Answers That Would Earn You an “F” in Science Class

Rep. Rick Brattin of Missouri has submitted a new anti-evolution bill in the Missouri legislature.  Ed Brayton has the details, and commentary on it over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and I urge you to go have a read.  I really have nothing to add, I just wanted to point out these two definitions Brattin included in the bill.  If I would have given either of these as an answer in my 9th grade biology class, Mr. Stevens would have sarcastically called me a “star” and failed me.  It would be funny, if they weren’t in an actual bill submitted to the state legislature.

(7) “Hypothesis”, a scientific theory reflecting a minority of scientific opinion which may lack acceptance because it is a new idea, contains faulty logic, lacks supporting data, has significant amounts of conflicting data, or is philosophically unpopular. One person may develop and propose a hypothesis;

(9) “Scientific theory”, an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy. The inferred explanation may be proven, mostly proven, partially proven, unproven or false and may be based on data which is supportive, inconsistent, conflicting, incomplete, or inaccurate. The inferred explanation may be described as a scientific theoretical model;

The newest tactic of creationists.  Don’t like the meaning of a term?  Redefine it!

No Health Insurance, But At Least I Still Have My Dignity

I am not a happy Foster this morning.  I am, however, apparently still a Foster with his dignity.

According to the Altoona Mirror, Gov. Tom Corbett (R- Pennsyltucky) has decided that Pennsylvania will not be taking part in the upcoming expansion of Medicaid.

…Gov. Tom Corbett has misgivings about the Medicaid program. In his budget address Tuesday, he said he wouldn’t expand it here, as the federal government has invited states to do, until there are program reforms and clarifications.

Am I shocked?  Of course not.  As a single male member of the working poor, I’ve been following this issue pretty closely, since it directly affects me.  My income puts me over the medicaid limit currently, yet under the expanded medicaid program I would be eligible.  While I was hopeful that Gov. Corbett would approve the expansion, since he has been pretty indecisive about it up until now, he is a member of the GOP and is as conservative as he can get away with in PA.  (For example, Voter ID.)

So Corbett’s decision did not come as a great surprise.  In fact, it actually left me kind of hopeful, since he didn’t come right out and say that PA would not be taking part in the expansion, period.  He left the door open at least.  As little as I can stand Corbett, he is not actually the cause of Foster’s bad morning.

Who is, you may ask?  Let’s take a closer look at the above linked article (Bolding is mine as always):

To illustrate his opposition to an expansion of Medicaid in Pennsylvania, Dr. Zane Gates – founder of two free clinics in the region that help the working poor – told a story from his childhood.

He was shopping at the A&P in Eldorado, near Evergreen Manors housing project where he grew up, when he saw a classmate.

Instead of checking out, Gates walked around the store until the classmate left, before handing over his food stamps for groceries.

Modern Medicaid is like food stamps because it generates embarrassment – “it takes a lot of people’s dignity away” – largely because the program’s low reimbursements cause providers to refuse service to cardholders, Gates said this week.

Thank you, Dr. Gates.  Thank you for caring so much about my dignity.

And fuck off.

Yes, Dr. Gates.  Some places do not accept medicaid because of the low reimbursements.  But some places do.

Do you know what hurts my dignity, Dr. Gates?  Having 8 teeth, and not being able to get them out so I can get dentures because I don’t have 2000$.  If I had medicaid, perhaps I couldn’t go to my preferred provider.  But I could go somewhere, and I wouldn’t have had to learn to hold my jaw just right so no one can tell how bad my teeth are.  Hell, perhaps I could even smile.  Now that I think of it, smiling is a bit undignified.  Looking out for me again, Dr. Gates.

What else hurts my dignity?  How about not having an annual check-up for the last 15 years?  Or are physicals undignified?

Not going to the doctor when I am sick.  Sure helps my dignity.  Or spending a large fraction of my paycheck, which I don’t have to spare, on the doctor when I have no choice.

Of course, maybe I am lucky enough to have access to a free clinic, like the ones you operate.  Lucky me!  Free clinics are oh so dignified.  Of course, I still have to pay for my prescription.   Almost forgot about that!  If covered by medicaid, my script would cost a 1 to 3 dollar co-pay.  Much more dignified for me to stand at the pharmacy counter asking what each prescription costs, counting my money, trying to figure out which ones I can do without.

Some people live in the real world:

Program advocates said it’s crazy to refuse the invitation, which includes a federal promise to pay – temporarily – almost all the costs of expanding enrollment from 100 percent of federal poverty to 133 percent.

“It’s a tragedy if the state doesn’t,” said Dr. Deborah Baceski, who runs a free medical clinic in Somerset.

“It would truly be an act of fiscal malpractice for the governor to reject Medicaid expansion,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

….

“It’s a no-brainer,” he said.

….

Medicaid is imperfect, but it isn’t the dignity-robbing program Gates imagines, according to Pollack.

Surveys of Medicaid recipients in recent years – including a Harvard researcher’s study of Oregon residents – show the program “makes a huge difference in giving people true access to care,” Pollack said.

It also has a high satisfaction rating, he said.

“Things have changed,” Pollack said, referring to Gates’ experience with the food stamp program decades ago.

But FREE CLINICS!!!!!

Gates believes that a reasonable alternative to Medicaid expansion is expansion of the free clinic model he pioneered with Buffalo insurance broker Patrick Reilly.

Corbett’s budget includes $5 million for clinics – including some for hospitals to reproduce the Gates-Reilly model.

But REALITY!!!!

Pollack thinks that’s wishful thinking.

Clinics do good work, but they can only be “a drop in the bucket” compared to the comprehensive reach of Medicaid, said.

Free clinics like the ones Dr. Gates has opened are great.  They do good things.  But they are not medicaid.  They are not health insurance.

So fuck Dr. Gates.  And fuck my dignity while we’re at it.

I rather have Medicaid.

 

Your Congress in Action

I feel your pain, Phil.

Phil Plait has an article at Slate today that should cause every rational persons head to smack off their desk at least once while reading.  The resulting headache is not the fault of everyone’s favorite bad astronomer, however, rather the blame lies with one Republican Rep. Dan Burton, who represents Indiana and the lunatic fringe.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing trying to look into the cause and prevention of autism. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) launched into a several-minute diatribe (beginning at 12:58 in the video above) that starts off in an Orwellian statement: He claims he’s not antivax. Then he launches into a five-minute speech that promotes long-debunked and clearly incorrect antivax claims, targeting mercury for the most part. Burton has long been an advocate for quackery; for at least a decade he has used Congressional situations like this to promote antiscience.

In the latest hearing, Burton sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theorist, to be honest, saying he knows—better than thousands of scientists who have spent their careers investigating these topics—that thimerosal causes neurological disorders (including autism). He goes on for some time about mercury (as does Rep. Dennis Kucinitch (D-Ohio) starting at 21:44 in the video), making it clear he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. For example, very few vaccines still use mercury, and the ones that do use it in tiny amounts and in a form that does not accumulate in the body.

Talking about the danger of mercury in vaccines is like talking about the danger of having hydrogen—an explosive element!—in water. It’s nonsense.

I won’t go further into details, because this shameful travesty of truth and medical health goes on for an hour.

Go ahead over to Slate and read the whole piece.  Then go to Forbes and read Steven Salzberg’s article on this farce.

Sorry, no snark here.  Like Phil, this just pisses me off.

Go.

Read.

 

Lying, or “A Jaw-Dropping Deficit in Self-Awareness”: You Make the Call

I admit that watching people attempt to get past sumo wrestlers while walking through a model of their intestines is damn good television.  The being said, no amount of sumo wrestlers, fake body waste, large scale mock ups of human anatomy, and heavily edited clips of Dr. Steven Novella will ever justify the existence of The Dr. Oz Show.  Unlike many television doctors, Dr. Oz is a real doctor, and quite a good one from everything I hear.  Unfortunately, his show, like its parent show Oprah, is a welcoming home to alt-med nonsense and pseudo-scientific quackery.

I believe this is the first time I have mentioned The Dr. Oz Show here, and surprisingly enough, it is not Dr. Oz himself who I take issue with at the moment, but rather guests on his show.  Meet Christopher Doyle and Julie Hamilton, proponents of reparative therapy for homosexuals.  Hamilton and Doyle are sad, my friends, because the evil homosexual activists have distorted the image and intent of reparative therapy, painting its supporters as anti-gay or homophobic.  Nothing could be farther from the truth, say Hamilton and Doyle.  Just because they support using therapy to stop someone from being gay doesn’t mean they are anti-gay.  Warren Throckmorton explains:

Yesterday on the Dr. Oz Show, Christopher Doyle and Julie Hamilton presented reparative therapy as one option for people with “unwanted same-sex attractions.” They also portrayed their position as accepting of GLBT people and urged unconditional love in response to young people who experience attraction to the same sex. At one point, Doyle sounded angry and shouted from the audience that a panelist was misrepresenting his position on the subject of acceptance.

My God, you monsters have made poor Mr. Doyle angry.  I am sure he would assure you that he is completely accepting of homosexuality, even while conducting therapy intended to “cure” the homosexual of his/her sexual preference.   Wait a second…

the definition of reparative therapy includes a theory of homosexuality that makes same-sex attraction the result of family dysfunction or childhood sexual abuse. On the program, Hamilton and Doyle seemed to apply their theory to only those men and women they see in counseling. However, when one reads reparative therapy literature, it is clear that they see all homosexual attraction as stemming from dysfunction of one kind or another.

Okay, they think homosexuality is dysfunctional and think it can be cured through therapy.  They obviously do not think homosexuality is normal or desired.  In their eyes, it is aberrant behavior.  So why are they so sad and angry?

When one of the panelists (Brad Lamm I believe) said that reparative therapists stigmatized gay youth, Doyle protested that his position was being misrepresented. However, in a 2010 WorldNetDaily article titled “Warning to Homosexual Youth: It Gets Worse“, Doyle’s stance was exactly as Lamm described.

Breaking News!  Up is down.

At 2:45 in this clip (videos from Dr. Oz’s site cannot be embedded; click the link to watch) GLSEN’s Eliza Bayard expresses the fact that reparative therapy by definition implies that there is something about the same-sex attracted person that needs to be changed. At 2:52, the camera moves to Julie Hamilton who is shaking her head in disagreement with Bayard.

She then says she agrees with Bayard and says at 3:10:

Reparative therapy does not tell children that there is something wrong with them.

At that point Bayard and another panelist rightly interrupt Hamilton and ask how she can suggest that reparative therapy is not trying to fix an illness or a wound. In the next clip, Hamilton says that as a starting point, reparative therapy tries to help people be more comfortable with themselves.

Black is white!

Hamilton’s denial of the essential tenets of reparative therapy is astounding. Until he was corrected by me in 2006, Joseph Nicolosi, one of the founders of reparative therapy, told Love Won Out audiences that homosexuality is a gender identity disorder. In his newest book, Nicolosi continues to claim that homosexuality is the result of faulty parenting. Hamilton in an article on the NARTH website paints a picture of normal, healthy development and then says gays don’t experience that:

So, what happens in the development of gender identity that might lead a child to have same-sex attractions? Typically, for this child, there is something that prevents him from attaching to the father. Either he does not have a father or a father figure, or he does not have a father who he perceives as safe and/or welcoming.

In 2009, Hamilton co-edited a book called Handbook of Therapy for Unwanted Homosexual Attractions: A Guide to Treatment. In it, Nicolosi’s chapter on the meaning of same-sex attraction has this to say:

The homosexually oriented man typically carries a deep sense of shame for his strivings to make a connection with the masculine. On some level, he believes he is defective, insignificant, and depleted in his masculinity. Homosexual acting-out seems to promise reparation of those negative feelings, i.e., attention, admiration, and masculine reassurance, adding with it the reassurance that he truly does possess a worthy male body. (p. 37)

Also in this chapter, Nicolosi contrasts the “true self” (heterosexuality) with the “false self” (homosexuality). This chapter makes it very clear, in contrast to what Hamilton said on Dr. Oz, that reparative theory does tell people that something is wrong with them. Perhaps the therapist does not use those exact words and say, “there is something wrong with you,” but given what these therapists do teach, it is no wonder that Hamilton got a shocked reaction from her opponents.

Reparative therapy isn’t anti-gay!

Throckmorton finishes his post with this message for the therapists:

If Doyle and Hamilton really believe that their theory only covers a small subset of same-sex attracted people then the burden is on them to explicitly reject their past statements and writings which indicate they believe all homosexuality is the result of dysfunctional parenting or abuse. If they really believe that GLBT people can live healthy, functional lives, then they need to explicitly reject much of what is on the NARTH and PFOX websites and make clear statements to that effect. Until then, their claims will continue to fall on skeptical ears.

Of course, Throckmorton is obviously a homosexual atheist, right?

I have taken a strong position against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. I co-founded a Facebook group (with Andrew Marin and now archived) which brought together over 16,000 members to speak out in opposition to the bill. About my involvement in that effort, author Jeff Sharlet  said, “Throckmorton, a former leader in the “cure the gays” movement, has fought the bill harder and more effectively than any other American.” Scott Lively said, “Throckmorton is a snake.”

I also write for Religion Dispatches, Huffington Post and Crosswalk.com.

My academic work has been published by journals of the American Psychological Association, the American Mental Health Counseling Association and the Christian Association for Psychological Studies.

I am on the Clinical Advisory Board of the American Association of Christian Counselors.

Or maybe he is a highly respected Associate Professor of Psychology, a Christian, and a former practitioner of reparative therapy until his views changes due to science and experience.  Same difference, right?

 

 

 

 

Exposed: Obama’s Sooper Sekrit Skeem!!!

The jig is up, Mr. Obama.  (If that is your real name.  I’m sure it is really something more Kenyany.)

You may have succeeded in conning a majority of the country into believing you were born in Hawaii instead of Kenya, duping the fools into thinking you are a Christian rather than the Muslim you obviously are, even fooling the dupes into accepting your sham marriage to Michelle (secretly a KGB agent, but that is for another post) to cover up your murderous homosexual past.  But now you have gone too far, stepped over the line, crossed a bridge too far, and other assorted metaphors.  Frank Porter Stansberry has you dead to rights, and once the God fearing American people break away from the liberal media machine and hear the truth, the cries for your impeachment will be impossible to ignore.

Both Mother Jones and Ed Brayton are already attempting to discredit Stansberry’s revelation, which shows how absolutely terrified the liberal/communist/Nazi/Islamic/demonic cartel are that the people will hear the truth.  When they employee character assassins like Mother Jones and known Satanists like Brayton, you know they are scared.

Mr. Stansberry, you are a true patriot, and Foster Disbelief will help you spread the word!  (Click the link for the slideshow explaining Obama’s sinister scheme.  Seriously, click it!  Click it now!!!! )

Did you click it?

Are you finished laughing?

No?  Need a few more minutes?

While you compose yourself, I’ll let Mother Jones explain the plan to those who didn’t click the link.

Barack Hussein Obama is hatching a secret plot to pull off the ultimate power grab: securing himself a third term in the White House.

At least that’s the narrative being spun by right-wing conspiracy theorists, who seem to believe Obama is modeling his presidency after fictional Nixon in Watchmen.

Among the main proponents of this theory—which comes in several different flavors—is Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a publishing firm that hawks financial advice—and has a history of promoting dubious claims. Even before the president won reelection, the company began blasting out emails to subscribers of various conservative newsletters, warning of the coming third term of Obama. The emails went out as paid advertisements through the right-leaning Townhall.com, Newsmax, Human Events, and Gingrich Marketplace (a spokesman for Newt Gingrich and the vice president of Human Events both claimed this email blast was a mistake).

The emails alerted readers to a vague—and somewhat counterintuitive—theory: Some unspecified but major event will lead to an epoch of American economic prosperity. Because it will happen under Obama’s watch, he’ll claim full credit and receive an unprecedented boost in approval ratings, giving him a mandate to demand and subsequently obtain a third term

Confused?  If you would have clicked the link you wouldn’t be!  You’d still be laughing. Here is Mr. Stansberry explaining the future in bullet points:

Using vast new powers, I believe Obama will:

• Greatly increase the size of the Fed’s quantitative easing, leading to massive increases to inflation.

• Seize control of the entire 401k retirement system, forcing Americans to buy more of our government’s risky debt.

• Implement vast new taxes across our economy, as they have already done with the health care program and which they will do next by implementing a national sales tax.

• Continue to expand the welfare rolls by record amounts, buying still more votes, more power and setting the stage for a third Obama term (something I’ll explain in this letter.)

• Reshape our foreign policy, drawing America into partnerships with dictators and socialists around the world.

Moving on:

Other conspiracymongers who have recently jumped on the Obama-third-term-prophecy bandwagon are radio host Alex Jones—who has featured Stansberry on his show—and birtherism promoter and WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah. Over at the conservative forum Free Republic, commenters have ruminated on a related theory. In this scenario, Michelle Obama runs for president in 2016 and wins, thus allowing Barack to run the government as a shadow president. Among the first to prognosticate an Obama power grab was Rush Limbaugh, who was way ahead of the curve: He predicted a third Obama term in the summer of 2009, when the 44th president had just barely moved into the White House

Why aren’t the people listening?  Why do they continue to allow the commie/fascist/Nazi/Islamic/demonic media to lie to them?  Because of free phones and gifts?  Of course, that is part of it.  But it is also because of people like this:

But, just to double check, we asked a few experts about the Obama-third-term theory. “There is nothing in his tenure as president, nothing that we know of him, that indicates that Barack Obama is going to seek a third term,” David Adler, director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, told Mother Jones. “Short of a military coup, the 22nd Amendment stands as an insurmountable obstacle to a third-term president today, and there is no evidence to suggest Obama or his supporters are planning on staging a coup. It’s a right-wing fantasy cooked up to try to frighten Americans.”

A likely story.  These CFNID’s are even attempting to slime true patriots like Frank Porter Stansberry!  (Those bastards!)

Stansberry has something of a checkered past when it comes the claims appearing in his newsletters and online videos. In 2010, he released a similar slideshow called “End of America” (77 minutes long), in which he predicted waves of violence and tumult across the United States and the impending implosion of the American economy—an argument that contradicts the premise of “The Third Term.” In 2003, the SEC filed a complaint against him for pushing false information via his financial newsletter. In 2007, Stansberry (and his investment firm, then called Pirate Investor) was ordered by a federal court to pay $1.5 million in civil penalties and restitution. Stansberry Research did not respond to a request for comment.

It is time to call off the attack dogs, Mr. Obama, and come clean with America.  We are on to you, and we will not be silenced!

By the way, if anyone actually manages to sit through the whole slideshow, could you let me know how long it blathers on for?  Thanks.

I’m Not Saying Wichita, Kansas Jumped the Shark….

But Wichita had their water skis strapped on and there was a shark in the area, so draw your own conclusions.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I bring you this fine example of Democracy Gone Wild!!!

I somehow missed this result from last week’s election. The city of Wichita, Kansas actually passed an ordinance banning the use of fluoride in that city’s drinking water supply. And the organizers of the campaign to enact that ban say they’re now going to reproduce it in other cities and states around the country:

Advocates who led the successful fight against adding fluoride to Wichita’s water say they will work to get their message out across the state and the nation.

Wichita voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal to add fluoride to the city’s water by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin. Although three-fourths of the country fluoridates its water, the anti-fluoride movement is gaining traction across the nation, Jonathan Hall, of Wichitans Against Fluoridation, said after the vote.

“We’re part of the upcoming wave of change,” he said…

Both Mark Gietzen, president of the Kansas Republican Assembly, and Hall said that the anti-fluoride forces plan to continue their efforts.

“We’re definitely going to take this statewide; we’re not going to quit,” Gietzen said.

Fluoride?  Really people?  Fluoride?

I ‘m assuming that my readers tend to be on the skeptical side, so I am not going to insult your intelligence by explaining how absolutely fucking crazy banning fluoride from municipal water supplies is.  It makes anti-vaxxers look like scientists.

I only call attention to this to make a point.  It doesn’t take much for a few people with dedication and a mission to convince a voting majority in a community of anything.  If you see insane ballot questions like this one coming up in your area, write a letter to the editor or do something about it.  The majority of the nation is not scientifically literate.  Sure, Wichita just banned fluoride, which will lead to a few more rotten teeth, but more than likely no serious effects.  But it may be vaccines up for vote next.  Confront pseudoscience where ever you find it.

Seriously, fluoride?

A Message from Denial of Reality Land

The National Organization for Marriage has weighed in on Tuesdays election results:

Brian Brown, president of NOM, put out a statement today saying that they are “disappointed” about losing, but they knew it would be tough because “the four marriage battles [were] occurring in four of the deepest-blue states in America.”

“Our opponents and some in the media will attempt to portray the election results as a changing point in how Americans view gay marriage, but that is not the case,” Brown said. “Americans remain strongly in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The election results reflect the political and funding advantages our opponents enjoyed in these very liberal states.”

John Helmberger, chairman of Minnesota for Marriage, who lives in a similar land, also spoke out:

”We know that God has defined marriage as between one man and one woman, regardless of the efforts of some to overthrow His design,”

Derek McCoy, president of the Maryland Family Alliance, placed the blame on the demon of “political correctness”:

“Today, it’s becoming more politically correct to be in favor of same-sex marriage than marriage that has been around since the beginning of civilization.”

Funny.  No mention of shifting demographics or the overwhelming acceptance of marriage equality by younger voters.  From those comments it doesn’t even look like they are considering the fact that hey, maybe the majority of voters in Maryland, Minnesota,  Maine, and Washington just think everyone should be able to get married.  It is all excuses.  “Political Correctness!”  “They had more money than us!”

NOM?  Maryland Family Alliance?  Minnesota for Marriage?  Other anti-gay marriage crusaders?  Let me spell this out for you.  \

You lost on Tuesday.  Badly.  You didn’t lose because the other side had more money, you didn’t lose because people are frightened of the P.C. police, you didn’t lose because Satan himself sent a hoard of demons to stuff the ballot boxes.  You lost on Tuesday for the same reason you will continue to lose from here on out.  Sure, you may score a victory or two in deep red states, or during a mid-term election when the youth vote doesn’t turn out, but those will be nothing but temporary victories for your side.

You lost because most people know someone in the GLBT community, and they realize that they aren’t depraved sinners, but people like everyone else.  You lost because the recent generations just aren’t that in to denying people rights based on their sexual orientation.  You lost because no matter how much you try to hide your homophobia behind “defense of marriage” language, a persons sexual orientation just isn’t as big of a deal to most people as it is to you.  You lost because allowing same-sex marriage does absolutely nothing to degrade or cheapen heterosexual marriage.  You lost because most people understand that it is not their business what two consenting adults do, who they love, or who they marry.    You lost because you are on the wrong side of history.

In ten years, some of you are going to look back on your recent words and pictures of yourself at anti-gay marriage rallies and hang your head in shame.  Some of you will hold onto your bigotry longer; some until the day you die.    Some of you will indoctrinate your children with your homophobia.  Some of you will be an embarrassment to them like the racist grandfather who won’t shut up around their friends.  Some of your churches will hold tightly to their doctrine on this issue, others will change with society.  Imagine where the Mormon church would be today if they refused to change their teachings about blacks, or if they never would have let go of polygamy.  It may take a while, but eventually most of you will realize what the majority of us have already; that being gay does not make someone a monster, that allowing consenting adults to marry does not open the door to non-consensual marriage scenarios (dogs, kids, whatever), and that denying people rights because of who they are is bigoted, hateful, and wrong.

Move on.

 

 

PA to Poor Women: “F$#% You” PA to Rape Victims: “Prove It.”

Think Progress reports on the State Legislature of my home, Pennsylvania:

A Pennsylvania House bill seeks to limit the amount of TANF assistance that low-income women receive based on the amount of children they give birth to while covered under the program.

Despite the fact that low-income women who give birth to children would logically need increased assistance to care for their larger family, Pennsylvania lawmakers — State Reps. RoseMarie Swanger (R), Tom Caltagirone (D), Mark Gillen (R), Keith Gillespie (R), Adam Harris (R), and Mike Tobash (R) — don’t want their state’s welfare program to provide additional benefits for that newborn.

Why?  Probably because of all those damn welfare cheats that keep pumping out kids so their benefits keep increasing.  Based on my own research, I can confidently state that the PA Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is so generous that by the time you push out kid number six, you live in a McMansion and eat truffle stuffed lobster for every meal.  Kid number 7 brings a personal chef who cooks steaks for your dog every day, and kid 8 bestows a Mercedes or a Lexus for each member of the household of legal driving age.  While I stopped reading at that point, I can only assume that child 9 comes with a butler and limo driver, while the magical 10th rugrat results in your addition to the Forbes 500 list.  Clearly, this is a problem that needs to be dealt with.  Thank God these brave lawmakers are willing to take a potentially politically suicidal hardline against the most powerful special interest group in the nation; the poor.  Someone needs to stand up to those suffering in poverty!  Make food stamps only able to purchase ramen noodles!  Take away the Earned Income Tax Credit if they own a television!  Make them ineligible for LIEAP (Low Income Energy Assistance Program) if they own an air conditioner!  They should have saved that extra heat during the summer for the winter.  Damn poor people, never planning ahead.  If they can’t afford contraception, then they need to stop having sex.  And if they can’t stop having sex (which I am sure they can’t since they are filthy little animals with no self-control.  What other possible excuse do they have for being poor in this land of opportunity?), then perhaps we need to start talking about forced sterilization.  I mean, we already spay and neuter dogs and cats in this country to limit population, and they aren’t anywhere near the problem these lazy, shiftless poor people are to the productive members of society.

Why would poor families need money to raise their poor children?  No social reproduction to see here, move along.  We’re a nation of upward mobility!

And it isn’t like these lawmakers are heartless monsters or anything:

If a woman gives birth to a child who was conceived from rape, she may seek an exception to this rule so that her welfare benefits aren’t slashed,

See?  They care!  Oh, wait.  There is a comma at the end of that quote.  Why do I get a bad feeling that there is going to be a “but” after that comma?

but only if she can provide proof that she reported her sexual assault and her abuser’s identity to the police.

Christ on a fucking pogo stick.  What is this fascination with “legitimate” or “honest” or “forcible” rape?  Is it now a right wing meme that there are droves of women claiming they were raped in order to game the system?  Or is it a preemptive strike against the waves of false claims they expect as they continue to take away women’s rights and punish them for being women?

The language of the bill goes on to note that a sexual assault victim applying for an exemption will be required to sign a statement affirming she understands that “false reports to law enforcement authorities are punishable by law,” and stipulates that Pennsylvania will report any “evidence of false statements or fraud” to the correct department, all the way up to the Attorney General’s office.

“‘Legitimate Rape’: It’s not just about abortion anymore!”  -suggested slogan for the modern GOP

Aside from punishing women who have children — particularly low-income women who may not have reliable access to affordable contraception — the proposed bill perpetrates a dangerous attitude toward survivors of sexual assault. Forcing women to prove the legitimacy of their sexual assault, and warning them about the serious consequences of “crying rape” to cheat the system, puts forth the misguided assumption that victims of sexual violence are not to be believed. Furthermore, countless women choose not to report their rapists to the police because they fear repercussions from their abusers, who could threaten their lives. An estimated 54 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the authorities.

“No abortion, No contraception, No equal pay, No assistance, no problem!  Vote Republican, get back in the kitchen, and make me a sandwich 2012” -another suggested slogan for the modern GOP

I wish I lived in one of these lawmakers districts so I could vote them out of office.  Especially this guy: Tom Caltagirone (D).  Democrats of Berks County?  Time to primary this disgrace.

 

Have I Done a “Wait, What?!?” Recently? Well, Here’s Bryan Fischer to Make Up For It

Before we delve into today’s “Wait, What?!?” I want to talk about signs that someone may possibly be a bigot.  Some of them are fairly obvious; a confederate flag tattoo or bumper sticker, membership in the American Family Association (HA Zing!), an insistence that marriage equality will invariably lead to some guy marrying both his neighbor’s five year old daughter and his cousin’s pet Cockatiel in a church with the Pastor being forced to perform the ceremony by the government, and the use of any form of the phrase “I’m not racist but…” or “Some of my best friends are gay, but…”.

Some bigotry is so well hidden that it would take the brainpower of an attention deficit nine year old on two hours of sleep who forgot to take his medication to ferret out. Take this quote by Bryan “Possibly a Gay Muslim plant intended to make Christians look like bigots” Fischer supporting the suspension of immigration from majority Muslim nations:

…while there are moderate Muslims, no one has yet developed a error-free way to tell the difference between the Muslims we have to worry about and the ones we don’t. Until that day comes, we must be cautious about them all.

Quick, get that nine year old before he falls asleep, and have him replace the word “Muslim” with the word “Christian” and see what Bryan thinks about the new statement.  My crystal ball is in the shop, but I’m willing to place a rather large wager that his response would include a claim of persecution against Christians.  What Bryan “Religious Freedom! As long as you are Christian, that is…” Fischer is never going to admit is that the major terrorist threat currently is from the choir he is preaching to:

Right-wing extremist individuals over the past decade in the United States were as likely to use violence as a means to express their political or social beliefs as those motivated by Osama bin Laden’s ideology.

I mean hey, no one has developed an error-free way to tell the difference between the Christians who would bomb Oklahoma City or shoot an abortion provider in church with the ones who wouldn’t.  So I guess I’ll have to take Bryan’s implied advice and just be cautious about all Christians.  (I think I just sprained my eye from rolling it too much…)

After that long digression, here is today’s “Wait, What?!?”, courtesy of Bryan “Possibly a lusty cockmonster who worships Allah” Fischer and RightWingWatch:

We are importing Muslims from Muslim-majority countries hand-over-fist. We have delegated to the UN the choice of those that come to the Untied States as refugees; we have said to the UN “you pick ’em and we’ll take ’em in.” So what the UN is doing, they are just flooding the United States with Muslims as refugees and they’re distributing all throughout the South. Why are they building that huge mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee? I mean, most of them have never even heard of Murfreesboro, Tennessee? What are they even doing there? Well that’s the United States government importing these Muslim immigrants at the behest of the UN and dropping them in these communities all over the South, deliberately seeding them all throughout the United States.

Um, the reason they are building a”huge mosque” is that Murfreesboro has a Muslim population of 250 families totaling around 1000 people.  Does that answer your ques….

Wait, what?!  The UN is seeding the south with hand picked Muslims?  Muslims are now an imported commodity?    The US Government told the UN “you pick’ em and we’ll take ’em in”?  Is that an actual quote?  Someone call Joe Rogan, because this conspiracy shit just got real!

Gives the term “Southern Strategy” a whole new meaning, does it not?

Bryan “blah blah blah GAY AGENDA blah blah blah SHARIA LAW” Fischer, everyone.  Totally not a bigot.

 

Feel That Christian Love

The Maryland Marriage Alliance is a group opposing the legalization of gay marriage.  They recently held a town hall meeting dealing with Question 6, Maryland’s ballot initiative to legalize same sex marriage.  Here is a clip of Pastor Robert J. Anderson of the Colonial Baptist Church speaking at said town hall meeting.  While watching it, I want you to understand that, as the Baltimore Sun writes, “Until this video surfaced, McCoy and the official opposition to same-sex marriage have been careful to say they do not oppose gays or all gay rights — they just object to extending marriage rights to them.”

The key words in that statement are “until this video surfaced,” because you are about to hear some bigoted homophobic garbage:

Once again, the Baltimore Sun:

Anderson read from a portion of the Bible that refers to homosexuality. “Those who practice such things are deserving of death,” Anderson said, reading from the Bible.

Then he pivoted to the Nov. 6 referendum and said: “If we don’t vote against it we are approving of these things that are worthy of death.” Separately, he also said approving same-sex marriage could “open up a back door” to legalizing prostitution, incest and bestiality.

So here we have the standard “slippery slope” fallacy.  Then the “abomination” line that anti-gay marriage crusaders normally keep for only 100% sympathetic audiences. since it makes them look like bigots to the portion of the population that are not religious zealots.  But “abomination” doesn’t quite go far enough for Pastor Anderson, so he reaches for the writings of Paul and pulls out the “worthy of death” trump card from Romans.  And then, possibly because he saw the camera and wanted to be a Youtube hero to homophobic bigots all over the world, he adds a condemnation of anyone who doesn’t vote against gay marriage as approving things that are deserving of death!

Two things.

First of all, because I am a Bible geek, I have to deal with Romans.  Yes, Romans does touch on homosexual behavior.  But when Paul talks about things that are deserving of death, he is discussing much more than mere homosexuality.  Let’s look at the passage, the bolds are mine.  Romans, Chapter 1, verses 18 to 32:

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

So yes, in verses 26 and 27 Paul does talk about homosexuality as a continuation of verse 24 where he speaks of a more general sexual depravity.  But homosexuality is not the only sin these people Paul says deserve death have committed.  Look at verses 29 to 31.  He isn’t talking about your average homosexual, he is talking about sociopaths with no morality at all.  And what caused this descent into complete depravity?  Is he claiming that homosexual acts turn you into a raving murderer?

Hell no.  Look at verses 18 to 20, verse 21, and verse 28.  The sin Paul is talking about is knowing that God exists yet denying it.   Verse 21 states that they knew God, yet ignored Him, which caused them to fall into sin.  In verse 28 he repeats it again; they didn’t give a shit about God, so God let them fall into sin.  This passage isn’t an indictment of homosexuality.  It isn’t even an indictment of atheism.  Paul is decrying those who believe in God (or claim that belief) yet live their lives like God doesn’t exist.  Those who have had the “truth” revealed to them yet who have chosen to turn away. It is even a stretch to claim homosexual activity is one of the things Paul is claiming deserve death.  In verse 27 Paul has already punished the homosexuals; “Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”  By the time Paul gets to the “deserving death” line, we have started a new paragraph, repeated the main theme (turn your back on God, He turns His back on you), and went through a laundry list of sins; envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, blasphemy, insolence, pride, rebellion, creative evil-doing,  disloyalty, and a lack of love, empathy, and mercy.

Quoting this passage in a speech against homosexuality is a dishonest cherry picking of scripture.

And second, damn, can you feel that Christian love?