Do you remember how people insisted that the gays were trying to ruin marriage? Well, they succeeded in Texas. When the people of Texas passed a 2005 constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage, those clever, clever gays somehow forced them to word it poorly enough that it might prohibit ALL marriage in the state, same-sex or otherwise:
The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:
“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively “eliminates marriage in Texas,” including common-law marriages.
Why, yes, I do believe that legal recognition of marriage is a legal status “identical or similar to marriage.” By definition.
How in the world did that slip by people? It’s a pretty big deal. They might need a new constitutional amendment to fix the problem.
It’s absolutely legal to stop recognizing civil marriages. The people (through the governmental processes) can decide what relationships to grant special recognition and benefits. They decided to stop granting benefits to any relationships. Kudos for leveling the playing field for all sexual orientations, Texas!
I’m guessing it’s not what the people of Texas thought they were agreeing to. Their best options are an activist judge and revising their governing document. Which idea do you think offends Texans more?
Recently, Fred Phelps and the other nuts at Westboro Baptist Church protested near a midwest high school for no good reason (other than, perhaps, the existence of liberal faculty members…?).
I’ve blurred out the school’s identifying information in the pic below, but you can see that several of the high school students staged a counter protest, which I think is just great.
It’s hard to see, but a few students are holding up a poster which says “Come Hug Me.” The full message contains a $5 offer to any of Phelps’ people who will come get a hug from a gay student.
No one took them up on the offer…
That picture comes courtesy of a reader named Sarah, who attended that high school years ago and stopped by when she heard Phelps’ people were coming for a visit.
She came in proper attire, too.
The picture below shows Sarah (right) and her friend Kat (left) wearing well-stated “I’m Not with Stupid” shirts as they stand near a member of the Phelps Clan:
Fighting ignorance with humor — I like it.
I don’t know why that guy is wearing a rainbow-y thing, but Sarah suggests it may just indicate a connection between the signs and homosexuality.
…
Doesn’t it give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that so many young people realize how crazy Phelps and his clan’s beliefs are? The Westboro group’s views regarding homosexuality are only slightly more extreme than those of the Christian Right in general.
These are the same students who will eventually vote and help us get marriage equality for all throughout the country. That time isn’t as far away as the conservatives think. Hallelujah.
Catholic Charities, a part of the Catholic Church, helps over 68,000 people in Washington D.C., including the homeless. It’s not just volunteer work — they get paid for this.
From 2006 through 2008, [council member David A.] Catania said, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts, as well as several hundred thousand dollars’ worth this year through his committee.
But if a new bill gets passed by the city council next month which would make it illegal for groups receiving city money to discriminate against gay people, they will be “unable to continue the social service programs“?
How bigoted do you have to be to refuse to help people because you’re more concerned about restricting rights from other people?
At least some of the city council members are speaking out:
The church’s influence seems limited. In separate interviews Wednesday, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) referred to the church as “somewhat childish.” Another council member, David A. Catania (I-At Large), said he would rather end the city’s relationship with the church than give in to its demands.
“They don’t represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure,” said Catania, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill and the chairman of the Health Committee.
End the relationship. Good riddance. Hopefully, other groups will step in to fill in the hole.
Listen to how Susan Gibbs, the spokesperson for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, defends the Church’s actions:
She said religious groups that receive city funds would be required to give same-sex couples medical benefits, open adoptions to same-sex couples and rent a church hall to a support group for lesbian couples.
Which makes sense. I think it was Jesus who said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven… unless you treat the gays with any dignity.”
A serial comma is the comma you use before the last item in a series of three or more things.
With the serial comma:
I went to the store to buy oatmeal, milk, and cookies.
Without the serial comma:
I went to the store to buy oatmeal, milk and cookies.
There are arguments to be made for and against it.
Why do I bring this up?
There’s an article by Jay Lindsay of the Associated Press called “Evangelists target spiritually cold New England” making the rounds. There’s nothing overly special about the piece — the headline summarizes it well enough.
But reader Jon brings it to my attention because of the comma issue.
Here’s a direct quotation from the piece. The lack of a serial comma gives it an entirely different (and very entertaining) meaning:
They say a reason for the region’s hollowed-out faith is a pervasive theology that departs from traditional Biblical interpretation on issues such as the divinity of Jesus, the exclusivity of Christianity as a path to salvation and homosexuality.
This past Tuesday was the 6th annual “Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity,” a day for anti-abortion high school students to remain silent on behalf of aborted fetuses everywhere.
Since January 22, 1973 over 50,000,000 babies have had their voices silenced through surgical abortion in this nation alone.
…
On October 20th, people from all over this nation will give up their voices for a day in solidarity for these children. Red arm bands and duct tape will identify them as taking part in the Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity. They will carry fliers explaining why they are silent and educate others about the plight of the innocent children we are losing every day.
Regardless of your views on abortion, there’s nothing wrong with students participating in this event if they wish. (Say what you will about the information they use or the group sponsoring it.)
I did not hear of a single Christian right/Conservative group condemning this event.
No right-wing group said it was wrong for students to showcase their social “agenda” in the classroom.
None of them demanded that students not go to school on the day of the event because the classroom was being “hijacked” for political purposes.
Not one group asked people to call local school administrators and ask why they’re allowing this event to take place.
Remember that when GLBT and GLBT-friendly students participate in the Day of Silence this April.
If any Christian right group condemns participation in that event, or tells parents keep their children home from school that day, or requests that members harass school officials about allowing this event to take place, CALL THEM OUT ON THEIR BLATANT HYPOCRISY.
You know they’re going to do it, too. You have ample time to prepare.
…
Incidentally, I approached David Smith, the Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, last year and asked him why his group did not put out any information against the Day of Silent Solidarity but actively opposed the Day of Silence.
He told me IFI was against the Day of Silent Solidarity.
Federal hate crimes laws currently do not protect people who are victims due to their sexual orientation.
Conservative Christians keep complaining that if a current bill — the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act — gets passed, they won’t be able to spew their anti-gay rhetoric in church.
Which isn’t true at all. Pastors could continue to say whatever they want against homosexuality. They have a right to free speech, including the right to sound like pompous bigots. They don’t have a right to directly incite violence, though.
A group of liberal pastors should announce that they’re going to mount the pulpit in a particular church at particular time and preach a series of vile, hateful sermons — one right after the other — attacking people of various races and ethnicities, attacking men and women in turn, attacking people for being white, yellow, and brown, and attacking people of other faiths. The semons should rely on biblical passages that have been historically used to justify attacks on and discrimination against people of different faiths, races, ethnicities, genders, etc., though the ages. Alert the authorities and challenge them to come and arrest all these pastors for preaching hate against groups who are already covered by federal hate crime laws.
They won’t be arrested, of course, because it’s not a crime to be a vile, hateful religious bigot now and it won’t be a crime after sexual orientation is added to the federal hate crimes law.
Some of you out there must run your local churches, right?
Yesterday, Andrew Sullivanput up a post about an extremely brutal hate-crime attack on an openly gay man. The 2-minute news report he embeds is depressing, but there was something to laugh about at the end. The studio interviewed one of the attackers’ friends, who proudly displayed this tattoo:
It’s a tattoo reading “[Thou] shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22″. Who else sees the problem here?
Leviticus also forbids tattooing. In the very next chapter.
“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:28″
Ah, suddenly it all becomes clear to me! He’s not an ignorant man clumsily using the Bible to support his prejudices! It’s a brilliant meta-joke, using delightful self-reference and blinding irony. Perhaps he’s gay himself and is using the tattoos to make a sharp-witted statement about the true meaning of morality, tolerance, and religion.
… judging by his TV interview, he hides his intellect well.
On a more serious note, I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the inconsistency involved when people cherry-pick passages of scripture. What a perfect visual representation of our argument.
That day marked my first encounter with banned books.
I probably don’t need to point out that my mother’s efforts were utterly counter-productive, that her prohibition only made true-crime books seem even more alluring. Human nature, for all of its rumored complexity, is a simple thing: Tell us we can’t have something and we suddenly want it more than we’ve ever wanted anything else in our lives. Put something out of our reach and we grope and strain and pant for it with all of our might.
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The groups that keep Banned Books Week front and center want to remind us that freedom of reading, like freedom of speech, is crucial to a democracy. Books are worth fighting for. The release of the annual list of controversial books is a great opportunity to renew our commitment to unfettered access to books.
Books don’t kill people; people kill people. In other words, I didn’t become the ax murderer that my mother feared I might. And if I had, I don’t think we could’ve blamed the books…
Sounds reasonable. If I were a child, I’d be eager to find out what was so dangerous about a book that someone (i.e. probably a conservative Christian) wanted to keep it away from me.
Higgins and the Illinois Family Institute issued a rebuttal to Keller’s piece. They don’t find anything wrong with censoring certain books from children.
Here’s what [Keller] fails to address:
Ideas do, indeed, have consequences. Keller’s personal experience that reading about serial killers, ax murderers, and remorseless poisoners didn’t turn her into a murderer is lousy evidence for her unproven implicit claim that literature has no capacity to change people.
Not every novel, play, essay, or short story is appropriate at every age.
Books that never appear on the shelves of libraries, that is, books that the ALA’s de facto censorship protocols (aka “Collection Development Policies”) never allow to be purchased can’t be banned.
Banning a book, or more accurately, making a book less easily accessible to children, may keep dangerous, destructive, deviant ideas and images out of the minds and hearts of children or delay the age at which they’re exposed to them.
Of course literature can change people. Keller of all people wouldn’t say otherwise. But a book alone isn’t going to turn you into a monster. There are always other factors in play. And to shield a child from every potentially damaging factor is to remove that child from the world itself.
Is every piece of writing appropriate for every age? Not necessarily. But no one should be making that decision for someone else’s children.
As for sheltering the children from harmful ideas, we’ll get to that later.
Higgins goes on to talk about “inappropriate” books assigned in school:
Keller seems to employ a red herring argument when she cites To Kill a Mockingbird and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while, for example, ignoring a play like Angels in America that includes extraordinarily obscene language and graphic sex and whose author Tony Kushner displays some rather virulent anti-religious sentiment.
She makes it sound like some teacher forced that book upon his unsuspecting students. Not true at all.
Some backstory: An Illinois teacher was under attack from conservative groups when he assigned Angels in America last year. The lady leading the charge (*surprise*) once worked with IFI.
The teacher didn’t force the book upon the students and he gave them an option to read an alternative book (Camus’ The Stranger). In addition, parents had to “opt-in” to the play and sign a permission slip if they were allowing their children to read Angels in America.
“If I have any agenda, it’s this: kindness and compassion are virtues to celebrate, forgiveness is always preferable to revenge, hope is powerful and lasting, and what we do for the greater good is what will define us and our legacy. If any work of literature can be demanding, complex, and nuanced in helping me express those values, then that is an exciting prospect. I believe that Angels in America is all of these things, and that, above all, is why I teach it.”
How dare he…?
(And what’s with Higgins attacking Kushner’s religious beliefs? An atheist wrote a book, therefore it should be banned?)
Higgins finally gets to the part you know she’s been waiting to get to — The Homosexuals:
In addition, [Keller] fails to acknowledge that many of the most frequently challenged books are ones that affirm controversial ideas about homosexuality, and that many of those are picture books intended for very young audiences. The frequently challenged books Heather Has Two Mommies and King and King embody unproven ontological and moral claims that many parents consider radical, subversive, and perverse. The implicit claims are far too abstract and complex for the very young audience for whom these picture books are intended, which leaves just squishy, emotional non-arguments to shape the feelings of young children. I think this could reasonably be called propaganda.
She learns that “the most important thing about a family is that all the people in it love each other.”
Damn radical, subversive, perverse propaganda…
And then, as she’s done before, Higgins goes down the slippery slope and brings in false analogies (like racial superiority and paraphilias):
The epithet “book banner” is hurled at conservative parents as a tactic to humiliate them into silence. Would parents who object to picture books that explore the sorrow of children who have been deliberately created as motherless or fatherless children be called book banners? Would parents who object to picture books that affirm polyamory be considered book banners? Would parents who object to public school teachers enthusiastically and positively teaching a play that affirms and celebrates racial superiority be considered book banners? Would parents who object to public school teachers teaching a novel that graphically depicts and celebrates paraphilias as normal variations of sexual practice be considered book banners? Would parents who object to the teaching of a book whose author attacks or ridicules Orthodox Judaism or Islam be considered book banners?
Of course, no teacher is encouraging racial superiority or celebrating paraphilia. Just because a book discusses those ideas in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s an endorsement of said ideas. (And what the hell is wrong with affirming polyamory?)
We can argue over the phrase “book banner.” Maybe “book denier” is better.
The problem I have with Higgins throughout her piece is that she and IFI are not simply concerned with what their own children read.
Their goal is to control what your children read. If they’re offended by it, then they don’t want your kids exposed to it. That’s why we raise a fuss. And that’s why we should be embracing Banned Books Week. Parents have a right to control what their children should read (key word: THEIR). I would hope they don’t censor anything, but it’s each parent’s decision.
And smarter children will find their way around the barriers surrounding them. Children, with their almost unlimited sense of curiosity, ought to read books they think are interesting. If someone else is trying to stop you from doing it, it’s all the more reason to find out why that is. (Want some advice? Try Judy Blume. She’s fantastic.)
I do agree with Higgins when she implies that parents should be concerned with what their own children read.
The way to handle that, though, is not by censoring their kids from tackling controversial subjects. Let your children read what they want. But keep an eye on what books they choose. Read it yourself, if you can. Discuss the subject matter with them. Don’t let the book be the last word on the topic.
You know, If IFI were truly concerned about children being exposed to violent imagery, graphic sexuality, and complete fabrications about the world around us, then they would focus on banning the Bible.
When they get around to that, maybe I’ll take their other concerns more seriously.
There’s good reason why people lose their faith in college -– when confronted with the messiness of religion, or theology, or textual studies their sheltered minds are taken by surprise and they feel lied to and betrayed by the church that did it’s best to keep them from encountering reality. But some still think it’s better (or at least easier) to pretend than to deal with the messiness that is reality. Instead of wrestling with church history or helping our kids respond with love to all the people they encounter, the very discussion gets banned. So kudos to Banned Books Week for forcing us to face those fears instead of hiding from them. For not letting ideologies be used as silencing weapons of oppression.
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