Culture Warriors category archive

Republicans’ pervy fascination with the sex lives of others fuels an active fantasy life.

Shorter Bill Cosby (and many many others): “But she really wanted it.”

Yeah, Bill (and many many others). Keep telling yourself that.

I’m not big fan of Amanda Marcotte. I think that she often sacrifices truth to polemic. My scrupulous efforts to remain neutral in these electrons should indicate the degree to which she tickles my skeptic bone.

Nevertheless, I think she is on to something in her attempt to make sense of the embrace by Rand Paul, self-styled sort of glibertarian, of the right-wing religious politics of pervy preoccupation with the sex lives of others. Here’s a bit from her piece at TPM:

In their pure, ideological forms, libertarianism and Christian conservatism do seem at odds. In theory, libertarians should have a hands-off approach when it comes to social issues, not wanting to tread on the individual’s right to get gay-married or have an abortion if he or she wants. In practice, however, many so-called libertarians like Paul are just as rabidly anti-choice and anti-gay rights as their conservative Christian brethren. But politics is often more about optics than policy, and Paul is struggling to gain the trust of evangelicals whose enthusiasm for bringing the government boot down on the neck of gays and women understandably makes them wary of the word “libertarian.”

This problem is made all the more difficult by the fact that Paul is still running a campaign trying to convince younger voters that he’s out to protect their civil liberties, a message that’s hard to convey when you’re simultaneously pandering to religious right voters who want said liberties stripped from gays and women. Paul’s attempts to thread that needle have been largely incoherent, telling religious-right audiences that he’s totally on their side and then turning around and telling others that he doesn’t see attacking abortion or gay rights as a priority.

Then there’s the other, simpler explanation, the one I favor:

A “Libertarian” is a Republican who’s ashamed to admit it.

Some persons wrap their prejudices in the flag; others wrap theirs in the cross. Some use both as packaging. When you see such packaging, though, it’s a fairly safe bet that truth-in-labeling has naught to do with it.

Look closely and you can peer through the camouflage. Neil Elliott, responding to an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, does just that. A snippet:

Pence (the writer of the column to which Elliott responds–ed.) would, I presume, be shocked — shocked! — to find himself compared to racist groups. After all, he counts himself among the benevolent white Christians who “sent clergymen to march­— and then . . . federal troops to protect” after the racist bombing of a church that killed four black girls in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. But perhaps he forgets that the Birmingham bombers were themselves Christian extremists, disaffected from the Ku Klux Klan, who felt empowered by a righteous cause, one of them invoking “the Lord” and “Judgment Day” at his sentencing.

The unreflective racism is just beneath the surface. Pence writes of our nation’s “Christian heritage,” but is especially concerned to excoriate President Obama for not galvanizing Americans to holy war. He wants us to unite with “black Christian nations”: Are we, then, a white Christian nation? He writes of “us” finding common cause even with “the brown-skinned neighbors who have been growing our food and roofing our houses for the last half-century.” In his mind, do all of us who are neither Christian nor white just cease to be American?

Via Kos.

Badtux cuts to the quick:

In the end, there are no nation lines on the globe when you look at it from outer space. Nations are an invention of Man, not of God, which makes it hilarious that there are so many patriotic “Christians.”

Follow the link.

Thom looks at why “sanctuary cities” came to exist in the first place.

Michael Smerconish, who from time to time displays a level of common sense that belies his label as a “conservative commentator,” explains how Bill Cosby shot himself in the foot through his own hectoring moralizing. Here’s a snippet.

Beyond the legalese, that was the true predicate on which Judge Eduardo C. Robreno based his decision to unseal documents related to a civil suit filed against Cosby 10 years ago.

“This case, however, is not about defendant’s status as a public person by virtue of the exercise of his trade as a televised or comedic personality,” wrote the judge in his 25-page opinion. “Rather, defendant has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, child-rearing, family life, education, and crime.”

Citing precedent, Robreno concluded that Cosby had “thrust himself into the vortex of these public issues” and had “voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.”

Catholic homophobic group unwittingly skewers itself.

Thinking about it, I realize that it’s not unusual for persecutors to see themselves as persecuted. After all, that’s how they justify persecuting.

An Oregon bakery is being ordered to pay damages of $135,000 to a lesbian couple for refusing to make them a wedding cake, Oregon Live reports.

The ruling by the Oregon Labor Commission upheld a previous finding that Sweet Cakes by Melissa had discriminated against the couple based on their sexual orientation, Oregon Live reports.

“Under Oregon law, businesses cannot discriminate or refuse service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot turn customers away because of race, sex, disability, age or religion,” the Bureau of Labor and Industries said in a press release.

The bakery owners, Melissa and Aaron Klein, were ordered to pay Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer $75,000 and $60,000 each, respectively.

They probably look at this as being punished for their convictions. I guess that, in some warped world, bigoted hate sincerely-held can be considered a “conviction.”

It would seem that murder is a family value.

Words fail me. All I have left is profanity.

Tony Norman investigates the scam.

The folks sitting grimly in the corner gnashing their teeth are those most convinced that marriage equality is an affront to everything they hold sacred. As far as they’re concerned, the Supreme Court repudiated several thousand years of civil and religious tradition.

Never mind that most religions once defined marriage in ways that would scandalize even the most tradition-bound American in 2015. You’d be hard-pressed to find a religious tradition that didn’t sanction polygamy, child brides and treating women as property whose market value was determined by a set dowry price, their potential fertility and the perception of how a marriage would help the groom’s social standing.

It’s true that the rituals accompanying marriage ceremonies were designed to encourage the perpetuation of the species, but historically they were also about reinforcing whatever the presiding economic order happened to be.

More traditions at the link.

Via Kos.