Good morning!

Texas, Georgia, Iowa and Boston, “sucks”: I have clicked over and read all of your writes. All I can say is “Sick, sick, and more sick.”

By the way…Arizona sucks too.

Arizona On Steroids

Will the Supreme Court Issue a License to Discriminate?

The nationwide outcry over Arizona’s anti-LGBT law was swift and severe. Amid mounting pressure from leading Republicans in her own state as well as the business community and others, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the law on Wednesday night.

Unfortunately, Arizona is far from the only state where lawmakers are contemplating bills that would give the government, private businesses, and others the a license to discriminate under the guise of “religious liberty.” As Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards wrote yesterday, “this didn’t start with Arizona, and it won’t end with Arizona.”

Indeed, proposals similar to the Arizona law have been introduced recently in states across the country, including Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Kansas, and South Dakota, and Tennessee.

The Missouri proposal was actually introduced in attempt to model the Arizona bill, but the backlash over Arizona helped propel measures in other states to outright defeat or at least has them on ice for the moment.

As bad as these bills are, they pale in comparison to the damage the Supreme Court could do with an erroneous ruling in the upcoming Hobby Lobby andConestoga Wood cases. While these cases are specifically about the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, the High Court could open the floodgates to discrimination in the name of religious belief.

ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser explains how the Supreme Court could essentially impose an Arizona-style law on steroids nationwide:

If this issue sounds familiar, it should, because it’s the exact same issue behind two of the most high profile Supreme Court cases being hear this term — Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius. In both of those cases, for-profit businesses object, on religious liberty grounds, to complying with Obama Administration rules increasing access to birth control. One of the most important questions presented by both cases is whether a for-profit corporation can have religious faith at all, and if so, whether it can use that supposed faith as the basis for a legal claim.

So if the Supreme Court agrees with the plaintiffs in these cases that corporations aren’t just people, but they can also be people of faith, the outcome will be very similar to what would happen if Congress had taken the bill Brewer just vetoed, passed it at the federal level and then President Obama had signed it into law — except, of course, for the fact that no one on the Supreme Court was actually elected to make law.

Last year, some of our Center for American Progress colleagues wrote about the dangerous slippery slope we could all go sliding down if the Supreme Court agrees that corporations are not only people, but people entitled to religious beliefs. Such a decision poses a very real threat to core civil rights protections in this country:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. But if for-profit corporations have religious beliefs, they will be able to argue they have the right to side-step Title VII and, for example, hire only those who sign a “statement of faith” or share the same religious beliefs.

• The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which is part of Title VII, protects against sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, but for-profit corporations may try and use their newly found religious rights to fire unmarried pregnant employees.

• The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, or religion, unless you qualify for certain religious organizations exemptions. If for-profit corporations have religious rights, then property-management firms may argue their religious beliefs do not support certain lifestyles such as living together before marriage. They may choose not to rent or sell to those engaging in the unapproved conduct.

• Many states have public accommodations laws that prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. A holding that a corporation can be exempt from basically any federal law because of its owners’ religious beliefs could lead to similar state law exemptions. (See Elane Photography v. Willock.)

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in these cases on March 25, so the timing of this growing national backlash against discrimination under the guise of religious liberty could not be better. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is frequently the Court’s swing vote, has a long history of supporting LGBT rights, including authoring last year’s historic decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. That decision has nationwide marriage equality barreling back toward the Supreme Court at breakneck speed.

As Millhiser wrote earlier this week, the Arizona backlash could be of tremendous benefit in the upcoming cases:

The last time a conflict between gay rights and religious conservatives reached the Supreme Court, Kennedy broke with his fellow conservatives and sided with gay equality. [...]

But if Kennedy views Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood and a broad attack on the idea that religious employers have to comply with the law, and specifically, with laws protecting gay people, then he is much more likely to uphold the birth control rules.

The plaintiffs’ legal theory in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood would, in the words of a brief filed by attorneys from Lambda Legal, “mark a sea change – not only in allowing business owners’ religious views about family planning to burden decisions employees are entitled to make for themselves, but also in opening the door to similar denials of equal compensation, health care access, and other equitable treatment for LGBT people, persons with HIV, and anyone else whose family life or health need diverges from their employers’ religious convictions.” If birth control loses in Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, it is all but certain that gay rights will be next on the chopping block.

Stay tuned for more on the potential consequences of the Hobby Lobby case.

BOTTOM LINE: Religious liberty is a core American value and progressives believe in religious liberty for all, not just for some. Religious liberty means religious liberty for everyone. And that includes the freedom from having the theological doctrines of your boss or those of business owners in your community being forced upon you.

The Arizona law and the upcoming Supreme Court cases are not really about religious liberty, they are about minority of individuals seeking a license to ignore laws and regulations they disagree with in order to discriminate against LGBT people, women, and others.

*****

So…here is the latest discrimination against women in Arizona:

After Failing To Pass Anti-Gay Bill, Arizona Turns Its Attention To Attacking Abortion Rights

All eyes were on Arizona this past week, after the legislature approved an anti-gay bill that would allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT individuals under the guise of preserving religious liberty. The intense national backlash culminated in Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) decision to veto the legislation. But that doesn’t mean the lawmakers in the Grand Canyon State are putting controversial social issues to rest.

Just one day after Brewer’s widely publicized veto, lawmakers in Arizona advanced new legislation to attack abortion rights. HB 2284, misleadingly named the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” would allow for surprise inspections at abortion clinics to try to catch them violating state law. The measure also stipulates that abortion clinics need to “report whenever an infant is born alive after a botched abortion and report what is done to save that child’s life,” inflammatory language that the anti-choice community often deploys to suggest that some doctors arecommitting infanticide.

HB 2284 is being spearheaded by the Center for Arizona Policy, or CAP, the same right-wing group that was behind the controversial “right to discriminate” bill.

State lawmakers gave the measure preliminary approval on Thursday. “I mean, for goodness’ sake, we even do unannounced inspections of Burger King and McDonald’s, but we’re not allowing them at abortion clinics?” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R), the bill’s sponsor, said during the legislative hearing on the measure.

In reality, Lesko’s legislation is seeking to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist. Abortion is already one of the safest medical procedures in the country, and the clinics that perform these procedures are already highly regulated. There’s no good reason to single out abortion providers for this additional red tape. Enacting these type of laws simply gives abortion opponents the opportunity to triggerstate investigations — and, depending on the political affiliations of the people who serve on state health boards, this can be an avenue to force clinics out of business.

“As an organization, we support bills that truly protect patient safety, but House Bill 2284 opens the door to provider and patient harassment,” Jodi Liggett, the director of public policy for Planned Parenthood Arizona, told ThinkProgress in a statement.

HB 2284 is part of a coordinated strategy to close abortion clinics that’s advancingacross the country. And it’s also a clear reminder that, regardless of Brewer’s recent veto, the fight against “religious liberty” legislation isn’t over. This line of argument is driving efforts to restrict LGBT rights in other states across the country — and it’s directly related to attacks on reproductive freedom, too.

Anti-choice legislation often stems from the same right-wing worldview that rejects LGBT rights. Indeed, those are the two issues that the “pro-life and pro-family” Center for Arizona Policy is primarily concerned about — and HB 2284 is hardly the right-wing group’s first foray into abortion policy. CAP also spearheaded the state’s 20-week abortion ban, a restrictive measure that’s been repeatedlyblocked in court. It was the primary impetus behind another anti-choice law that got thrown out by the courts, an effort to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood because of its affiliation with abortion. Most recently, CAP even threatened to torpedo Medicaid expansion in the state by pushing to defund Planned Parenthood.

On the surface, the state-level push to restrict abortion tends to be framed in terms of “keeping women safe” rather than specifically in terms of religious liberty. But the argument that businesses should have the right to deny services because of their religious beliefs is also doing significant damage to this aspect of women’s health care. For instance, the one in six American patients who are served in Catholic hospitals can’t receive any type of abortion care there, even in cases of dire emergency. This past December, the ACLU sued the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, arguing that those harsh restrictions are forcing hospitals to deliver substandard care to their patients.

This issue extends far beyond Catholic-affiliated institutions. The current legal fight over Obamacare’s contraceptive provision, which allows insured women to have access to birth control at no additional cost to them, is based on the notion that for-profit companies have the “religious liberty” to refuse health care services. And the lawmakers who advocate for abortion restrictions aren’t necessarily shy about articulating their policy positions from an explicitlyconservative religious framework.

“When it comes to attempts to use religion as a cloak for discrimination against the LGBT community and against women’s reproductive rights, the fight isn’t over. We’re seeing these attacks across the country,” Sharon Levin, the director of federal reproductive rights policy for the National Women’s Law Center, told ThinkProgress. “And toward the end of March, at the Supreme Court of the United States, business will be making the same arguments that were made in Arizona — pushing to allow for-profit businesses to evade complying with a law that would require contraceptive coverage.”

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, echoes those sentiments. “This didn’t start with Arizona, and it won’t end with Arizona,” Richards writes in an op-ed recently published in the Huffington Post. “This most recent legislation is part of an orchestrated and radical effort to extend religious liberties to corporations — to treat private businesses like churches under the law, by giving them the right to refuse services, deny health care coverage, and discriminate against people.”

According to Levin, there are important parallels to draw between the recent controversy in Arizona and the broader conservative push to twist religious liberty into something that doesn’t resemble what that term has typically encompassed. That certainly impacts the LGBT community, but also ends up hurting other groups, too.

“Religious liberty is not about harming others and imposing your religion on them,” she noted. “It’s critical to think about, as people did in response to the Arizona bill, about who is really being harmed here and what’s the harm that’s being done. Here, it’s women.”

*****

Readers: Yeah, I’ll say it again, “Arizona Sucks.” What do you have to say? It’s Friday. Start Flapping.

Peace out. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2012

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good morning!

Over a week ago I spoke about the safety, or lack thereof in prisons, for women. Now, I discovered this recent write on the growth of private prisons. States are guaranteeing private prison building corporations that if they build a prison in their states, they will arrest and convict enough people to meet a minimum requirement.

Ok…this is really sick. And what does it say that the emphasis of that state’s justice will be to put you in jail whether guilty or not, rather than convict you for a crime you did convict?

It’s been a long time since I blogged anything about Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Here’s the write From Think Progress:

Nebraska Lawmaker Wants Her State To Stop Paying Private Prisons For Empty Cells

Promising to keep private prison cells full will be illegal in Nebraska if a proposal from state Sen. Amanda McGill (D) becomes law.

McGill, who is running for higher state office this year, has introduced legislation banning the government from guaranteeing payment to private contractors regardless of the level of service the contractor provide. While that may sound so obvious as to be unnecessary, states often make those kinds of promises to corporations when they privatize public services.

The most notorious examples are private prison contracts that guarantee companies like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) a certain minimum occupancy level at prisons, and promise to pay CCA the difference should prison populations sag below that level. Such “lock-up quotas” appear in two-thirds of all prison privatization contracts, according to a report last fall by the anti-privatization group In The Public Interest (ITPI).

McGill’s legislation would ban those kinds of payment guarantees across all state contracts, but is specifically targeted at prison contracts. The bill also would amend the state’s corrections contracting law in a variety of ways to both protect taxpayers and regulate prison companies more tightly.

While attempts to improve prison contracts won’t stop America from being the world’s leading jailer on their own, reforms like the one McGill proposes would help change the incentives that lawmakers and law enforcement officials face. Contracts that force public payments for empty cells give elected officials reason to keep prisons as full as possible, which means criminalizing as many behaviors as possible. The largest driver of America’s incarceration epidemic is the futile, decades-old War on Drugs, but backroom deals with prison companies compound the country’s larger problem.

If laws like McGill’s were to take root across the country, the prison industry would lose one of its biggest arguments in favor of investing in companies like CCA.

Skyrocketing profits aside, the prison industry saw some setbacks last year. In a single month last fall, CCA lost contracts in Idaho, Texas, and Mississippi. The Idaho prison that closed was so violent and brutal that it was nicknamed “Gladiator School,” and CCA juiced its profits there by understaffing the facility, effectively outsourcing prison security to gangs of prisoners.

America spends 2.5 times as much per prisoner as it does per public school student. The country’s incarceration levels help drive economic inequality, and the combination of criminalization and neglect creates a “cradle-to-prison pipeline” for black and latino Americans.

*****

Readers: The last paragraph of the write is shocking isn’t it? Yes, but not surprising. And…OTWs are the ones that have to live with the sick Just-us justice system.

I decided to click over and read more and this is what I found:

States spend on average two and half times more per prisoner than they spend per public school student, this at a time when a majority of children of all racial and income backgrounds cannot read or compute at grade level in fourth- or eighth-grade and huge numbers of youth drop out of schools. The privatization of juvenile and adult prisons is yet another added danger. The world’s largest for-profit, private prison corporation, the Corrections Corporation of America, recently offered to run the prison systems in 48 states for 20 years if the states would guarantee a 90 percent occupancy rate.

And still more:

The rate of incarceration in the United States has spiraled out of control—with nearly 2.3 million people in prison or jail, the rate is now about 240 percent higher than it was in 1980, and 60 per- cent of this population is comprised of nonviolent offenders. Another 4.8 million individuals are on probation or parole, also mostly for nonviolent offenses. This tragic scenario generates a much larger inmate population than that of the 27 nations of the European Union combined and means we, alone, incarcerate nearly a quarter of the prisoners in the entire world. And while cash-strapped states are shutting down institutions that provide important public services such as hospitals and universities, prison expansion is eating up higher percentages of state budgets.

It does not need to be this way. Continued prison expansion has not been a response to an increase in actual crime. In fact, research shows that if incarcera- tion rates tracked violent crime rates, the incarceration rate would have peaked in 1992 and then by 2008 would have fallen back to about the same level it was in 1980. And while it is true that many states have seen decreases in their prison populations, there has still been a rise in the number of immigrant detention facilities, in addition to private prisons, county jails, and gender-specific facilities. The current criminal justice system not only wastes important state dollars that could be spent on vital services, but it also fails to keep the public safe because the system emphasizes punishment rather than rehabilitation.

What’s more, racial disparities in the current criminal justice system are outrageous, leading to a system of racial disenfranchisement and inequality that some argue we have not seen since slavery or its aftermath of codified segregation, Jim Crow. African Americans account for roughly 40 percent of the nation’s inmate population (while comprising only 13 percent of the total population) and Latinos account for slightly less, representing 21 percent of inmates (while being only 16 percent of the popula- tion). Even after offenders are released, they still face a lifetime of exclusion—often insurmountable job discrimination and disqualification from any public benefits that would help them get back on their feet as productive citizens such as food stamps, public housing, and even student loans.

The rampant and disproportionate imprisonment of people of color is a national tragedy.

 *****

Comments? Blog me.

Peace & Love.

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2012

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

Ohh…it was a late one last night. Here’s the write.

Mind The Gap

The Latest Good News On The Minimum Wage

A few weeks ago, we wrote about a number of states around the country that aren’t waiting for Congress to raise their minimum wages. This week brings yet more big news for those of us who believe that raising the minimum wage is a critical step in creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. Here are a few of the top stories:

1. Gap, Inc. Will Raise Its Minimum Wage To $10. The retail clothing chain announced its decision yesterday, which is estimated to affect 65,000 U.S. employees. “To us, this is not a political issue,” GAP Chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy said. “Our decision to invest in frontline employees will directly support our business, and is one that we expect to deliver a return many times over.” Gap joins other chains like Costco, Whole Foods and In-N-Out Burger in embracing higher wages because employees work harder and stay longer after wages increase.

2. Nonpartisan Study Finds Raising Federal Minimum Wage To $10.10 Would Raise Earnings For 16.5 Million Workers. The report, from the Congressional Budget Office, also estimated that the increase would result in $31 billion in more earnings and would lift 1 million out of poverty.

3. Economists Dispute The CBO Estimate That Raising The Minimum Wage Would Cost 500,000 Jobs. The one piece of bad news in the CBO report was its estimate that 500,000 jobs would be lost as a result of a minimum wage increase to $10.10. However, numerous economists who study these impacts have disputed the methodology used. The New York Times Editorial Board, whichsupported raising the minimum wage in the wake of the CBO report, explains in plain language: “The budget office didn’t do its own research on those variables. It surveyed the economic literature on the subject, and chose a figure more conservative than the most recent and rigorous studies have found.”

4. Wal-Mart Announced It Would No Longer Oppose Certain Increases In The Minimum Wage. The largest private employer in the U.S. will not oppose minimum wage proposals as long as they have provisions to “manage the impact,” like a phase-in period, according to their Vice President of Corporate Communications, David Tovar. Tovar also indicated that the company is “looking” at throwing its support behind a proposal.

5. Iowa State Senate Committee Approves Minimum Wage Increase To $10.10 By 2016. A bill to raise the minimum wage in the state cleared this key procedural hurdle yesterday morning by a 7-4 party-line vote. “Nobody that works full time should live in poverty,” State Sen. Jack Hatch said. “This should not be a partisan issue, this is about working people struggling to provide the very basics for their families.”

6. State Lawmakers Will Try To Live Off Of The Minimum Wage For A Week.Five Minnesota lawmakers are raising awareness for the cause by taking the “Minimum Wage Challenge” and living off of a typical budget for a worker who makes the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The challenge allows $5 a day for food and $9 a day for transportation.

BOTTOM LINE: Momentum for raising the minimum wage continues to build. Gap, Inc. is leading the way in showing that higher wages will help, not hurt, businesses. The latest studies show that the benefits of increasing the minimum wage in additional earnings and decreased poverty rates far outnumber the potential costs. And lawmakers in the states continue to work to pass their own laws without waiting for federal action.

*****

Readers: I love posting good news because it means that we are working on things and things are happening. Yes!

So…I’ll end with a little Fashion fun. What does it have to do with today’s write? Absolutely nothing. I just feel like it. :)

So…Did you all watch the Oscar’s last night? “Plunging necklines” were the popular look this year,  and I thought they were simply lovely and some very sexy* too. Here’s some of my faves.

Lupita Nyong’o wins the Oscar for her Performance in “12 Years a Slave,” (Congratulations!) and looks stunning in her plunging Prada gown in a tint of “Nairobi Blue.”

*Charlize Theron in her Ooh La La…far from a LBD, Black Dior dress:

And Kate Hudson is a show stopper in her in her Atelier Versace gown with a draped cape accent:

Readers: What’s on your mind? Money? Fashion? Anything? Blog me.

Happy Monday! xox

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2012

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

Joseph: Your comment reminded me of a write that I just read.

Oprah has her Super Soul Sunday, which I love. This Sunday I decided to post my version of Super Sunday. However my version lacks Soul and is heavy on the Sick.

From Think Progress:

When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

– Judge Leon M. Bazile, January 6, 1959

The most remarkable thing about Arizona’s “License To Discriminate” bill is how quickly it became anathema, even among Republicans. Both 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called upon Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto this effort to protect businesses that want to discriminate against gay people. So did Arizona’s other senator, Jeff Flake. Andformer House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Indeed, three state senators who voted for this very bill urged Brewer to veto it before she finally did so on Wednesday, confessing that they “made a mistake” when they voted for it to become law.

The premise of the bill is that discrimination becomes acceptable so long as it is packaged inside a religious wrapper. As Arizona state Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R) explained, lawmakers introduced it in response to instances where anti-gay business owners in other states were “punished for their religious beliefs” after they denied service to gay customers in violation of a state anti-discrimination law.

Yet, while LGBT Americans are the current target of this effort to repackage prejudice as “religious liberty,” they are hardly the first. To the contrary, as Wake Forest law Professor Michael Kent Curtisexplained in a 2012 law review article, many segregationists justified racial bigotry on the very same grounds that religious conservatives now hope to justify anti-gay animus. In the words of one professor at a prominent Mississippi Baptist institution, “our Southern segregation way is the Christian way . . . . [God] was the original segregationist.”

God Of The Segregationists

Theodore Bilbo was one of Mississippi’s great demagogues. After two non-consecutive terms as governor, Bilbo won a U.S. Senate seat campaigning against “farmer murderers, corrupters of Southern womanhood, [skunks] who steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms” and a host of other, equally colorful foes. In a year where just 47 Mississippi voters cast a ballot for a communist candidate, Bilbo railed against a looming communist takeover of the state — and offered himself up as the solution to this red onslaught.

Bilbo was also a virulent racist. “I call on every red-blooded white man to use any means to keep the n[*]ggers away from the polls,” Bilbo proclaimed during his successful reelection campaign in 1946. He was a proud member of the Ku Klux Klan, telling Meet the Press that same year that “[n]o man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux.” During a filibuster of an anti-lynching bill, Bilbo claimed that the bill will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.

For Senator Bilbo, however, racism was more that just an ideology, it was a sincerely held religious belief. In a book entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, Bilbo wrote that “[p]urity of race is a gift of God . . . . And God, in his infinite wisdom, has so ordained it that when man destroys his racial purity, it can never be redeemed.” Allowing “the blood of the races [to] mix,” according to Bilbo, was a direct attack on the “Divine plan of God.” There “is every reason to believe that miscengenation and amalgamation are sins of man in direct defiance to the will of God.”

Bilbo was one of the South’s most colorful racists, but he was hardly alone in his beliefs. As early as 1867, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld segregated railway cars on the grounds that “[t]he natural law which forbids [racial intermarriage] and that social amalgamation which leads to a corruption of races, is as clearly divine as that which imparted to [the races] different natures.” This same rationale was later adopted by state supreme courts in Alabama, Indiana and Virginia to justify bans on interracial marriage, and by justices in Kentucky to support residential segregation and segregated colleges.

In 1901, Georgia Gov. Allen Candler defended unequal public schooling for African Americans on the grounds that “God made them negroes and we cannot by education make them white folks.” After the Supreme Court ordered public schools integrated in Brown v. Board of Education, many segregationists cited their own faith as justification for official racism. Ross Barnett won Mississippi’s governorship in a landslide in 1960 after claiming that “the good Lord was the original segregationist.” Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia relied on passages from Genesis, Leviticus and Matthew when he spoke out against the civil rights law banning employment discrimination and whites-only lunch counters on the Senate floor.

Bob Jones

Although the Supreme Court never considered whether Bilbo, Candler, Barnett or Byrd’s religious beliefs gave them a license to engage in race discrimination, a very similar case did reach the justices in 1983.

Bob Jones University excluded African Americans completely until the early 1970s, when it beganpermitting black students to attend so long as they were married. In 1975, it amended this policy to permit unmarried African American students, but it continued to prohibit interracial dating, interracial marriage, or even being “affiliated with any group or organization which holds as one of its goals or advocates interracial marriage.” As a result, the Internal Revenue Service revoked Bob Jones’ tax-exempt status.

This decision, that the IRS would no longer give tax subsidies to racist schools even if they claimed that their racism was rooted in religious beliefs, quickly became a rallying point for the Christian Right. Indeed, according to Paul Weyrich, the seminal conservative activist who coined the term “moral majority,” the IRS’ move against schools like Bob Jones was the single most important issue driving the birth of modern day religious conservatism. According to Weyrich, “[i]t was not the school-prayer issue, and it was not the abortion issue,” that caused this “movement to surface.” Rather it was what Weyrich labeled the “federal government’s move against the Christian schools.”

When Bob Jones’ case reached the Supreme Court, the school argued that IRS’ regulations denying tax exemptions to racist institutions “cannot constitutionally be applied to schools that engage in racial discrimination on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs.” But the justices did not bite. In an 8-1 decision by conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger, the Court explained that “[o]n occasion this Court has found certain governmental interests so compelling as to allow even regulations prohibiting religiously based conduct.” Prohibiting race discrimination is one of these interests.

My Liberty Stops At Your Body

Ultimately, the question facing anti-gay business owners, even if the bill Brewer vetoed had become law, is why it is acceptable to exclude gay people simply because of who they are, when we do not permit this sort of behavior by racists such as Bilbo or Byrd? And there is another, equally difficult question facing advocates of the kind of sweeping “religious liberty” protected by the Arizona bill — why should we allow people to impose their religious beliefs upon others?

One year before Bob Jones, the Court decided a case called United States v. Lee, which involved an Amish employer’s objection to paying Social Security taxes on religious grounds. As the Court explained in Lee, allowing people with religious objections to opt out of Social Security could undermine the viability of the entire program. “The design of the system requires support by mandatory contributions from covered employers and employees,” Burger wrote for the Court. “This mandatory participation is indispensable to the fiscal vitality of the social security system. . . . Moreover, a comprehensive national social security system providing for voluntary participation would be almost a contradiction in terms and difficult, if not impossible, to administer.”

Just as importantly, allowing religious employers to exempt themselves from the law would be fundamentally unfair to the employees who are supposed to benefit from those laws. “When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity. Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.”

Lee, in other words, stands for the proposition that people of faith do not exist in a vacuum. Their businesses compete with other companies who are entitled to engage in this competition upon a level playing field. Their personnel decisions impact their employees, and their decision to refuse to do business with someone — especially for reasons such as race or sexual orientation — can fundamentally demean that individual and deny them their own right to participate equally in society.

This is why people like Theodore Bilbo should not be allowed to refuse to do business with African Americans, and it is why anti-gay business owners should not be given a special right to discriminate against LGBT consumers. And this is also something that the United States has understood for a very long time. Bob Jones and Lee are not new cases. A whole generation of Americans spent their entire professional careers enjoying the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Religious liberty is an important value and it rightfully belongs in our Constitution, but it we do not allow it to be used to destroy the rights of others.

The argument Gov. Brewer resolved Wednesday night with her veto stamp is no different than the argument Lyndon Johnson resolved when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Invidious discrimination is wrong. And it doesn’t matter why someone wants to discriminate.

*****

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? 

BLOG ME. 

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good morning!

This story infuriates me. With all of the children starving all over the world, including in our own country, this Utah school has the nerve to throw away children’s lunches because the parents were behind on on their payments; some didn’t even know they were indebted.

Here’s the write from Think Progress:

Utah School Threw Out Students’ Lunches Because They Were In Debt

A Utah school’s child nutrition manager threw out the lunches of about 40 elementary school students this week after the kids’ parents fell behind on payment.

Some parents at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City say they didn’t even realize they were indebted to the school. The school apparently made calls Monday and Tuesday telling some parents that there was a balance on their accounts, and the children of those who had missed the call were the ones whose lunches got thrown out.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the child nutrition manager’s original plan was to withhold lunches for kids whose parents hadn’t paid. But cafeteria workers were unable to distinguish who was on that list before serving. Once the food had been dished out, food safety codes say it can’t be given to another student and must be thrown away.

The children were given milk and fruit instead of a full lunch — the meal that the school says it gives any child who isn’t able to pay.

“So she took my lunch away and said, ‘Go get a milk,’ ” recalled one student, a fifth grader named Sophia. “I came back and asked, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she handed me an orange. She said, ‘You don’t have any money in your account so you can’t get lunch.’”

Parents were outraged by the move, calling it “traumatic and humiliating.”

Salt Lake City’s school district has apologized to parents and students for the incident. “We again apologize and commit to working with parents in rectifying this situation and to ensuring students are never treated in this manner again,” the district said in a Facebook note.

Still, the incident raises longstanding questions about child nutrition and low-income families. It is not the first time that students have had their lunch thrown out for insufficient funds. In November, a Texas middle school student’s lunch was thrown away because he was 30 cents short on payment.

But depriving children of food — and embarrassing them in front of their peers — isn’t the only option. In Boston, for example, public schools provide all students with cost-free breakfast and lunch no matter their financial situation.

A compelling set of evidence drives such decisions. Child hunger has lasting impacts on children’s mental health, as well as cognitive and social ability. And while more than one in five children lack stable access to food, only half of the students who are eligible for free breakfasts actually receive them.

*****

Readers: For a few dollars, and sometimes not even that much, these children had to suffer the embarrassment, not to mention being robbed of their lunch, leaving them hungry and confused. And what is going through the minds of people who tell children that they can’t eat because there is no money in their account?! Wha’at?? Do they not realize the impact of their words? Do they even care?

It seems to me that so much is said and done on our planet with very little care to how it affects our fellow human beings, children included. People whose main goal is to keep people down, or take action to feel more important than others…or to make one feel powerless. Yes, in this case, these adults said things to these children, that made them feel humiliated and powerless.

What is it with the human psyche that feels the need to reach for negative feelings, to put down others, instead of reaching for positive ones to rise up, and empower? It comes from such a place of lack, as if there isn’t enough of whatever for everyone. That is the last thing children need to be thinking is that there isn’t enough money for them to eat. Those adult should be fired. They have no idea the impact of their words will have on their psyche about money as they grow up. How easy it would have been to just feed them their lunch and contact their parents later to rectify the situation. No harm done.

But now…they possibly fucked them up for a few dollars.

Thoughts? Blog me.

Before I sign off, on a positive celebratory note, it is someone’s birthday today!!

Happy Birthday Howie!! I HOPE you are having a wonderful day, and eating lots of Birthday cake!! Chime in and tell us.

Peace out.

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2012

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"