photo.

The family exits, puking, across the dining room.

CRYSTAL (CONT'D)
How many bunnies were tortured to
make that lipstick you're wearing?
(shouting at them sprinting out the door)
Pets are people too you know!

She turns to the horrified next customer's in line, smiling brightly.

CRYSTAL (CONT'D)
Hi. Welcome to Applebee's. My name is
Crystal, and I'll be your voluntary
servitude yet equal in dignity person.
(Beat)
Is that ...mink?

Special pharmacy privileges for special (Christian) people. Written into the freaking law.

"We think it's fair for us as well as our pharmacists. It allows us to continue to care for patients," said Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce.

How about you care for your patients by just firing anyone who interjects their religious beliefs into the doctor-patient relationship?

What's next?

INT. WALGREEN'S PHARMACY - DAY

Mr. Branch smiles politely. It never reaches his eyes.

MR. BRANCH
Hello Mrs. Moreno. Nancy.
Your Effexor contains iron oxides which some
people claim were created millions of years ago.
I'm sorry Mrs. Moreno, but our Preacher made it
very very clear God created the entire heaven
and all the earth just 6,000 years ago, so I
simply can't have anything to do with this
devil drug, this evil tool of Satan.
(Beat)
Our clerk will count out your pills.
(Beat)
Good luck with your
depression and those
suicidal thoughts, Nancy.
We're all praying for you
in Holy Jesus' name.
(Long, long beat)
Next.

This is medicine, not mummery.

Which is why in Connecticut, Catholic Hospitals supply Plan B to rape victims, without any religious bullshit.

Giving in to bullies is always wrong.

Kick them in the balls till they fall over, kick them in the balls till they beg for mercy, kick them in the balls till they vow they'll never ever ever do it again.

Then kick them in the balls once more in front of their mob, so everyone gets you're simply not fucking around. (It saves you having to hurt them again ten future times; bullies are slow learners.)

Bad Illinois. Never Settle.

Correction: 10/15/07 -- This article has been edited since it was posted to more accurately reflect the basic facts of the Menges lawsuit. Details of the correction are available in the comment thread. GNB regrets the error.

There's more...

Are You Saved?

The Religious Right Has Jumped The Shark

The above chart (the Barna Group study) -- our own Sara Robinson says -- shows clearly the youth of American are listening when the religious types ask, "Are you saved?"

Increasingly, the answer is, "No."

Sara's article, Roosting Chickens, Part II -- as in Chickens Coming Home To Roost -- over at Orcinus, is amazing.

Run, do not walk, do not pass go, do not collect 200 Euros.

The link to the Barna Group study is over at Sara's article.

Executive study summary: It's over for religious control of America within generations, unless the Christian church's radically revise their approach... as in be consistent with Jesus. Heal the sick, minister to the poor, nurture the environment, love the gays, stop controlling women including abortion, get off people's ass about their sex lives, go after big corporations and polluters and insurance companies. Stop wars.

Or the Christian churches will cease to have any relevant meaning in American life. Because while the churches were busy preaching the WORD, the kids have been busy watching the churches, pastors, priests, elders, bishops, preachers and the people at church... The kids have seen the Churches clearly... and they hate what they see.

Go read Sara's article please. Come back here and talk.

There's more...

Administration Ads Advocate Abstinence

“Throw it out with the trash”

The West Wing: Take Out the Trash Day
(Season 1, Episode 13)

CUT TO:

INT. OUTER OVAL OFFICE - DAY

Bartlet comes in and approaches Mrs. Landingham.

BARTLET
Mrs. Landingham.

MRS. LANDINGHAM
Yes sir?

BARTLET
You're not going to believe this but
I think I'd actually like a banana.

MRS. LANDINGHAM
I'm afraid not sir, no.

BARTLET
Why not?

MRS. LANDINGHAM
You were offered one earlier, sir,
and you were snippy.

BARTLET
I wasn't snippy!

MRS. LANDINGHAM
I'm afraid you were, Mr. President.
[looking toward the oval office]
C.J.'s waiting, sir.

BARTLET
Thank you, Mrs. Landingham.

He crosses into THE OVAL OFFICE and shuts the door.

BARTLET
She withholds food from me.

C.J.
Mr. President, I hate to keep
jumping up and down on this, but...

BARTLET
The sex-ed report.

C.J.
Yes sir.

BARTLET
We're gonna leave it alone
for a while.

C.J.
Sir, when you say...

BARTLET
[busy at his desk]
After the midterm elections.

C.J.
That's a year from now.

BARTLET
Yeah.

C.J.
We're gonna stick it in a drawer?

BARTLET
It's a pretty incendiary report.

C.J.
You don't think we have an obligation
to present the information?

BARTLET
[crosses out to stand in front of her]
It's not gonna play well at a
PTA meeting. It says
we should be teaching
kids to have sex.

C.J.
It does not, Mr. President, excuse
me sir, but it does not.

BARTLET
Of course it doesn't. But that's
how it's going to play.

C.J.
The report is very direct, sir,
it says with holding knowledge
about having sex doesn't
prevent teenagers from having sex,
it prevents teenagers from having
sex safely. And it says offering
information about safe sex doesn't
increase the rate of sex, it increases
the rate of protected sex.

BARTLET
[in a somewhat patronizing tone]
C.J.

C.J.
We commissioned this report, Mr. President.
These people are doctors; we asked them a
question. How can we put it in a drawer
just cause we don't think people are going to
like the answer?

BARTLET
C.J., getting it through this congress,
a body which at the moment, will only
give federal funding to sex education
programs that teach abstinence only.

C.J.
We have an enormous pulpit from which...

BARTLET
[raising his voice]
And we will avail ourselves of that
pulpit but we will do it after
the midterm elections.

C.J.
[a pause, realizes]
I think I understand.

BARTLET
I needed to get Leo off the hook, C.J.

C.J.
It's the deal Josh and Sam made.

BARTLET
Yes. We'll deal with it after
the midterm elections.

C.J.
I understand.

BARTLET
[back behind his desk]
I was hoping you would.

C.J.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Umm, several members of the press
already know, I think, the report
came back to us and...

BARTLET
Yeah. Well there's nothing wrong
with telling them we got it. I wouldn't
make a big deal out of it. We got it,
we're looking at it, we're studying it.
Throw it out with the trash.

C.J.
Yes sir.

BARTLET
Thanks, C.J.

C.J.
Thank you sir.
[almost out the door, but stops and
turns back to face Bartlet]
Mr. President? We could all be better teachers.

BARTLET
I know.

C.J. leaves, as Bartlet removes his glasses, looking pensive.

In April 2007, the Bush Administration buried Impacts for Title V. Section 510, Abstinence Education Programs: Final Report, the report they commissioned on abstinence-only education which said...

IT DOESN'T WORK.

The Bush's threw it out with the trash.

The RH Blog

The news for the Bush Adminstration's abstinence-only policies just seems to be getting worse, some might liken it to a swiftly sinking boat or ship.

So a burial at sea is appropriate, and by releasing the latest federal report on abstinence-only, Impacts for Title V. Section 510, Abstinence Education Programs: Final Report, from Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. late on a Friday, that is exactly what the Bushies are doing.

“After 10 years and $1.5 billion in public funds these failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs will go down as an ideological boondoggle of historic proportions,” said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth.

“The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. We have been promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS, and that’s not just bad public health policy, its bad ethics”.

“This report should serve as the final verdict on the failure of the abstinence-only industry in this country,” said William Smith, vice president for public policy of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS). “It shows, once again, that these programs fail miserably in actually helping young people behave more responsibly when it comes to their sexuality,” Smith continued.

Teenagers have sex.

With or without education, with or without promising to be pure, teenagers have sex.

The study found many kids (the fundies) tried to stay “pure” -- so they experimented.

This is how they experimented. (Slightly NSFW [words.])

But no...

Even though there is massive evidence it has never worked, the Bush Administration is running a national ad campaign promoting abstinence-only.

What next? Mediation over oil rights in Iraq?

I think the government should consider this special Mother-Daughter vibrator moment instead. (With a hell of a back story. *sighs*)

Oh wait... vibes are illegal to purchase in Alabama. Thanks U.S. Supreme Court. (We miss you Justice O'Connor.)

There's more...

Hail Mary

Connecticut's Roman Catholic bishops Allow Plan B

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen"

In a rosary-fingering frenzy, the Bishops of Connecticut reluctantly agreed to comply with Connecticut's new law just days before it went into effect.

boston.com

The church, which runs four of the state's 30 hospitals, has been fighting the legislation for the past two years, arguing that lawmakers were forcing medical personnel to violate their religious beliefs and perform chemical abortions by providing emergency contraception, sold as Plan B, to women who are ovulating.

But Catholic Bishops of Connecticut and leaders of the Catholic hospitals said in a joint statement Thursday that "since the teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter and since there is serious doubt about how Plan B pills work," the hospitals will be allowed to provide Plan B to rape victims without first requiring ovulation tests.

"To administer Plan B without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act," the statement reads.

Rape crisis counselors in Connecticut said there have been unclear and inconsistent policies for supplying Plan B to victims who seek treatment in emergency rooms across the state, including some in nonreligious hospitals.

According to Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services Inc., 40 percent of rape victims were not offered or did not receive the full dose of emergency contraception at the hospitals where they were treated during the first half of 2006."

Feministing

Okay, so they were forced to comply. Whatevs. At least women in Connecticut can rest a little easier. But here's an interesting tidbit. Apparently, state church officials wanted to mandate an ovulation test for women seeking emergency contraception before they would dispense it. The idea being if a woman was ovulating there was a better chance of conception having taken place--and then they wouldn't give her EC.

And people have the nerve to argue that anti-choice shit isn't about controlling women's bodies?

If a church can get you to beg permission to control your own body -- to screw, to get off, to have periods & children, to be married, to live and to die -- but most especially if a church convinces you you must plead for the right from them for you to have ANY control of ANYTHING having ANYTHING AT ALL to do with sexuality, your fundamental biological drive to survive. Once they've got an entire culture believing that sick bloodless shit and you inside the culture nodding along with it.

Once a church has your ass wrapped up tighter than a tick needing blood, desperate for God's Holy Blessing because you just have got to have the Priest's permission to GET LAID and He Ain't. Giving. You.None. ...YOU FILTHY FUCKING SCUM... None. No permission for you. You're a sinner who has lusted in your heart and probably in your body too, your rich, ripe, tight sinner's body, just step into this room and tell me your lustful thoughts, tell me what you do alone in your room at night, what the two of you did out in the bleachers after the ballgame, just whisper it all quietly right here... Then it's --

Lord Have Mercy On Me, A Sinner, because you're DAMNED TO HELL. So you pray and pray and you pray some more. You beg for forgiveness, but forgiveness ain't never, ever coming for you once they got you by the ovaries and balls, 'cause they absolutely own yo ass and now, sucka, it's time for you to earn your keep... keeping the marks in line.

The grip of a church when they grab you by your sexuality is damn near impossible to break free from.

Breaking free from the early indoctrination that human sexuality is sinful by most of the Children of the Book, which gives male religious leaders -- male priests -- such a hold over his congregation, is an enormously difficult undertaking, requiring breaking out of an entire world-view and eventually acquiring a completely new ontology for living. Managing it usually requires a big breakdown with the Church, a strong sense of Self, determination, enough smarts to make sense of it all, friends and family to support the transition, and enormous good fortune to have everything come together correctly. Absent any of these, it's usually just easier to fall back into the Church life you've always known, or into a similar church.

I am encouraged that today in at least one more state, the law now protects poor people and the Catholic people who by necessity go to these hospitals. Religion be damned. This is medicine, not mummery.

The actual Jesus & Mary would be happy. It's a start.

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Why Should God Bless America?

Imagine If Hillary, Obama or John Did This

On September 17, the Church of God Choir of Springfield, Ohio sings beautifully as they open the Values Voter Presidential Debate in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The choir sings new words to the American classic, "God Bless America" more suited to their right-wing agenda. The lyrics are transcribed below, courtesy Right Wing Watch.

Truly, the choir's voices are beautiful... And then you hear the words. *sighs*

As TPM points out, I'm getting very very tired of writing variations of, IOKIYAR.

Really, can you imagine the shit which would have gone down if Hillary Rodham had changed even two sentences in God Bless America to point out, say, the need for national health care and stopping the war in Iraq, and had a church choir sing it? Or better, a choir of little children?

Jesus Christ, it'd be Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" times 50, leading every national broadcast, hell, breaking in to national news feeds with SPECIAL REPORT "Hillary Desecrates United States: Children Forced Into Choir - Damaged For Life By Hillary" on the Big 3 Networks and "Bill Clintons's SLUT Hillary: How Long Have She Hated America?" on FOX.

The actual story -- of course -- wasn't mentioned anywhere. Well... blogs. *shrugs*

Business as usual for Republicans.


GNB Competition:

Hilliary, Obama, John; this story.

Write the breaking news headline &/or the second headline for any broadcast network. CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, ESPN, the WB (or whatever it's called now), BBC, SPIKE TV, OXYGEN, Jeopardy, Weekend Update, The Daily Show, even the 700 Club.

1. Make sure you tell us what network (even if you're sure we'll know.)
2. Write as many entries as you want in your comment; just put each on a separate line.
3. Funny is good. Too long isn't.

Have fun. Winner gets to write the SLUG (that's the top headline above the photo) for a future GNB story; the SLUG is the name which a story gets archived by.

Hat top TPM, Right Wing Watch


Why should God bless America?
She's forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of '62
Told the children "you are your own God now
So you can make the rules"
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should God bless America?
Shes's forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In '73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don't worry now
It's not a wrong, it's your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God's command
The most that we can hope for is
God's mercy on our land

Why should God bless America?
She's forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

(Reading from 2nd Chronicles 7:14) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land

God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land.

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Understanding Religious Anger

photo Scott Griessel

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but THE Truth

The Right Reverend John Shelby Spong, retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, as a writer, challenges pretty much everything which passes for traditional Christian thought.

He's been banned by no less than the (very conservative) ArchBishop of Sidney. (What the ban consisted of I don't remember and just don't give a damn enough about to bother finding out.) I've read a number of his books, many of his essays. Like Alan Watts before him, his writing changes my understanding of what Christianity is.

Liberal theologian, biblical scholar, religious commentator and author, the Reverend Spong is a good and extraordinary human being.

In the below essay Reverend Spong leads us towards if not compassion (what he unquestionably would hope of us), then at least understanding of the rage which seems to well up inexhaustibly from within the religious right.

If we are honest with ourselves, religious rage rises up from below (the hydraulic model of the mind) within our self, not just about religion. Religious rage takes us over when the self is confronted with challenges to our core belief structures:

• religion,
• sex & money,
• race & class (social standing),
• work/job (competence), and
• politics.

(Sports do not bring religious rage fundamentally. Which sounds insane to anyone who has ever watched a Yankee-Red Sox game or a Football Match in England. Sports arouse religious rage from identifying one's self with, for example, the sports team at the level of one's core identity: "I am the Boston Red Sox.", "If I'm not there, we'll lose.", "Fuck the fucking Yankees", and so on. This self-identification is not the same as core issues of survival such as sex which arises from biology, and politics which arises from history and the nature of language. Said differently, religious anger over sex, over politics, over money -- these are constitutive of being human. Religious anger over sports is not.)

Want to really get me going? My oldest daughter can get me genuinely angry faster than anyone on earth. Except perhaps my own Dad.

We have Anger. More accurately, Anger has us.

What hopefully separates we liberals from the religious right, is a genuine willingness to engage in authentic self-reflection.

Want to win elections? Understand the enemy; understand yourself.

Reverend Spong speaks as one who knows. Pay attention please.

Understanding Religious Anger

One of the things that always surprises me is the level of anger, often expressed in acts of overt rudeness, which seems to mark religious people. It appears so often that I have almost come to expect it, or at the very least not to be surprised by it. A recent episode simply made the connection between religion and anger newly indelible in my consciousness.

It occurred last spring when I attended, at their invitation, the graduation ceremonies of a well-known university. Indeed, I was to receive an honorary degree. There was much conviviality connected with this event. We were entertained royally by the president of the university and his wife. We saw former classmates. Families gathered to share this transitional moment with a graduating son or daughter. It seemed to be a very pleasant occasion.

When the procession formed to begin the ceremonial walk into the arena, there was a panoply of color marking the assembly. The black caps and gowns of academia were bedecked with bright and varied hoods, representing the doctorates earned by the members of the faculty and reflecting the school colors of the awarding universities. Harvard's crimson was immediately identifiable, as well as the unique form of the doctoral hoods from the storied universities of Cambridge and Oxford. My place in this lineup was in the company of some of the university's deans. While we waited for the signal to begin the procession, I introduced myself to my nearest companions. They were all cordial until I introduced myself to the Dean of the Medical School. It was not a time for small talk for this man. He could not have possibly known that he and I would be together in the procession, so what followed was clearly spontaneous and unplanned. He obviously had strong feelings about me and could not miss this exquisite opportunity to give expression to them. I had never met this man before this moment, but my expectation was that one whose career in medicine had been so successful that he had become the dean of a major medical school would have a broad perspective on life. I was wrong. He was bitter and small-minded, caught more in his narrow religious agenda than in his academic excellence. We had barely unlocked hands in our introductory handshake when he said, "I wish I did not feel this way but I think what you have done to the Church is both reprehensible and destructive. I regret that this university has decided to honor you today." I was taken aback not by the content of his remarks, since I have dealt with threatened religious people many times before, but by the inappropriateness of his comments. This was neither the time nor the place for this tirade. I was after all an invited guest in his world. Yet, he simply could not contain his feelings. I tried to parry his comments by saying something like: "I'm sorry we don't have time to discuss this here, but you must realize that the world has undergone a vast intellectual revolution in the last 500-600 years and if the Church is to stay in dialogue with that world then the Church must also change. However, this Dean was in no mood to let go; he had the bit between his teeth. "You totally ignore the truth of those first 1,300 years of Christian history," he retorted, his anger still rising. "Would you want to practice medicine in today's world equipped only with the medical knowledge available in the first 1300 years of Christian history?" I enquired. At that moment the conversation ended because the music started, the stately procession began its journey into the stadium where literally thousands were gathered. As we walked in silence I could not help but wonder at the rudeness of this Dean, who had so great a need to express his anger that he violated the good manners of his university. I learned later that this doctor was part of a conservative Christian congregation. Somehow, religious convictions seem to give people permission to be rude.

A similar incident occurred in the summer of 2005, when I was the guest lecturer at the Highlands Institute for American and Philosophical Thought in Western North Carolina. I had been there for the past three summers, and had always met with a warm and positive reception. However, on this particular night, a local fundamentalist decided to achieve his fifteen minutes of fame. About midway in the lecture, this man stood up and drew sufficient attention to himself that I stopped speaking and enquired if there was something wrong. "I'm feeling sick," this gentleman replied. So I responded, "There is nothing I'm saying tonight that is more important than your health, so let me pause until you get whatever help you need." "You don't understand," he retorted, "I'm sick of you." Somehow this man felt that his religious convictions justified his interruption of a lecture attended by more than 250 people. It never occurred to him that this behavior was rude to me, rude to the audience and that it reflected little more than his own anger. I learned later that he was a member of the Community Bible Church and that he had been encouraged to take this action by fellow members of his fundamentalist church. Once again if one is acting 'in the name of God,' both anger and rudeness are apparently justified.

Those two experiences set me to thinking about the relationship between religion and anger. It is far closer than most people seem to realize. Sometimes the sweet piety of religion serves to hide anger even from the awareness of the angry one, though it is obvious to everyone else. Is it anything but anger when religious people describe what is in store for those who do not believe their way? Is the threat of hell, which is spoken so freely in religious circles, not a projection onto God of the anger inside the one consigning another to a place of eternal torment? Is there much difference between a person saying in hostility: "Go to hell!" and a preacher threatening a congregation with that same destiny? When one looks at the history of religious persecution, which has included such things as excommunication, torture, and the burning of heretics at the stake, there is ample evidence of hostility associated with Christianity. When one adds to that the Crusades designed 'to kill the infidels,' a history of anti-Semitism, and the wars between Catholics and Protestants, the picture of religion as a source of anger in human society, victimizing people in every generation, becomes clear.

In moments of social upheaval, religious anger becomes very apparent. Most of the anger that was displayed during the movement to emancipate women came from the Christian Church. Most of the anger displayed in the current struggle over justice for gay and lesbian people emanates from the Christian Church. It is very hard to deny that underneath the sounds of religious conviction, there is a boiling cauldron of anger that seems to be an unrecognized part of the religious experience. Step one, therefore, is to recognize it. Step two is to understand it.

Religious anger seems to manifest itself first and most stridently in those religious traditions that claim to possess absolute certainty. It is only when one believes that one possesses the whole truth of God that one finds the need to persecute those who do not accept your version of truth. What that behavior reveals is that the frightened human psyche needs the certainty of religion, no matter how narrowly defined, in order to feel secure. Christianity has developed many security-giving idols inside its traditional formulations, infallible popes and inerrant scriptures being two of them. How rational, for example, is it for anyone to say: "Since my God is the true God and your God is, therefore, a false God, I have the right to hate you, to persecute you or even to kill you?" Yet all of these expressions of anger are found inside the Christian Church.

The second thing that religious anger reveals to me is that organized religion feeds the expression of self-hatred in its people. There is certainly much self-negativity in traditional Christianity with its doctrines of 'the Fall,' its emphasis on the depravity of human life, the need to be rescued, and the guilt-producing idea that "Jesus died for my sins." The liturgies of Christian churches are constantly calling their worshipers such things as 'a wretch,' 'a worm,' 'one unworthy to gather up the crumbs under the divine table,' all interspersed with the plea to God to 'have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.' Are these not expressions of self-directed religious anger?

If one absorbs negativity from any source long enough, one cannot help but become negative. When one is denigrated in worship over a sustained period of time, one inevitably projects this denigration onto others as anger. It is necessary for survival. Does this not help us to understand why prejudice is greater among religious people than among non-religious people; why slavery, segregation and other overt forms of racism have been the pattern of that region of our country that we call 'the Bible Belt;' and why the 'Religious Right' even today is more supportive of war as an instrument of national policy than any other segment of our national population? Each of these attitudes reflects religiously justified violence.

Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized? What happened to that biblical proclamation that the disciples of Jesus are to be known by their love? How does religious anger fit in with the Fourth Gospel's interpretation of Jesus' purpose to be that of bringing life more abundantly?

Perhaps the time has come to recognize that Christianity was never meant to be about religion; it is to be about life. The achievement of personal security is the goal of religion. The ability to live with integrity in the midst of the insecurity of life is the goal of Christianity. Religion seeks to control life with guilt. Christianity seeks to free people to be all that they can be. There is a vast difference. Perhaps it will take the death of religion to open us once again to the meaning of Christianity, even 'Religionless Christianity.' For the purpose of Jesus was not to make us religious but to make us fully human.

John Shelby Spong

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One Nation Under God

Milan Cathedral, Milan, 1998: Thomas Struth

Messianic theology breeds messianic politics

Mark Lilla is professor of the humanities at Columbia University.

The below essay, published today in the NY Times, is adapted from his book “The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West.” The book is to be published next month.

This is a long essay. My mom sent me a copy with seven words, "This is worth reading all the way." I did, and she was right.

Here's how we'll do this. Below is pasted up just a taste of Professor Lilla's essay. Read it please, then kick to the NY Times for the rest. The link is at the top of the essay. Read the whole essay -- yes, it's long; yes, as my mom says, "this is worth reading all the way" -- then come back here and we'll talk it over.

Enjoy.

The Politics of God

I. “The Will of God Will Prevail”

The twilight of the idols has been postponed. For more than two centuries, from the American and French Revolutions to the collapse of Soviet Communism, world politics revolved around eminently political problems. War and revolution, class and social justice, race and national identity — these were the questions that divided us. Today, we have progressed to the point where our problems again resemble those of the 16th century, as we find ourselves entangled in conflicts over competing revelations, dogmatic purity and divine duty. We in the West are disturbed and confused. Though we have our own fundamentalists, we find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruin. We had assumed this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that fanaticism was dead. We were wrong.

An example: In May of last year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent an open letter to President George W. Bush that was translated and published in newspapers around the world. Its theme was contemporary politics and its language that of divine revelation. After rehearsing a litany of grievances against American foreign policies, real and imagined, Ahmadinejad wrote, “If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph or Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior?” This was not a rhetorical question. “I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (peace be upon him) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth,” Ahmadinejad continued, reminding his fellow believer that “according to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets.” There follows a kind of altar call, in which the American president is invited to bring his actions into line with these verses. And then comes a threatening prophecy: “Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today, these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems. . . . Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.”

This is the language of political theology, and for millennia it was the only tongue human beings had for expressing their thoughts about political life. It is primordial, but also contemporary: countless millions still pursue the age-old quest to bring the whole of human life under God’s authority, and they have their reasons. To understand them we need only interpret the language of political theology — yet that is what we find hardest to do. Reading a letter like Ahmadinejad’s, we fall mute, like explorers coming upon an ancient inscription written in hieroglyphics.

The problem is ours, not his. A little more than two centuries ago we began to believe that the West was on a one-way track toward modern secular democracy and that other societies, once placed on that track, would inevitably follow. Though this has not happened, we still maintain our implicit faith in a modernizing process and blame delays on extenuating circumstances like poverty or colonialism. This assumption shapes the way we see political theology, especially in its Islamic form — as an atavism requiring psychological or sociological analysis but not serious intellectual engagement. Islamists, even if they are learned professionals, appear to us primarily as frustrated, irrational representatives of frustrated, irrational societies, nothing more. We live, so to speak, on the other shore. When we observe those on the opposite bank, we are puzzled, since we have only a distant memory of what it was like to think as they do. We all face the same questions of political existence, yet their way of answering them has become alien to us. On one shore, political institutions are conceived in terms of divine authority and spiritual redemption; on the other they are not. And that, as Robert Frost might have put it, makes all the difference.

Go. Read the whole essay. Come back and we'll talk. *smiles*

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