Culture Warriors category archive

Thom wonders about the paradox.

When Maryland merchants talk about the recent legalization of same-sex marriage, they sometimes talk of broad, lofty themes: Equality. Justice. Civil rights.

But there’s another practical concept at work: Dollar signs.

The financial motivation was on display Sunday at the second annual Gay and Lesbian Wedding Expo at the Tremont Suites Hotel & Grand Historic Venue in downtown Baltimore, where dozens of vendors competed for the attention of dozens of couples whose weddings now carry the official blessing of the state of Maryland.

How long until the “reality” show? Tentative title, “My Big Fat Gay Wedding.”

This one:

(New Mexico–ed.) House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence.”

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime,” the bill says.

(snip(

“The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” he said. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“

The bill is considered unlikely to pass, but it serves well to illustrated the perverse and perverted view that some Republicans have of women: that they are good for only one thing.

This reduces the human victim of the crime to an evidence incubator.

Philip Roth wouldn’t have made this up and Krafft-Ebing (we’re back in that territory again) would not have believed it.

Via Balloon Juice.

Among other details, she is an American citizen, daughter of American citizens. But, apparently, she didn’t look like one to the cops.

Born in Mexico but living in America since age 2, Angelica Davila said she was shocked in 2011 to find herself in the Allegheny County Jail, on suspicion of being an illegal alien.

“I had never been in trouble,” Ms. Davila said in an interview. Her thoughts, as she tried to sleep on a holding cell floor: “Am I going to be taken back to Mexico? Is my car going to be taken away from me?”

(snip)

Reggie Shuford, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which is providing the legal muscle for the lawsuit, called her case “a blatant example of ethnic profiling. … The police questioned her status only because of her ethnicity and that of her passenger.”

Details at the link.

Show your spirit of kindness.

Harass someone for being different today.

It fits right in with what Paul Thagard says about “motivated ignorance.” A nugget:

In addition to this individual impact, motivated inference also operates systematically at the social level. The book Merchants of Doubt (by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway) describes how some businesses, governments, and even scientists have worked to maintain ignorance about strategic defense, acid rain, the ozone hole, the risks of tobacco and secondhand smoke, global warming, and pesticides. The study of culturally induced doubt or ignorance has been dubbed “agnotology”. The philosophy book Race and the Epistemologies of Ignorance (edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana) explores how different forms of ignorance linked to race are produced and sustained.

Read the rest.

Use text messages.

Last month, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia expanded a system in which it sends Saudi men text messages, known as SMS, to notify them when their wives or other “dependents” leave the country, as part of its regulations requiring women to obtain permission from their guardians to travel. In a twist that proves technology’s power, Manal al-Sharif, the woman who in 2010 launched a campaign to obtain for women the right to drive, used Twitter to inform the world of the story.

A San Diego-area school system has made yoga sessions available for students, with a goal of mild exercise, stress relief, and relaxation.

Some parents aren’t happy.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination.

They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

If doing the plough is enough to undermine the faith of the children, that faith is as sad and puny as the parents’ fearfulness is great.

And nigh and nigh and nigh.

At the Guardian, Ted Harrison looks back at the continual failure and resurgence of those who think it’s all over. A nugget:

Deciding where to wait is crucial to end-timers. Some of the followers of William Miller in 1844 sat on top of their homes, so that when they were raptured heavenwards they would not crack their heads on the ceiling. Others watched for the dawn on mountain-tops expecting Christ to appear in his glory with the rising sun.

(snip)

History shows that if a date comes and goes uneventfully, it’s not the end of the world, so to speak. After their disappointment, the Millerites grew and thrived. Today, their millions of religious descendants are better known as Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Via Raw Story.

From Contradict Me (warning: uncomfortable, bluntly-worded facts off the port bow).

Via Contradict Me.

“That’s not a twit. This is a twit.”

Be careful what you “like”:

Indian police said Monday they had arrested a woman for criticising on Facebook the total shutdown of Mumbai after the death of politician Bal Thackeray, as well as a friend who “liked” the comment.

The pair were due to appear in court later in the day charged under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, said Police Inspector Shrikant Pingle in the town of Palghar north of Mumbai.

“The two women will be produced in a local court later this afternoon. They are being charged for hurting religious sentiments,” he told AFP.

I have no comment on whether Petraeus’s frat-boy conduct should have cost him his job, but the fuss does seem an eerie counterpoint to my post of several days ago.

Friends and family members have had lives torn by straying spouses. Consequently, I have little sympathy for him or his paramour, except to remind them of how quickly the Great Secret Love turns into the Sordid Public Scandal.

For some good, clean fun, though, try this:

When a politician or a pundit–especially a pol–defends or attacks Petraeus or his emploment status, check his or her positions on Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

I have only one expectation: You will find some pretzel logic and a more than a few giggles.

Under the guise of a column about electoral tactics, David Brooks blames the Republican loss on American citizens who don’t think like David Brooks.

It is a sun-glint wave with an undertow of xenophobia.

The Booman offers a more accurate analysis.

How is this not ritualized sadism hiding in a cassock?

An open letter to “certain conservative politicians.

It’s rough stuff, but it’s spot on.

Via the Booman Tribune.

You’ve heard of the “Occupy Movement”?

Republicanism is the “Preoccupied Movement.”

In the Guardian, Jill Filipovic explores this preoccupation. A snippet:

Underlying the Republican rape comments and actual Republican political goals are a few fundamental convictions: first, women are vessels for childbearing and care-taking; second, women cannot be trusted; and third, women are the property of men.

And, now, the taxonomy:

Via Dick Destiny.a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/real-republican-party-rape-platform”