Culture Warriors category archive

Warning: Innuendo

Crow wants to know.

If a company can’t govern the sex lives of its female animals even when they are off the clock, does anybody really have the freeberty to worship Jeebus?

Leonard Pitts, Jr., comments on the death of Fred Phelps of “God Hates Fags” fame. A nugget:

Phelps was given the gift, the incandescent miracle, of being alive in this world for over 80 years – and he wasted it, utterly.

If God hates anything, surely God hates that.

Dick Polman considers the legacy of Fred Phelps and draws a surprising conclusion: that his bigotry and hate-full-ness rebounded against itself. A snippet (emphasis added):

Phelps and his followers – including some of his kids, who are still very much alive (one daughter has said that our soldiers are worse than al Qaeda because they’re “fighting for same-sex marriage”) – have been so unhinged and hateful that they’ve actually done gay Americans a big favor. They’ve reduced the anti-gay mission to a pitiful cartoon, baring its cruelest primitivism, demonstrating what intolerance really looks like when all the euphemisms are stripped away.

Chauncey Devega finds the appeal of George Zimmerman’s autograph to be disturbing; I must say, he has a point.

Here’s a snippet–he does not mince words:

Zimmerman’s autograph is a way for his fans and public to idolize him.

Zimmerman’s signed photo is also a way for his supporters to be closer to him, and to “own” part of his “success” and “power”.

The autograph of George Zimmerman, a man who is “famous” only because he stalked, hunted, and killed an unarmed black teenager, is for those who seek it, a validation of their right to kill and murder at will those people that they deem to be the Other and somehow “less than”. The South’s hyper-masculine and racialized norms of honor both legitimate and sustain such logic.

Do read the rest.

That phrase (which, when parsed, turns out to be meaningless but important-sounding jibber-jabber) seems to be the latest wingnut word salad for defending the mistreatment of persons they don’t like.

Via C&L.

There is no question that, if Sigmund Freud came back, he would think up a whole batch of new conditions and complexes in an attempt to explain Republicans’ skeevy preoccupation with sex, women, and women and sex.

Addendum:

More family values here.

Tony Norman reflects on teabagger nostalgia. A nugget:

Before the civil rights movement challenged the status quo, America was dominated by white males. Those in power subscribed to laissez-faire economics, a muscular foreign policy that sought to expand markets overseas, a knee-jerk accommodation to corporate power and a toothless Christianity that preached contempt for the poor.

Racial and religious minorities, women and homosexuals were relegated to the margins of society or reduced to second-class status in their homes. Even children were considered just a notch or two above property.

This is the era that commentator Pat Buchanan and his terminally nostalgic colleagues at Fox News think of as “the good ol’ days.”

Read the rest.

Patriotism aside, a South Bay high school worried about campus safety was within its legal rights to order a group of students wearing American-flag adorned shirts to turn them inside out during a 2010 Cinco de Mayo celebration, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The U. S. Flag Code is considered guideline, not law. I assume that is why the story and, I guess, the ruling do not mention that the Flag Code forbids wearing the flag or representations of the the flag as clothing, with the exception of a small patch on athletic uniforms.

Standing at the confluence of ignorance and jingoism, the flag-wearers announced their intent to appeal.

Treating the flag with disrespect is a poor way to parade one’s patrio–oh, never mind.

Witchcraft strips the conscience bare.

In related news news of the crafty, Christine O’Donnell, who assures us that she is not a witch (she certainly failed to bewitch Delaware!) returns because everyone needs some chuckles.

Chris Hayes and his guests discuss how political hate scams get pulled off and how “economic conservatives play social conservatives for suckers.”

A local candidate in Florida does not think her opponent is Godly enough, or worships the correct flavor of God, or something.

To which I say, “Matthew 6:5”.

. . . Arizona seeks help from Dear Abby.

Via Delaware Liberal, which adds commentary you should read.

Also, Josh Marshall has a wonderful post which deserves a read.

Stay classy, Virginia Republicans.