The Progressive Puppy

Cardinal Francis George Wages War On Contraception

Smelling menstrual blood in the air - as opposed to, say, the frankincense-laced aroma of nervous altar boys - Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is jumping into America's contentious contraception debate. 

You remember Cardinal George.  He recently compared equality advocates to the KKK.  Now his focus, such as it is, has shifted elsewhere.  Michael Sneed reports for the Sun-Times:  In a letter earmarked to be read this weekend at all Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal George is throwing the gauntlet down at the Obama administration for denying Catholics religious liberty.  “We cannot and will not comply with this unjust law,” states the cardinal, who is vehemently opposed to the new Obama administration rule requiring religious organizations to include contraceptive health insurance coverage.  “People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens because of their religious beliefs."  (Please, Your Worshipful, give us a fucking break.  Has the Roman Church started paying taxes?)

The only thing Catholic leaders obsess about more than gay couples tying the knot is women's vaginas.

Sorry humanity, but Pope Benedict and his bejewelled minions are too busy funding anti-LGBT causes and anti-choice activists to feed hungry children in Third World countries.  And now there's another political cause célèbre upon which church prelates can squander their time and energy (not to mention the faithful's money).

Like social conservatives, the Vatican believes that the national debate over abortion has been won - in the court of public opinion, anyway.  Perhaps it has.  So now these Princes of the Church and their evangelical counterparts are working diligently to enact "personhood" amendments and ban certain contraceptive pills and devices.  Birth control and family planning, it seems, is the nouveau no-no.

Laurie Goodsteing at the New York Times applies foundation:  (T)he nation’s Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle.  Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor.  Hours after President Obama phoned to share his decision with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops’ headquarters in Washington posted on its Web site a video of Archbishop Dolan, which had been recorded the day before.  “Never before,” Archbishop Dolan said, setting the tone, “has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”  The speed and passion behind the bishops’ response reflects their growing sense of siege, and their belief that the space the Catholic church once occupied in American society and the deference it was given are gradually being curtailed by an increasingly secular culture.

It has frequently been noted that if men had to suffer the pains of childbirth, issues such as this would be, well, non-issues.  Tacitus correctly observed:  Experientia docet.  

UPDATE:  As is his wont, President Obama has offered the Religious Right a compromise.  As is their wont, ultraconservatives are bitching about it.   (Pictured:  Cardinal Francis George, Woody Allen as Sperm)

"In God We Teach" - Threatening School Kids with Hell

“He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”  - David Paszkiewicz, high school teacher preaching to a captive audience his class

I hope you'll take a moment and watch this trailer for an upcoming documentary about proselytizing in the public school system.  The film focuses on a lawsuit brought against a New Jersey history teacher named David Paszkiewicz, who used abused his position of authority to promote his fundamentalist religious views to students.  (Here in rural Texas, evangelical indoctrination in the classroom is more common than Baptist pastors laying hands on prostitutes or the TDCJ executing innocent and mentally challenged prisoners - and that, pardner, is saying something.  Still, one would like to think that the Garden State is more enlightened than a place where Rick Perry keeps getting elected governor.)

From the film's official website:  While the average American is familiar with the concept of “separation of church and state,” just how many understand what is legal and what is not when it comes to the public school classroom? What are the rules? Who can say what? Does God’s law trump civil law? “In God We Teach” explores the blurred lines between personal belief, religious dogma and civil law through the eyes of an average, blue-collar American town.

Fundie "Humor" - Mincing Jesus Adored By Hollywood Execs (video)

Below is an example of evangelical "humor" from a TV program produced by Willie George Ministries in Oklahoma.  In this scene on the variety show Fire by Nite, liberal Hollywood-types are searching for an actor to play Jesus and, being liberal Hollywood-types who hate religion, they're blown away by the audition of an effeminate, lisping, mincing, stereotypical gay male.  Backstage, two supposedly "real men" assure themselves that the "true Christ" is "tougher than nails." 

Interestingly, Fire by Nite was broadcast over conservative Christian networks during the height of the AIDS epidemic.  I suppose that made mocking gays even funnier to the show's target audience.

At the end of the sketch, you'll notice glaring similarities to the intro of Saturday Night Live.   (Hat Tip: Thrift Store Religion)

Related Post - In Texas Hell House, Girl Deserved Rape

Washington State Lawmakers vs Haters Like Joseph Backholm

That sound of wailing and gnashing teeth you hear is coming from anti-gay bigots on the West Coast ...

It appears that Washington will become the seventh state to allow same-sex nuptials, following in the footsteps of Iowa, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut - not to mention the forward-thinking District of Columbia.  On VerdictJustia.com, Joanna Grossman, law professor at Hoffstra University, reports that Marriage Equality is all but assured for committed gay and lesbian couples living in the Evergreen State:  The state senate passed Bill 6239, by a vote of 28-21.  That bill would repeal an existing statutory ban on same-sex marriage and replace it with an explicit authorization of such marriages.  The state’s house of representatives is expected to pass the bill by a wide margin, and the state’s governor, Christine Gregoire, has stated publicly that she will sign the bill...  (O)ne might have predicted that older legislators would have had to be gradually replaced with younger ones, for the legislature to accept same-sex marriage. (Young people are dramatically more likely to support same-sex marriage than older ones, regardless of political affiliation.)  That Washington State was able to embrace same-sex marriage now is thus surprising, as well as heartening.  Meanwhile, same-sex marriage bills are working their way through a variety of other state legislatures, including New Jersey’s and Maryland’s.  Same-sex marriage is an inevitable, eventual reality.  But as in a game of Othello, the chips are starting to flip.  Polls show ever-growing support for same-sex marriage, and even deeply entrenched opposition may dissipate sooner than we thought.

America's anti-equality forces, hopped up on hate, are coiled and ready to strike.  From USA Today:  Washington's bill may be challenged by opponents, who are expected to make a push to have the question of same-sex marriage put on the ballot in November, Murray said.  Pastor Joe Fuiten, one of the leaders of a campaign for a referendum that would overturn the bill, said he and others oppose the measure because it would change the definition of marriage and affect what children are taught in schools...  Fuiten said the opponents' camp in Washington is made up of about 40 organizations...

Let's take a look at one of those anti-gay hate groups.  Like the Southern Policy Law Center, The Progressive Puppy only uses the word "haters" to describe individuals, advocacy groups, or religious denominations that knowingly lie in order to smear LGBT citizens.  (Examples:  Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown of NOM are haters.  OK Rep. Sally Kern is a hater.  Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is a hater.  The Two Ricks, Perry and Santorum, are haters.  Donald and Tim Wildmon are father/son tag team haters.  The leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention are haters.)  These homobigots realize that they're spreading misinformation about committed same-sex couples.  They are aware that they're breaking the 9th Commandment by bearing false witness against their neighbors, but they do this willingly for two reasons:  One, they believe in the old adage;  "The ends justify the means."  And secondly, perhaps more to the point, seasoned propagandists and Religious Right zealots earn BIG paychecks by fleecing their sheeple.  Fair-minded Americans shouldn't expect them to give up those cash cows anytime soon.

There are few more mean-spirited and deceitful anti-equality orgs in the country than Washington's Family Policy Institute, led by homo-obsessed Christian extremist Joseph Backholm (picture above).  FPIW squandered $200,000 of its donors' hard-earned money to defeat Referendum 71, which merely added a few basic civil rights to domestic partnerships.  The referendum passed by a wide majority.

Carlos Maza writes on Equality Matters:  Although FPIW presents itself as a typical “pro-family” organization, the group openly promotes anti-gay propaganda has ties to some of the country’s most notorious anti-gay hate groups.  On its website, FPIW offers visitors a number of “Marriage Legislation Resources” explaining “why you should care” about the threat posed by marriage equality. The page links to a number of documents containing typical anti-equality talking points, including a list of classic horror stories about gay marriage and religious liberty.  Also included in the “Resources” page is an article by George Dent – Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University – titled “No Difference?: An Analysis Of Same-Sex Parenting.” The article contains a number of anti-gay smears, including the myth that homosexuals molest children at higher rates than heterosexuals.  (Below are a few sickening blurbs from that pdf document:)

The claim that living with a same-sex couple does not affect a child’s sexuality is implausible. It would be surprising indeed if children’s own sexual identities were unaffected by the sexual identities of their parents.  (This assertion is really ignorant.  Gay and lesbian youngsters of my generation - and I blush to admit I'm referring to the sixties - were all raised by moms and dads in a traditional family structure.  So why didn't our folks' heterosexuality make us straight?)  The tendency of male homosexual acts to spread disease may help explain the revulsion many people feel about them.  Lesbians also suffer high rates of certain diseases and drug abuse. Homosexuals also have higher rates of suicide, mental illness, and drug and substance abuse.  (All of these spurious claims are linked to a discredited researcher/clinician named Paul Cameron who was thrown out of the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for his unceasing ethical violations and for misrepresenting the findings of legitimate scientists.)  Every child raised by a gay male couple has at least one unrelated male adult in the home. There is no reason to think that such a child will fare better than a child living with an unrelated heterosexual male. The high rates of child sex abuse among homosexuals and bisexuals are also a cause for concern.  (This is perhaps the vilest lie of all, and anybody with an LGBT friend or family member knows it to be false.)

FPIW directs its readers to the websites of similar SPLC-designated hate groups.  Bigotry loves company.

Gay Kids Still Living in Hell (and Dying) at Anoka-Hennepin

Thanks to the efforts Christian conservatives, the abuse never stops.

In One Town's War On Gay Teens, Rolling Stone Magazine offers an in-depth look at the Anoka-Hennepin School District (Republican Michele Bachmann's beloved alma hater mater) and how religion-fueled bullying, cavalierly dismissed by board members and ultraconservative educators, leads to the suicides of so many LGBTQ youngsters. In the midst of these sadly preventable tragedies (and the relentless bullying that preceded them), a handful of students had attempted to form a Gay-Straight Alliance Club - but of course that idea was shot down by local pastors and school administrators.  From there, circumstances quickly deteriorated ...

Sabrina Rubin Erderly writes in the article:  Sam's death lit the fuse of a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of nine local students in under two years, a rate so high that child psychologist Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the Minnesota-based Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, declared the Anoka-Hennepin school district the site of a "suicide cluster," adding that the crisis might hold an element of contagion...  At churches like First Baptist Church of Anoka, parishioners believe that homosexuality is a form of mental illness caused by family dysfunction, childhood trauma and exposure to pornography – a perversion curable through intensive therapy.  It's a point of view shared by their congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has called homosexuality a form of "sexual dysfunction" that amounts to "personal enslavement."

Erderly observes that when the district's sex-ed curriculum was being considered in 1994, born-again evangelicals infiltrated the review committee and decreed that tolerance for students who identified as gay was "an insidious means of promoting homosexuality."  Sanctimonious and inflexible, the decision-makers at Anoka-Hennepin devised the district's now-infamous "No Homo Promo" policy, which effectively paints targets on the backs of LGBTQ kids and provides anti-gay bullies with tacit encouragement and scripture-based motivations. 

In response to the actions of this tight-knit community, the Southern Poverty Law Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five students, alleging that the current policies on gay, lesbian, and transgender teens are not only discriminatory but also foster an environment of hatred and prejudice.  "The Department of Justice has begun a civil rights investigation as well. The Anoka-Hennepin school district declined to comment on any specific incidences but denies any discrimination..."  (That's what holy hypocrites do.  They deny their bigotry.)

In situations like this, the worst offenders can usually be found spitting venom from behind pulpits or trumpeting propaganda beneath the GOP's circus tent.  As progressives know, politics these days - particularly Republican politics - are so intertwined with religious dogma that the two are virtually indistinguishable.  Notes Erderly:  Though Bachmann doesn't live within Anoka-Hennepin's boundaries anymore, she has a dowdier doppelgänger there in the form of anti-gay crusader Barb Anderson...  Her agenda mimics that of Focus on the Family (including) promoting prayer in public spaces, "defending marriage" by lobbying for anti-gay legislation, and fighting gay tolerance in public schools under the guise of preserving parental authority...  The policy became unofficially known as "No Homo Promo" and passed unannounced to parents and unpublished in the policy handbooks; most teachers were told about it by their principals.  Teachers say it had a chilling effect and they became concerned about mentioning gays in any context.  Discussion of homosexuality gradually disappeared from classes. "If you can't talk about it in any context, which is how teachers interpret district policies, kids internalize that to mean that being gay must be so shameful and wrong," says Anoka High School teacher Mary Jo Merrick-Lockett. "And that has created a climate of fear and repression and harassment."   (I hope you'll take the time to read the entire piece.) 

There are few things more despicable than religious zealots who loathe gay, lesbian, bisexual and non-gender normative youths so much that they gleefully set the stage for ostracization, verbal harassment, and physical assault.  Then they sit back and enjoy the Theatre of Suicides they've produced and directed.  This they do in Jesus' name - or so they delude themselves into believing.

Pictured Top:  Anoka-Hennepin School Superintendent Dennis Carlson, editorial cartoon courtesy Adam Zyglis
Pictured Middle:  Homobigot Barb Anderson and Michele Bachmann caricature via Donkey Hotey @ Flickr

Anti-Evolution Puppets and the Drowsy Televangelist (videos)

In the first video, born-again Christian puppets attempt to sing away evolution while telling the Garden of Eden story with some creepy animated cartoons.  (I suspect this is a huge hit with home-schooled conservatives.)  Next to that, you'll see a pastor who is so boring he actually brags about putting himself and his audience to sleep.  Really, watching this guy will affect you like twenty milligrams of Valium.

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(Hat Tip: The American Jesus)