FUCKING STOP: An open letter to Gov. Perry and the Texas GOP

Dear Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, and the Texas GOP,

You don't know me, and I'm not a Texan in any way, shape, form, or fashion.  So I'd say you won't care what I think about this fiasco - except that you've already made it abundantly clear that you don't care what anyone thinks of what you're doing here, whether they're a constituent, a politician with the opposition, or God Herself, so I know it's nothing personal.

Since my words, and indeed, my very existence mean nothing to you, I will feel free to speak my true mind on this in very blunt terms.

You are the biggest pack of filthy hypocrites I've ever seen.

You (the wider GOP) venerate the Founding Fathers, who fought a war and founded a nation over the right to be treated with respect and have a say in one's government - and yet you blatantly disrespect the modern people of that nation when they gather by the hundreds and thousands to tell you to STOP.  You idolize (and I mean that in the truest sense of idolatry, by the way) a group of men who are remembered for, among other things, decrying "taxation without representation" - and yet you will happily impose far more intimate regulations on your constituents' very bodies while silencing their representation, whether it be through their elected officials or through their own voices raised in protest.

You use procedural trick after procedural trick to try to force those elected voices to shut up, eventually forcing them from the floor under guise of respect for parliamentary procedure - and yet you're quite happy to blatantly violate the same rules you insist everyone else abide by as soon as it suits you, by altering documents and timestamps to literally rewrite history once it became clear you'd lost.

Do you know why I am political in the ways that I am, Mr. Perry (et al)?  Because I still believe in - still want to believe in - the the noble ideals I was told we as a country stood for, as a child growing up in America.  I want this country to offer liberty and justice to all.  I want a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And you people claim to love the Constitution, love the Founders, love what this country "stands for" - that is, what we claim to stand for - and yet your actions tell a terrifyingly different story.

Because when you are faced with The People Themselves, in the flesh, by the hundreds, literally raising their voices to prevent you from making unjust laws that trample on their rights...

And your response, after every dirty trick and lie and machination you used failed you, is to say "That's fine, we'll just try it again next week"...

You are not acting in the spirit of the lofty goals of liberty and justice and freedom.  You are channeling King George.  (Hell, at this point, I'm inclined to say you're channeling Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine too, but that's my penchant for hyperbole and my geekishness sitting down for a drink together, so.)

You are liars.  You are hypocrites.  You are power-hungry tyrants unfit to wield authority over an ant colony, much less millions of human beings.  And you need to fucking stop.

With intense loathing,
J

The new "You're either with us, or with the enemy"

The rhetoric from the right has been getting more and more frenzied these past couple years.  I suppose that's what happens when your absurdly racist party is simultaneously confronted with a Scary Black Man President and increasing evidence of your slide into irrelevance as your single priority of "taking care of rich straight cis white Christian male businessmen" becomes ever-clearer at the same time that that particular demographic is shrinking compared to the size of every other demographic that you've made it quite obvious you hate.  So the bit I came across today isn't *surprising*, but it is, I think, something to note.

There's plenty to unpack in this particular off-the-rails screed from Don Feder of World Congress of [Cishet 2-Parent Unlimited-Children White Christian] Families about how Obama is totez gonna start rounding up conservatives and putting them in concentration camps any day now (and what IS it with these people and their Holocaust-appropriation fetish anyway?), but there was one line in particular that jumped out at me.

Recall Obama’s bitter-clinger remarks from the 2008 campaign – identifying resistance to his message primarily among those who cling to religion, guns and "anti-immigrant" sentiment. Think of his anti-nationalism (including the rejection of American exceptionalism) and attacks on the family, via same-sex "marriage" and taking medical decisions out of the family’s hands.

As an aside, "taking medical decisions out of the family's hands" is something to condemn when it's Democrats making it possible for people to even *consider* making medical decisions at all via expanded access to health insurance and health services, but taking medical decisions out of people's hands is awesome when it comes to Republicans legislating pregnancy and reproductive decisions? Uh huh. We see you, hypocrites.
But the part that got me here was the bit about "rejection of American exceptionalism" as equivalent to anti-nationalism.

If you don't believe the U.S. is inherently superior to all other nations on this planet, you are anti-nationalist.  If you do not believe we're better than everyone else, you hate America.  There is no middle ground.  There is no patriotism that allows for any understanding or critical examination of this nation's flaws.  If you don't uncritically laud everything America does as awesome simply because it was done by "the best country on Earth", it's a sign that you hate America and everything the country stands for.

(Considering that, if you look at our history, we have spent a lot of time and effort on standing for greed, corruption, imperialism, colonialism, warmongering, and genocide, I'm not sure why we *shouldn't* hate at least a solid portion of what this country "stands for", but that's a whole other conversation.)

Twelve years ago, Dubya famously said, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."

They've put it in fancy euphemisms and made a dog-whistle of it, but it's the same sentiment.  If you fail to believe 100% that this is God's Country and we can do no wrong, if you fail to uncritically support everything this nation does, you are the enemy.

And they wonder why I'm far more afraid of conservatives in my own country than I've ever been of nebulous "terrorists" halfway across the world.

Anti-Choice Hypocrisy, Teens and Parents' Rights Edition

Let me start by saying I'm glad this case turned out the way it did.  I think what the parents were doing to her was despicable and fucked-up and crossing a line into outright abusive, and I'm happy that the court sided with her against her parents.

But I have one question.

What makes this case, where the parents were going to force a young woman to have an abortion, different from a situation in which parents force their teen to have a baby?

Because they are different.  Anti-choicers will applaud the fuck out of "parents' rights!" and such when it comes time to restrict a young person's ability to make their own decision about ending their pregnancy, when their decision is to have an abortion - witness anti-choicers' repeated and often-successful efforts to pass the most restrictive possible versions of parental consent/notification laws, which require a teenager to at least notify, and in many cases get a permission slip from, their parents before having an abortion.  Which gives the parents the opportunity to interfere, thus forcing the pregnant teen to give birth.*

Yet they're also applauding the fuck out of this case, where the court sided with the young woman in question to override the "parents' rights" in order to let her make her own decision about ending her pregnancy.

Good gods.  The malodorous stench of hypocrisy is so thick in here, I may need a gas mask.

Which is it, anti-choicers?  Do you support the rights of the parents to control which medical procedures a teenager may, may not, or must undergo?  If so, why are you viewing this court case as a victory?  It specifically placed an injunction against the parents' attempts to assert their "rights" to control their daughter's reproductive health.  It placed the teen's wishes and choices above the parents' "rights" to make fertility decisions for her.

And if you support the right of pregnant teens to make their own reproductive health decisions independently of their parents' wishes, as your behavior regarding this case suggests, then why have a large portion of your legislative efforts historically been dedicated to attempting to enact laws that require parental consent before a minor undergoes an abortion?  You'll take "notification" if that's all you can get, but you're always angling for "consent" whenever possible, and y'all have gotten pretty fucking stingy about those judicial bypass clauses too, putting as many obstacles as possible between a pregnant teen and their ability to make independent choices about their pregnancy.

So with one hand, you work to enact laws that take decisions about a minor's reproductive health and fertility out of that minor's hands and place them firmly under parental control, while with the other, you work to give those decisions back to the minor even if it means getting a court to overrule the parents' control.

And you do this based purely on which decision the teen is making and how that aligns with your opinion on how the situation should be handled.

Either you trust teens to make their own reproductive health choices, or you don't.  If you're going to help and be happy for this girl because she gained the legal ability to choose for herself how to manage her pregnancy, then you damn well ought to be extending that same courtesy to young people who need that legal ability to make their own decisions, even if you don't agree with the decision in question.

Because "More rights...for people who agree with me, and fuck the rest of you, I will legally force you to "agree" with me too!" is in no way a morally-sound position to take.  And since y'all are so attached to your notions of being on the moral high ground, you might want to attend to that little problem.

*And indeed, I've heard some horror stories about parents who refused to sign consent forms for epidurals or other pain medications during labor, to "teach her a lesson she won't forget".  It's not about "preventing abortion" - that's just the mechanism by which it works.  The true intent is to force them to give birth.*

Abortion Tourism

Here's a hilaritragic word of the day for you: "abortion tourism"

Which of course just makes me think about like...abortion cruises*, destination abortions, abortion getaways, guided abortion tours...

But according to a clinic worker who testified at a hearing earlier this week in Alabama, on a new TRAP law** that could shut down all the remaining clinics in the state, it was used in earnest.  (Well...as earnest as Republicans ever get in their maximum plausible deniability mode when they're trying to explain away their actions with the guise of "concern" for women.)  When confronted with their obvious motivation of trying to close down all the remaining clinics, they claimed that they weren't doing any such thing, but such regulations were needed to stop Alabama from becoming a "haven of abortion tourism".

I, um...wait, what?

I just have two questions for these...people.

1. What exactly is so wrong with so-called "abortion tourism"?  An abortion is an abortion is an abortion, whether it takes place in New York or Indiana or Nevada or anywhere else.  Please explain to me how traveling to obtain an abortion in another state is somehow worse than obtaining an abortion in your state of residence.  Explain it to me like I'm 2, because this does not make any sense whatsoever.  More specifically, explain it to me in a way that makes sense without relying on the premise that "women shouldn't be able to wiggle out of the laws we instituted to give us control over their bodies."  Because it sounds an awful lot like that's exactly your problem, that some people will be able to escape your control - and "maintain our (illegal and gained by deceptive piecemeal restrictions since a true ban is unconstitutional) control over the bodies and decisions of pregnant people by keeping them trapped in states where we've managed to functionally ban legal abortion without banning it" is a downright abusive goal. 
2. And how exactly does your TRAP law prevent such "abortion tourism"...without closing the available clinics?  This makes even less sense than the objection to the concept itself.  I mean, you're using "regulatory non-compliance" as your smokescreen here, but as soon as it becomes about "abortion tourism", that smokescreen blows right away.  Are wider hallways and larger elevators going to keep non-Alabamans away?  Perhaps you believe non-Alabamans couldn't bring themselves to get their abortion from a doctor with an Alabama medical license and admitting privileges at a local hospital?  Please, explain how regulations ostensibly intended to "protect the safety of women" seeking those services will cut down on the number of people able to access those services?  Because that's...not what safety regulations are for, nor is it what they do when applied properly.  So if you intend for your so-called "safety" regulations to reduce the rate of use of the service they're being applied to, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

So not only are the GOP trying to sneak de facto abortion bans past the Constitutionality issue - what's that hissy they always throw about Dems "disrespecting the Constitution" and such? - they're being a bunch of lying liars who lie about the issue.

Stellar morals there, guys.  And you wonder why you have to resort to electioneering and voter suppression to keep from being rendered utterly irrelevant as a party.

*Paging Women on Waves...
**Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.  Things like requiring admitting privileges, forcing abortion clinics to adhere to more stringent building codes by reclassifying them as "hospitals" or something more strictly regulated than regular outpatient clinics, playing zoning games, using administrative pressure and unreasonable reporting requirements to try to shut down as many clinics as possible.

Shitting on abuse survivors: totally the Christian thing to do.

The Violence Against Women Act, which provides funds and programs to help victims/survivors of domestic violence and all kinds of abuse, is the sort of thing you'd think would be a no-brainer for wide bipartisan support.  Who could be against helping women who've been abused?  Only actual abusers themselves, right?  Or abuse apologists?

Or, apparently, devout professional Christians.

The FRC seem to be shitting their pants over this mainly because the current update to VAWA would help those gross unnatural queer women, illegals who deserve whatever they get for being in this country in the first place, and Native women who haven't had the courtesy to die off and stop reminding us of our genocidal roots.

I mean, I'm trying to be hyperbolic here, but I kind of feel like it's not that far from the truth.  Those are the things they cite in their opposition - that they can't approve of a bill which has provisions to help queer women (because that's "giving them special rights"), undocumented immigrants, etc.  Their contempt is further measured by their claim that the Democrats added these oh-so-awful pieces to the bill purely in order to force Republicans to oppose it so the Dems can point to it as evidence that the GOP is anti-woman.

First of all, we didn't need additional evidence.  Y'all trumpet your misogyny to the skies each and every damn day.  You are to the point where people are trying to hold workshops to teach you fuckers to keep your goddamn mouths shut about women's issues because of the massive backlash every time you speak.  WE KNOW you're anti-woman.  It's never been up for debate.

But second of all, it's disgusting that the only reason they can apparently think of for specifically ensuring that underserved and more-vulnerable populations receive the help they need is for political maneuvering.  Not because there are people who need help.  Only because politics.

Projection complex, thy name is the GOP.

Oh, but it's not just that the bill specifically looks to help someone other than straight white American citizens.  It's that, and the money:

You can help by contacting your Senators and urging them to vote against VAWA and end the real abuse of taxpayer dollars.

Emphasis original. 

So let me get this straight: women being repeatedly assaulted, physically, emotionally, and/or sexually: not really abuse, why are we wasting our time on this?  The government spending money to help those women: ABUSE!  SHUT IT DOWN RIGHT NOW STOP ABUSING MY WALLET WAHHHH

I feel like a fucking broken record here, but Republicans, JFC your priorities are terrible.

Sen. Campfield, what the fuck did I JUST say about not wanting to write about you any more?

It is becoming more and more clear that Stacey Campfield is the sort of man who should not be in a position of authority over an amoeba, much less any more complex life-forms.  Check out this breathtakingly condescending and ableist response to a constituent of his, who emailed to criticize his recent legislative grandstanding:

Telisha Cobb:  Senator Campfield, I am writing to you today as a mother, active citizen, and born and raised Tennessean.  You are an embarrassment to our great state.  Folks all over the country and here in Tennessee are looking at the bills you are proposing in shock.  They are the most ignorant and morally lacking legislation that could be proposed this year.  It is clear that you are targeting homosexuals and low-income families with hogwash legislation.  You need to search your heart, your values and your Christianity to find a better way to represent us as a whole.  We will do everything in our power to make sure you are not here in 2014.  There are numerous grass roots parties that are making their voices heard.

Stacey Campfield:  You seem to have some serious, deep anger issues.  Have you ever thought about therapy?  I hear they are doing some wonderful things with medications these days.

What.  The.  Unholy.  Fuck.

Her email was simple, direct, dignified, and professional, a simple statement of "This stuff you're doing is Very Not Okay.  Stop it."  And to this, he thought it was acceptable to, in essence, tell her that she's crazy for disagreeing with him and should be medicated until she agrees?

Which is reprehensible in and of itself, but then you get into all the ways that a powerful white man telling a woman (of color?  I would guess so from the pictures I found but I don't know if she identifies as such) that she's "angry" and needs therapy or medications draws on a whole history of pathologizing women's anger and dissent as a major avenue of structural misogyny, and it gets about 100000x uglier.

Kitten, you seem to have forgotten how this whole elected-representative-thing works.  You are not the lord of your own little fiefdom by virtue of having been elected.  You are a representative - that is, you are there to represent the people who elected you.  And if they feel you are doing a poor job of representing them, they have every right in the world to tell you so and demand that you shape the fuck up, because while elected official/voter doesn't quite analogize with an employer/employee situation, it's close enough, and YOU ARE NOT THE EMPLOYER.  You are the worker.  And your bosses are hauling your ass in for a performance review and/or write-up for failure to adequately perform your job duties.  Which makes it absurdly inappropriate to sass them and display this kind of condescendingly rude attitude.  When the people who gave you your job call you on the carpet for wasting company time and resources on being an asshole, you listen up and change your ways, or your ass is out on the curb.

For someone who is an official in a democratic system of government, you have an awful lot of contempt for citizen input, which is one of the core mechanisms by which any sort of democracy operates.  Somehow I'm thinking you'd do better playing God on your own little private island somewhere.  Why don't you go try that instead of trying to play God here the U.S.?

And by the way, Stacey?  Yeah, they are doing some pretty amazing things with medications.  I'm on some of them and they've fucking changed my life.

But I still think you're a reprehensible shitbag with the morals of a bloodsucking insect, and my opinion and anger are in no way invalidated by the medication I take.

Fuck off back to the cesspit you crawled out of, you suppurating anal sore.

That angry enough for you?

Mr. Campfield, back already?

The douchebubble who brought us death certificates for aborted fetuses, a bogus attempt to join the TN Senate Black Caucus (he then cried racism when they told him to GTFO), banning people on public assistance from winning the lottery (because clearly, people on welfare win the lottery ALL THE TIME and then stay on public assistance afterward, costing the state a metric ass-ton of money, right?), and the other day's cheerful "No grades, no food" bill, is back for another round. 

He's reviving last year's "Don't Say Gay" bill, which prohibits teachers and other staff at public schools from even mentioning homosexuality in any context for grades k-8, but with some fun new additions.  Specifically:

At grade levels pre-K through eight (pre-K-8), any such classroom instruction, course materials or other informational resources that are inconsistent with natural human reproduction shall be classified as inappropriate for the intended student audience and, therefore, shall be prohibited.

LEA policies and procedures adopted pursuant to this section shall not prohibit:

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and wellbeing of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student's parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred

Bolded is the new addition to the law.  The thing is, it's kinda sneaky.  Ostensibly it's just about making sure the parents know if their child is in trouble and might need help, and that's what conservatives will (and maybe already have, I haven't checked yet) claim as defense against it being pointed out that they're trying to legally compel outing children to their families.  (In fact, at first glance, that's what I thought.  For about half a second.)  But look at where it is in the law, and what it's attached to.  You can't in one breath you say "You can't talk about Teh Gay..." and in the next say "...except if the kid is in need of counseling and then you have to tell their parents" without the very strong implication that counseling a student *for* Teh Gay is what needs to be reported to the parents. 

This gets especially sinister if you're familiar with some of the common right-wing fundie arguments against non-het sexuality.  They genuinely consider it - non-het sexuality itself - to be disordered behavior, perversion, inherently harmful.  To them, two women who have been together for thirty years, never cheated, no abuse, no major issues at all, still as blissfully in love as the day they met, are harming themselves and each other simply by being together.  Take that and make it about teenagers, about whom conservatives are already having several large litters of kittens over their hormones and sex drive and the possibility that they might not remain utterly chaste and have their first kiss at their ultra-het church wedding...and any sign of Teh Gay could instantly be taken as "potentially harmful behavior".

So for all the plausible-deniability of "it's not about gay, it's about troubled children who need help!", it's not even the slightest stretch, especially in that area of the country, to imagine evangelical Christian school staff "counseling" a child simply because they believe the kid to be non-het, because they do believe it to be "behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and wellbeing of the student" - and then, per the new requirements, making a call to Mom and Dad to tell them "I think your child has a case of Teh Gay".  And who gives a shit what happens then, amirite?  It's not like GSM youths make up some 40% of the homeless population in that age bracket, despite being only 5-10% of the total population.  Not like anti-gay parents have ever, like, abused their gay children, or had them faux-kidnapped and sent to isolated abuse camps to try to "convert" them.  No, I'm sure a non-het kid being outed to a potentially anti-gay family is totally and completely safe.

And when I finish this sentence and stand up, a unicorn will materialize out of my ass.

Please, Campfield, stop wasting everyone's time with your reprehensible, harmful garbage legislation.  Crawl back into the hole you came out of.  I would very much like to not have to type your name ever again.  Kthx.

Making the rights of children dependent on their grades, Part 2

Just yesterday I posted about the Senator in Tennessee who wants to make TANF assistance payments to families conditional on how well the children are doing in school.  Today, the Universe saw fit to deliver Round Two of this sort of fuckery to me, in the form of a school in Maryland making religious accommodations for Muslim students conditional on their grades.

Gosh, why didn't anyone ever tell me that the human rights of children - rights to food, shelter, and religious expression - are contingent upon how well they please the almighty public education system?  "Get good grades" is not as simple as it generally sounds, for a variety of reasons ranging from developmental disabilities, different learning styles, difficulties with particular subjects, or simply being the kind of kid whose unconventional personality and academic style is "unacceptable" by the rigid standards of the public school system.  (Show of hands, who here got in trouble, repeatedly, for not showing your work or for using alternate methods to get your answers, because it made more sense to you than the "right" way of doing it - even if you still got the correct answer?  *raises hand*) 

This comes down to ageism and Islamophobia, pure and simple.  Islamophobia because they're certainly not requiring Christian students to get good grades before being allowed to wear a cross or pray before class.  Ageism because I'd love to see a workplace try to make legally-required religious accommodations contingent on your latest performance review.  Just imagine the shitstorm that would kick up! 

For bonus fuckery points, this "accommodation" - and I hesitate to call it that, because can you call a conditional concession that must be earned a real accommodation? - only came about after some Muslim students began praying during the day at school, and teachers got upset and tried to make them stop, telling them "this is a Christian school".

By the way, Parkdale High School is a public school.

At which point the principal stepped in - good for her, I guess?  Really I shouldn't have to feel approval of that course of action, it's the bare minimum requirement of school management, caring for the needs of all one's students equally, but there are plenty who wouldn't have said anything, or would have supported the teachers in their harassment of Muslim students. - and came up with this "compromise".  I just want to ask, why was a compromise necessary?  Why could she not have just told the teachers to STFU and look up the 1st Amendment as pertains to education, and given Muslim students the accommodations they needed without making it conditional? 

Oh.  Right.  Because fuck fairness, when it comes to children, Muslims, or Muslim children.

People seeking abortions may only think about their decisions on business days, according to South Dakota

In the chip-chip-chip fight to render Roe a meaningless statute by eroding access to abortion services until we have the right, but not the ability, to access it, waiting periods have been a core piece of the movement.  Force people to make two visits to the clinic, which makes it harder for people who don't live near the clinic, which very few people do at this point what with absurd over-zoning and regulation forcing clinics out of business.  Force people to have to arrange rides, time off work, childcare, or missing class not once, but twice, possibly missing out on an extra day's pay in the process.  Make the whole thing drag a little more and hope that some of them tip over into the 2nd trimester while they have to wait, so that it becomes even more difficult, costly, and time-consuming to get that abortion.  And do it all under the plausible deniability of "we just want to make sure you don't do something you'll regret!  We are helping by making sure you take lots...of...time...to think about this (because we assume you haven't already thought about this, because if you had, obviously you wouldn't have decided to do it, Q.E.D.)."

And last year, if you'll recall, South Dakota made infamy by insitituting the longest waiting period thus far, at 72 hours (most states that have it are 24 hours, though I think there might be a couple 48s). 

Not satisfied with that, they're now trying to make those 72 hours stretch  e v e n   f u r t h e r  by specifying that they mean 72 hours, not including weekends and holidays.

>.>
<.<
o.O

So...if the ostensible point of waiting periods is about making sure pregnant people SIT DOWN AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING YOU FILTHY BABY-MURDERING WHORE take enough time to come to a reasonable decision so they don't do anything they'll later regret...what does it matter which days the sit-and-think period encompasses?  Are people incapable of considering serious, life-altering decisions* on their days off?**  If anything, I'd think that'd be when people have more time and leisure to consider major issues, when they're not busy taking care of work, kids, and/or school obligations.

It all makes perfect sense when you know what's really going on, whisper-thin veil of concern for pregnant people aside, but usually they try a little harder to hold on to that veil.  When they start proposing restrictions that no longer make even surface sense with their supposed reasoning, they're beginning to risk more people figuring out what's actually happening.  Which suggests two very scary possibilities, to me.  Either they really do believe that people won't notice, that the average public isn't paying enough attention to catch the disconnect and suss out their real motivation (and what scares me here is the possibility that they're right) - or they are so confident in their political power after all the gerrymandering bullshit of late that they don't care how it looks, they're sure it'll go through anyway, and that's all that matters to them.

Like I said.  Scary possibilities.

*It's a serious, life-altering decision for some, but not for all; I phrase it this way because that's the framing that always surrounds this issue when we talk waiting periods.
**Not that weekends and holidays are everyone's days off, though a lot of people forget that.  Retail and food service don't stop for holidays and weekends.  And considering that it's low-income people, like those who work retail and service industry jobs, who are generally most affected by abortion restrictions, it sort of makes this doubly shitty by imposing a more or less irrelevant concept of "non-work days" on the people it's enforced against.

State Sen. Campfield to TN kids: "The beatings will continue until morale improves!"

Or rather, in this case, "The starvings will continue until your grades improve!"

By which I mean, he has proposed a bill to punish the families of underachieving children on public assistance by decreasing their TANF allotment (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, ie, food and living subsidies).

"How are your grades, little Timmy?  Well, no pressure or anything, but we could get kicked out of our apartment and end up in a shelter if your grades aren't up to snuff!  Have a great day at school, kiddo."  Because as we all know, children learn best under pressure and threats of starving their whole family.  It's a motivation thing.

And the whole ugly affair gets even grosser, if you read his own words on the subject:

One of the top tickets to break the chain of poverty is education. To achieve a quality education is like a three legged stool. The state has put a lot of responsibility on schools and teachers to improve student performance. If the children don't produce, it could impact the pay of the teacher and the standing of the school with the state. We have pushed two of the three legs of the student performance (teachers and schools) to improve, and they are. ... The third leg of the stool (probably the most important leg) is the parents. We have done little to hold them accountable for their child's performance. What my bill would do is put some responsibility on parents for their child's performance.

First of all, "If the children don't produce"?  Produce?  Are we talking about schools here, or child labor factories?  Come on, Mr. Campfield, let that ill-fitting compassion mask slip a little further and show us the full extent of your disdain for poor children and how you're already seeing them as future disposable worker-commodities.

Secondly, are you just completely unaware of the fact that children are dependent upon their parents to provide food/shelter/etc.?  Children don't exist in a vacuum.  Putting "responsibility" and "accountability" - ie, punishments - on the parents transfers those effects directly to the kids, who are relying on their parents to be able to care for them.  So you can cloak it in "parental responsibility" language all you like, but it still comes out to punishing children for bad grades by TAKING THEIR FUCKING FOOD AND HOUSING AWAY.  And there is absolutely no possible circumstance in which that is anything but a hideously, grossly unethical and immoral thing to do.  (But of course, Stacey Campfield has a 100% rating with Tennessee Right to Life, and sponsored a bill in 2007 to issue death certificates to aborted fetuses.  He's very consistent that way.  All about caring for the lives of children, amirite?)

Thirdly and most importantly, this completely and utterly fails to take into account the sorts of structural barriers to excelling at school that poor children ALREADY FACE.  Kids are already under stress when their family is struggling with poverty, both stress within the family - especially if there are issues of food scarcity, which has effects on a child both physiologically and psychologically - and from the fact that kids are evil, nasty, bullying little shits sometimes, and poor kids make a great target for that kind of bully.  Additionally, children who have learning disabilities or illnesses - mental or physical - that make school more difficult are less likely than their economically well-off peers to receive the interventions and accommodations they need, which further sabotages their ability to do well in school.  Then you have older - teenage - kids in poverty-level households who may well be trying to hold down jobs in order to help their families get by, which takes time away from schoolwork.

He frames it as "Parents are responsible to make sure their kids are ready for school and that they get an education." Which, again, shows stunning ignorance of what families in poverty are having to do to get by.  Parents who are struggling to make ends meet often just don't have time to do the suburban-middle-class "make sure your kids have a nutritious breakfast, drop them off at school, pick them up after school, and help them with their homework" thing.  That takes time and energy that the parents are already expending just trying to make ends meet.

So to sum up, this absurdity of a proposal specifically targets those children who are already struggling the most with school, sets up a hard-line target that doesn't take any variance in circumstances into account, then threatens to punish those who don't meet the requirement by pushing their whole fucking family even further into poverty.

What part of that sounded like a good idea to you, Senator?

And is it just me, or is there a "welfare queens" sort of dogwhistle in there, too?  The whole thing, especially the fact that it hinges on rhetoric of "parental responsibility" and parents "not doing their job [of making sure their kids do well in school]", seems designed to evoke the image of lazy welfare-dependent adults who are just not bothering to help their kids out of apathy or spite.

See, class, here we have a truly stunning shitshow of ignorance, arrogance, classism, racism, and paternalism, held together with BOOTSTRAPS GODDAMNIT.

Congratulations, Mr. Campfield.  You are officially the douchiest Republican I've seen in the last few days.  Which, considering the state of your party, is actually kind of an accomplishment.  I hope you can look back fondly on this experience from your post-political career in the very near future after the people you claim to represent toss you out on your ass.

Quote of the Day

What will religion look like in the year 2060? Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Family as we know it will be drastically changed with the state taking charge of the children beginning at birth. Marriage will include two, three, four or any number of participants. Marriage will not be important, with individuals moving in and out of a 'family' group at will. Churchbuildings will be little used, with many sold to secular buyers and the money received going to the government. Churches will not be allowed to discuss any political issues, even if it affects the church directly. Tax credit given to churches and non-profit organizations will cease. Christian broadcasting will be declared illegal based on the separation of church and state. The airwaves belong to the government, therefore they cannot be used for any religious purpose. We will have, or have had, a Muslim president. Cities with a name from the Bible such as St. Petersburg, Bethlehem, etc. will be forced to change their name due to separation of church and state. Groups connected to any religious affiliation will be forced out of health care. Health centers get tax money from the state, making it a violation of church and state. Get involved! Sign THE STATEMENT."

- The [White, Straight, Rich, Nuclear, Christian] American Family Association, in an email designed to make privileged asshats very, very afraid indeed.

There is only one possible response to this.

A screen-cap from the old Spiderman cartoon. Spidey is pointing urgently at something off-screen, and two policemen beside him are laughing.  Macro-style text on the image reads "LOOK AT HIM. LOOK AT HIM AND LAUGH."

The Problem With Reinstating the AWB

[This is going to be a post about guns, and it does include pictures of them]

Fair warning: I am far less anti-gun than most people who share my other sociopolitical positions tend to be.  I believe in gun control.  I believe that the US's gun laws are pretty fucked and need some serious overhaul.  I also believe that said overhaul needs to be sensible, measured, and written by people who know what they're talking about.

In recent weeks, in the wake of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary, I've been bombarded by requests from the cause orgs I'm on the email lists of, asking me to sign petitions in favor of reinstating the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004.

I have not signed these.  And I'm not going to.

This is not to say that I am against the idea of tightening our current gun laws.  Not at all, not even a little bit.  But there are some major problems with just saying "let's reinstate the existing AWB".

Firstly, that the old ban was bullshit.  It created the phrase "assault weapon" out of thin air (much like the partial-birth abortion ban did with its title) to describe a very broad class of guns that could best be described as "Guns That Look Scary."  It banned certain combinations of features that sounded reasonably unnecessary, without actually reducing the availability of the style of guns it ostensibly banned.

Let me ask you something, real quick.  When someone says the phrase "assault weapon", what kind of gun do you think of?  Something like this, right?

Bushmaster M4A2, which counts as an "assault weapon" for purposes of the 1994 AWB because of its folding stock, pistol grip, and bayonet lug.

It's scary-looking.  It's a semi-auto civilian version of a military rifle, and it serves pretty much no purpose for an average person to have aside from "this looks cool/makes me feel cool".*

Here, let me show you a gun that was specifically made for the AWB era to conform to those rules:

Gee, that looks really similar.  Identical, even.  And it nearly is; same mag capacity, same pistol grip.  They just removed the bayonet mount and changed the stock to fixed-length.

So...how did the AWB make things safer, again?  Will the fixed stock make it kill fewer people or something?  Was there a rash of gun-based stabbings with bayonets that we needed to crack down on?

If an assault weapons ban is passed that ends up being nothing more than a reinstatement of the old ban, the opportunity and social will to push for real change that was created by the ugly events of last week will be wasted, and the NRA will have won another round by keeping the conversation stagnant.

I don't want cosmetic change.  I don't want lip service that still leaves ridiculously-unnecessary weapons and accessories widely and legally available.  There's much kerfuffle about "politicizing" the deaths of so many children, but which is more politicizing?  A political move for show and constituent goodwill that makes a mere incremental difference in the rates of gun violence in this country?  Or a real change to try to prevent the like from happening again?

Here's what I'd like to see from a new gun-control law, in no particular order:

• Reinstate the limit on high-capacity magazines.  I'm tempted to say drop it to 5 instead of 10, because what on earth could you be hunting that actually needs 10 shots to drop it?  If you need 10 rounds to drop your prey, you're either a terrible shot and shouldn't be firing guns around other life-forms anyway, or hunting things that probably shouldn't be hunted and why are you doing this?  I realize this makes target shooting less fun because you have to keep stopping to either reload or switch to a fresh mag, depending on how many mags you own, but...tough titties.  A less smooth and flowing sport shooting experience, or mass murders a few times a year?  Not exactly a tough decision, unless you've had a truly successful compassionectomy.  (And if you have, what the fuck are you even doing here?  Go away.  Return to the WND swamps from which you came.)
• Standardize controls on the process of acquiring guns.  I personally know someone who has purchased guns while traveling to other states where things are far less restrictive, then brought them back into California, rather than deal with the waiting periods and trigger lock and background check requirements here.  That shouldn't be possible - or at least, it shouldn't be that simple.  
• Same for issuing carry permits.  When my gun-nut ex and I were driving cross-country, we'd had to plan for which states allowed what in regards to his gun, whether it had to be locked in the trunk, could be in the glove box if unloaded, or could be sitting on the dashboard in plain sight.  States set their own qualifications process for getting a carry permit, and some have reciprocal agreements to honor each other's permits, and some don't, and that's frankly ridiculous.  
• Mandatory registration of all guns.  I'm not under the illusion that this will do anything to stop certain elements of society from having, acquiring, selling, etc. under the radar.  I knew people in Tennessee who could literally make a gun start to finish including the ammo.  And there's always a criminal element willing to flout the law.  But again, as has been pointed out many times, all the shootings in the past few years have been carried out with guns legally acquired, and no major shooting has ever been stopped by an armed bystander, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that reducing/controlling the total number of guns in circulation is probably going to help somewhat, or at least not make things worse.
• Common-sense restrictions on what caliber guns people can legally keep in their homes.  You do not need a fucking .45 or .44mag handgun for self-defense.  A 9mm will suffice perfectly well for that purpose.  Nor do you need a rifle in 7.62x39, which is a MILITARY ROUND.  7.62x39 was made for a Russian machine gun, and is what the AK-47 shoots.  What in the world does a civilian need military rifle rounds for?  Serious question.  What are you doing that you need this?  Explain to me why your safety can only be guaranteed by keeping weapons of war in your house.  I'd really like to know what the hell you get up to in there.
• For collectors or fans of exotic guns and ammo, I suggest a compromise.  You can own them, buy them, etc.  But they must be kept under lock and key at a licensed shooting range or gun dealership.  You can access and shoot them whenever you like, but there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to need to keep a Russian sniper rifle in your bedroom.**  
• Speaking of which, tighten licensing and monitoring and regulation on gun dealers.  No more of this swinging by Walmart to pick up a new gun.  Require that the same procedures for licensing, sales, and background checks be followed at gun shows as in regular shops.  (In an ideal world, I'd like to see gun shows go the way of the dodo entirely, but I think that would probably provoke too much pushback to be feasible right now.)

The opportunity we have right now to create meaningful change in the way this country handles guns came at an incredibly high price.  Let's not squander it on simply reinstating what few limits were wrested from the resisting grasp of the NRA nearly 20 years ago.  We need to do better.

*I sympathize with this feeling as a justification for owning a particular gun, I really do.  Why else did I have a Desert Eagle .50 or my FN PS-90?  For feeling like a badass.  Duh.  I had a thigh-holster for the DE and I was excellent with the PS90, out-shooting gun-nut ex and one other with my PS90 and non-magnification optic, standing, versus their rifles on bipods with scopes and them shooting prone.  I really truly enjoyed owning both of those guns, going shooting regularly and honing my skills as well as having fun with it.

"I wanna feel like a badass" is not sufficient justification to keep such guns available when weighed against the lives of children, though.  No matter how cool the gun is.

**I speak from experience.  Gun-nut ex's favorite rifle was his Dragunov, and it spent an irritating amount of time just laying around our room rather than in the giant gun safe it was supposedly kept in.

The GOP and Fetuses, Sittin' in a Tree...

...giving out tax credits for parents-to-be!

Another one for the "Couldn't Make It Up If I Tried" bin, here.  The Michigan GOP has proposed a new $160 tax credit for "women who are at least 12 weeks pregnant by the end of the year".  This is, mind you, after they voted to eliminated the $600 tax credit for actual born children last year.

Have children you're struggling to keep fed and healthy?  Fuck you!  In your first trimester of a pregnancy which may or may not come to term anyway because pregnancy is complicated shit?  Here, have some government money!

LOL consistency what?

It's an attempt to tiptoe their "fetal personhood" fetish a little further into law via taxation: "See, the tax code treats the fetus as a person for whom the parents can claim a tax credit!  Obviously this means they are a person and therefore have more rights to your body than you do."

I can't decide if they're getting sloppy - in particular the part about it contrasting so blatantly with eliminating the tax credit for actual children - or just getting bold.  Either way, it's pretty ridiculous.  In a scary sort of way.

Who needs science when you've got BELIEFS?

This is some fucking bullshit.

One of the approximately eleventy-smillion lawsuits against the contraceptive coverage portion of the ACA - which is apparently the hill-to-die-on du jour for the entire American right-wing establishment or something? - has seen a judge issue an injunction against enforcement of the contraceptive coverage mandate against a Bible/Christian lit publishing house in DC.  Which is bullshit for all sorts of reasons, but something jumped out at me in the linked news post:

[Plaintiffs argued] that their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would be infringed by requiring their health plans to cover contraceptive methods that the company and its owners consider abortifacients-- Plan B, ella and intrauterine devices.

Did you catch it?  Here, in case you missed it:

[Plaintiffs argued] that their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would be infringed by requiring their health plans to cover contraceptive methods that the company and its owners consider abortifacients-- Plan B, ella and intrauterine devices.

Apparently, the only standard required to be able to argue against a law is "I'm against what I think this thing does," irrespective of whether or not that is actually the case.

The argument for this specific issue tends to rest on questions of religious belief and infringement thereof.  But this whole thing about "abortifacient" birth control isn't a matter of religious belief that must be held sacrosanct.  It's a matter of refusing to acknowledge fucking basic scientific fact.  I don't care what you believe these methods of birth control do.  You are free to believe that car headlights damage one's night vision and thus make driving less safe...but that is objectively untrue, and that belief doesn't exempt you from having to have your lights on when you drive at night, because that risks other people's safety for the sake of your untrue beliefs.  All the evidence we have about how birth control works points to interruptions in the fertilization process PRIOR to implantation, which is when a pregnancy actually begins.  You can't have an abortifacient if there's no pregnancy occurring.  End of story.

Beliefs != laws.  Nor do they provide a legitimate reason for being exempted from the law, especially when it affects the lives and safety and health of others who may or may not even share in your beliefs in the first place.  No, it doesn't matter how much you stomp your feetses or cry about it.  Facts dictate the laws and you are not exempt from those laws simply because you refuse to accept the facts.

As always, XKCD sums it up beautifully:

[Two stick-figure people arguing, a student and their professor:

Student: Professor, that man claims the earth is 6,000 years old!
Professor: So?  Just use your head and don't concern yourself overmuch with what other people think.
Student: But he says the fossils in the mountains were put there in a flood!
Professor: Well, evidence suggests that they were not.
Student: But he - 
Professor: A million people can call the mountains a fiction.  Yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them.
Student: But he believes the silliest things!
Professor: So?  The universe doesn't care what you believe.  The wonderful thing about science is that it doesn't ask for your faith.  It just asks for your eyes.
Student: But he's a U.S. Senator!
Professor:  Ah.  Then yes, we do have a bit of a situation.]

@JerryBrownGov Vetoes Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

While Gov. Brown deserves some praise for signing a first-of-its-kind bill to ban pray-away-the-gay "therapy" for minors*, and signing a bill to allow young undocumented immigrants to obtain CA driver's licenses, he also deserves a massive whack upside the head for his decision to veto AB889, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

Protip: You can't claim that the (overwhelmingly brown and female) workers of an industry deserve protections - and we're talking basic shit like guaranteed meal breaks, rest periods for live-in caretakers, and overtime pay - but turn around and veto it because it might cost more.  Yes, it will.  Duh.  That has always been how worker protections are.  But, see, the principle here is that people's safety and basic needs and ability to do their job without abuses are more important than the almighty dollar.  Just to clear that up for you, since you seemed to be confused.

It's couched in claims of concern for the poor and elderly who might have to pay more and thus not be able to afford caretaker support.  This is a legitimate concern.  You know how to address that, though?  Social support programs to make up the difference.  Fuck, go right to single-payer healthcare and you'll skip a lot of the trouble with that in the first place.  You know how not to address it?  By refusing to institute basic protections for the workers.  Don't take it out on them.  They deserve better.

He also pulls a line straight out of the anti-union-big-business playbook by saying that requiring such protections might mean there are fewer jobs overall because employers are having to pay more.  Gee, that sounds an awful lot like the arguments businesses have used against every union and every labor law ever - "We can't pay healthcare as well as wages, we'll go bankrupt and you'll all lose your jobs!"  "We can't afford to offer paid time off, it'll raise our costs and we'll have to lay people off to make ends meet!" etc. - and it's just as shitty coming from a supposed Democrat who just vetoed a worker protection bill as it is coming from private-sector PR.

It's especially shitty when it comes from a supposed Democrat who also vetoed two bills that would have instituted more stringent worker protections for agricultural workers by requiring that employers provide water and shade to prevent heat-related illnesses and deaths, basically by saying "yeah but this will actually lead to holding agribusinesses accountable in court (rather than just issuing them citations that are literally planned for in the company's accounting structure), and we don't like that."

But as was pointed out on tumblr, Brown knows what he's doing.  These bills overwhelmingly affect undocumented and migrant workers.  Who can't vote.  So he bolsters his cred with businesses (the California Chamber of Commerce opposed all three bills, gee I wonder why?) without losing much in actual votes come election time.

Smart politics.  Shitty decisions.

*Which I will have way more on tomorrow, because Liberty Counsel is already threatening to sue, and their histrionics are both predictable as fuck and hilarious.

Is it Christmas already? Judge rejects challenges to contraception mandate - HARD.

Go read this.  No, seriously.  Go read it.

Oh, fine.  For those not inclined to click through, Judge Carol Jackson of a federal district court in Missouri basically told anti-contraception assholes where to shove it.  She stated flat-out that the ACA's contraception mandate does not infringe on religious freedom, period the end:

… [T]he health care plan will offend plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an OIH employee (or covered family member) makes an independent decision to use the plan to cover counseling related to or the purchase of contraceptives. Already, OIH and Frank O’Brien pay salaries to their employees---money the employees may use to purchase contraceptives or to contribute to a religious organization. By comparison, the contribution to a health care plan has no more than a de minimus impact on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs than paying salaries and other benefits to employees.

Is it just me, or is there an implied "...so shut the fuck up already" at the end of that paragraph?

And it goes on from there, rejecting every single argument they put forth, from the "defining a religious exemption means the government is excessively entangled in deciding what's religion and what isn't therefore it's establishment of state religion" claim (??? So they're fine with the IRS dropping all tax-exempt statuses for religious organizations, right?  Because there has to be a definition somewhere for those, too.) to the "compelled subsidized speech" claim (just because someone, at some point of the process, uses words to facilitate something happening doesn't make the thing happening fall into the category of 'speech'), and basically said "Yes, you *can* claim that the regulation was "arbitrary and capricious", but you're flat the fuck wrong, so go away."

I'm sure it will be appealed, etc., but this is a fantastic start to work from.  Thank you, Judge Jackson, for shutting down their collective temper tantrum so thoroughly from the word 'go'.

Today in No Fucking Shit, Captain Obvious

As DIY Abortions Rise, So Does Guesswork and Failure

More women are heading to Mexico to buy abortion-inducing drugs, the New York Times reports, and it's opening them up to failed terminations and other dangers. ... Abortion-rights advocates are concerned that a lack of awareness about clinical options in the United States — as well as a lack of funds — could lead more women to go underground and risk their health in this way.

Gee, it's not like we've been fucking saying this FOR YEARS NOW or anything.  No, this is a totally unforeseen development!  Utterly unexpected!  Shocking!  Provocative!  Unbelievable!  ...whoops, sarcasm reserve ran out.  Been using a lot of it up on Tumblr lately, sorry.

On The Third Attempt to Pass Egg-as-Person Legislation in Colorado, Former Supporters Shy Away

[T]he political ramifications of the personhood amendment should continue to be a key part of the coverage. The amendment, which would ban all abortions and some common forms of birth control, is clearly of interest to women, in particular, and women are a key voters in Colorado elections.

You mean to tell me 51% of the population are a key voting bloc in elections?  My god, will the revelations never end?  Fetch me pearls to clutch and a fainting couch on which to delicately fall!

 My kingdom for a liberal media that's actually liberal and doesn't act like these things called "women" are mysterious creatures whose issues can only be observed from afar.  >.<

Rep. Mike Kelly Thinks No-Copay BC Is Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11

From the "I couldn't make this shit up if I tried" files, via RHRC, this fucking stunner of a quote from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-eprehensible):

"I know in your mind, you can think of the times America was attacked," he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "One is Dec. 7, that's Pearl Harbor Day. The other is Sept. 11, and that's the day the terrorists attacked. I want you to remember Aug. 1, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates."

Day.
That will live.
In infamy.
Like Pearl Harbor
And 9/11
Days when hundreds of people were violently killed
And wars were begun from those attacks that killed thousands more.

The ability of people who have health insurance to access hormonal birth control without paying anything out-of-pocket for it is equivalent to MILITARY ATTACKS THAT STARTED WARS?

Go
Drink
Motor oil
and hydrochloric acid
you miserable
insufferable
PRICK.

I suggest we tell him exactly how we feel about this bullshit.  Drop him an email here (use zip code 16002-3805 to bypass the "only in my district" crap), and this page has the phone and fax numbers for all his offices.  Oh, also here's his Twitter (though it hasn't been used in months, it seems) and his Facebook, where the conversation is rather more lively regarding his absurd remarks.

Fly, my pretties.

Today in Not Actually Helping

Look, I'm as much a fan as anyone of the making-a-point "lol let's propose bills restricting men's reproductive rights to see how y'all like it" legislative shenanigans that have become semi-popular lately.  Attempting to require invasive ultrasounds before prescribing ED pills, declaring the existence of "sperm persons" and making murder of said spermsons illegal, that sort of thing.  It's funny in a dark sort of way, it makes a good point about the ridiculous invasiveness of the legislation the right-wing is pushing across the country.

But it can be taken too far.  Just because we know damn well that the pushback bills won't actually be passed, doesn't mean we can do absolutely anything we want.  (Okay, yes, we *can* - but everyone knows that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.)  Some bills are funny but inappropriate, as a mockery of equally-inappropriate bills that they actually intend seriously.  Today, I ran across one that, to me at least, crosses that line.

In Utah, a doctor wrote and submitted a bill that would institute heavy penalties against any man who impregnated a woman:

• Restrict elective abortion to the first 16 weeks.
• Require DNA testing to determine paternity of all out-of-wedlock children, even aborted.
• Require the father to establish a $50,000 trust fund to care for any out-of-wedlock child, even if adopted. If the child is aborted, the fund is used for sex education.
• If the father can’t pay, he joins the military and uses his enlistment bonus and salary to pay.
• No man can avoid paternity claiming “she seduced me,” or that she claimed she was on the pill, had her tubes tied, whatever.
• Man under 18? His parents are responsible.

It would be funny, in an over-the-top sort of way, except for numbers 1 and 4 there.  The first one, for obvious reasons - I don't think any of us would see a 16-week restriction as a fair trade for penalties against impregnators to try to discourage them.  And the fourth one, because compulsory military service is a really fucked-up idea.

And then there's the fact that, despite what RH Reality Check may think of the bill's aims, I don't actually think the bill's author is intending this as a joke or mockery.  He calls it a way to eradicate abortion, and I think he means it, for all that he knows it would never even get passed, much less pass constitutional muster before the courts if someone challenged it.

Oh, and when you have a doctor claiming it would scare men into using 3 condoms as an entry in the "pros" column for his bill, considering that using multiple condoms is actually less safe than using a single condom...I'm kind of disinclined to think it's a good idea on any level, from the silly nonsense down to no-I-really-mean-it.  And I would like to see a little - or a lot - more discernment from such a big, generally reputable source on reproductive health issues as RHRC before they slap the "not gonna happen but funny anyway" sticker on something like this.

The man who wrote this bill is not on our side.  Let's not gloss over that and lol at it like he's in on the joke, okay?

The Miter Mafia and HHS, Part II

I didn't title the first part as Part I only because I didn't realize I would be writing a Part II.  The problem is, I wrote my first post about the 5 pages of "summary" at the start of their 21-page whinefest, hit publish...and then I kept reading.  And there is far too much fuckery in there to keep to myself.

This is why you read me: I'm the gift that keeps on giving!

So, my original post was about what I got out of pages 1-5.  Yes.  A whole post about just the first 5 pages.  Now.  Picking up on page 6...

"Indeed, for individuals with a conscientious objection to contraceptive coverage, the ANPRM actually exacerbates the problem.  In its February 10 rule, the Administration proposed to have insurers “offer contraceptive coverage directly to the employer’s plan participants (and their beneficiaries) who desire it."  The ANPRM,however, no longer uses the language of “offer,” which allows for the possibility of acceptance or rejection.  Instead, HHS would now require insurers or third-party administrators simply to “provide this coverage automatically to participants and beneficiaries covered under the organization’s plan (for example, without an application or enrollment process), and protect the privacy of participants and beneficiaries covered under the plan who use contraceptive services.” 

As a result, women will have less freedom, not more.  They will not have the freedom to decline such coverage.  They will not have the freedom to keep their own minor children from being offered “free” and “private” contraceptive services and related “education and counseling” without their consent.  Thus, the mandate now poses a threat to the rights not only of employers, religious and secular, but of parents as well.  It is even proposed that this intervention into the family may be delegated to “private, non-profit organization[s]”potentially including groups such as Planned Parenthood, which may volunteer for the task.

Restriction is Freedom!  Up is Down!  Right is Left!  Making something available without requiring you to A: have prior knowledge that it exists, and B: jump through hoops to get it, is TAKING AWAY OUR FREEDOM, LADIES!  (As usual, the Church refuses to acknowledge cis women who can't get pregnant, trans women, trans men, and everyone else not a fertile cis lady who will use birth control specifically to keep her uterus empty.)

They are being willfully obtuse about the difference between "automatic coverage" and "taking advantage of coverage provided", of course.  Yes, everyone will be automatically covered, but it's not like the insurance companies are going to show up at your doorstep and force packets of the Pill into your hands.  Being covered by this rule is a passive state that doesn't affect you in any way, unless you choose to access these services.  Hell, I'm sure they'd be thrilled if nobody used the coverage, as that means less money spent on providing it.  As I understand Catholic doctrine, the sin is *using* birth control, not simply *having access* to it.  So this objection is purely spurious, not that I expected anything better from the MM's spin machine.

And what is this fuckery about minor children?  We are talking about health plans provided to employees and, in some cases, college students.  All of whom are adults.

If they're talking about the minor children of the employees who may be covered as dependents on their parents' plan, well...again I will point out that it's a passive coverage.  Considering that most kids don't exactly get individual mail notifying them of their coverage under their parents' health insurance, how exactly are they going to know A: that it's covered, and B: even if they know that (which would most likely be because of the giant shit fit the MM is throwing over this rule in the first place), how to go about accessing it?  Again, this is not a situation where PP employees are going to climb through your child's bedroom window and deliver the Pill by the bucketload.  They're kicking up stink over a, while possible, extremely implausible occurrence.

Next up, page 8, where they express their dissatisfaction with the definition of "religious organization" (which we all know they want to mean "any organization with a religious person running it, no matter the purpose and scope of their work or who they serve or hire"):

Reduced to its simplest terms, an organization is “religious,” in the Administration’s view, only if it is insular, while organizations with a missionary or public outreach are deemed insufficiently “religious” to qualify for the exemption.  We are free to worship our God, but not to serve our neighbor.

Bzzzzzzzt!  Thanks for playing, try again never.  This is their usual bullshit of "any restriction in any way of how we do our public service stuff, even if it's for the protection of said public we're "serving", even simply removing government contracts or money from the equation and leaving us to do it on our own, is OPPRESSING OUR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM!"

Y'all are absolutely free to both worship your god and serve your neighbor.  You just can't use worshiping your god as a shield for discrimination in how you serve your neighbor (or how you treat the secular personnel you hire to help you serve your neighbor).  There's a difference.

Okay, now, stop eating and drinking and cover your keyboards, everyone, this next one had me making extremely undignified sounds at my desk.  Page 12, regarding the fact that the insurer would still be providing the objectionable services using premiums the employer paid to them:

One might ask how this is any different from paying salary to an employee who then uses that salary toward purposes the employer believes to be intrinsically evil.  

WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!?!  DID I NOT SAY THEY WOULD MAKE EXACTLY THIS ARGUMENT?!  DID I FUCKING CALL IT OR WHAT?!

Ahem.  What I mean to say is, lol they are making the exact argument I - and probably many other people - fully expected them to fall back on in order to take the next step in exerting religious control over nonreligious people simply because those nonreligious people happen to depend on the religious people for an income to live off of.  They're currently only using it as an analogy for the relationship between the employer and the insurer that provides the "intrinsically evil" care, but that tells us they do believe the two to be equivalent.  So given that, how long before they start applying that argument directly?

Continuing shortly thereafter on page 13, the MM begins making up new "rights" for themselves, as they are so often wont to do...

One can suppress religion not only by making conscientious objectors actively cooperate with what they see as evil, but also by depriving them of the right (a right that others continue to exercise) to support what they see as good.  Those who favor contraceptive coverage will retain the right they have always had as employers to provide a health plan consistent with their values.  Objecting religious organizations will lose that right, because any plan they offer will be amended by others so that the practical outcome for employees is exactly the same as if the organization had no such objection.  

Yeah, that's...really not what's going on here.  Not even a little bit.  Employers do not have any "right" to "provide a health plan consistent with their values".  What they have is a legal obligation to provide a health plan to their employees, without discriminating in that coverage.  Y'all are making this up.  This "right" is pulled *right* (u c wat i did thar?) out of your collective ass.

And you notice, dear readers, that they're not even baww'ing about their precious pennies funding it at this point.  They're just upset because the practical outcome for employees is not within their control.  That they cannot literally force their employees to abide by their moral rules or force them to pay out the ass for the privilege of self-determination to go outside the purview of the church's control.  They are revealing perhaps more than they think they are, when they make this objection.  They've just admitted that no matter what kind of compromise we offer, it will never be okay unless they can completely bar their employees access to family planning of any kind, without regard for the employee's moral rules on the subject.  They really do believe that employing a person entitles you to control over that person, including in extremely personal areas of their life, if it's because "Jesus said so".

They then try to pretzel-logic their way into arguing that there's no point in providing contraceptive services for free like this anyway, because either it's the government trying to "convince" employees of religious organizations to use contraception they weren't already using, or just relieving the financial burden on those who already use them and pay out of pocket for it, in which case the savings that are supposed to go to paying for the coverage, which are intended to come from costs like childbirth and well-baby care that won't be necessary if more people have access to contraception, won't be there to support it.

The Administration’s assumption under Goal 2 [to fund the coverage with savings on birth/well-baby costs] is that the employees of objecting employers were not already using contraceptives.  If, for example, they already were paying for contraceptives with their own financial resources, there would be no reduction in births from making those contraceptives “free.”  (The only thing to which this would “increase access” is whatever the employees will now purchase with the money they no longer spend on contraception—and that could be almost anything.)  Yet in earlier rulemaking, the Administration tried to justify its narrow and discriminatory definition of an exempt “religious employer” by arguing that any broader class of religious organizations probably has many employees who have no objection to contraception and so will not be seriously impacted by the mandate. The Administration faces a dilemma on this point.  Is it trying to change these employees’ reproductive behavior, or not?  That is, does it assume that its policy will chiefly influence employees of religious employers to increase their use of contraception by removing perceived cost barriers, or that it will merely reduce the out-of-pocket cost of contraception for employees who already use it? If the former, it intrudes into the right of employees and their families to take account of the teaching of their faith without undue influence from government.  If the latter, the policy may produce no “savings” that can be applied toward helping to offset the costs of contraceptive coverage, because it is chiefly being applied to people who already accept and use contraceptives anyway. In the very cases where the contraceptive coverage is “free”—that is, where its costs are offset by “savings” in other areas—the Administration would achieve this goal by undermining a far more important freedom.

So they're again taking the very broad stance - you know, the one that can't even remotely be repackaged as being about "religious freedom" - that contraception should not be universally covered at all.

They're also making an extremely flawed assumption - namely, that employees of religious organizations which do not offer contraceptive coverage will be able to afford contraception outside that coverage and will have done so in every case.  Some can.  Some do.  Some are able to access other resources, like Planned Parenthood, which can help them access low-cost contraception.  But it is the height of naivete (and no more than I would expect from a bunch of celibate old cis men pontificating from on high) to assume that anyone in this country who wants contraception will have it with or without insurance to help them pay for it.

Not to mention, that people who manage to make whatever sacrifices in order to be safe from unintended pregnancy (or, y'know, to control any of the half a dozen conditions that hormonal birth control helps with...?), may be giving up almost anything to make that work.  Like better food - or enough food.  Clothes for the kids they already have.  The ability to live in a safer part of town.  The MM made that argument themselves, in the above quote, only they meant it to sound scary - who KNOWS what else those godless fucks might be doing with that money??? - rather than reasonable - who knows what those people might be doing without in order to have this?

And at last, we have reached the end of this coal train of bullshit, finishing on a summary note that reemphasizes their misunderstanding of the terms "health care" and "preventative care" by insisting that contraception is neither, and at the last brings it back to trying to make things about their freedom to impose their will on those around them, while disappearing the freedoms and lives of those most affected by this whole fiasco:

The final rule continues to keep in place a regulation that defines as “preventive health care” drugs, devices, and procedures that render a woman temporarily or permanently infertile, and that may be associated with serious adverse health outcomes.  We believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful—it is bad health policy, and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience, it creates a religious freedom problem.  

Similarly to the related issue of abortion, this problem comes down to a fundamental clash of freedoms: when the freedoms and rights of two different entities are in mutual opposition to one another, something has to give.  Someone has to come out on top.  Someone has to have the 51%, the tie-breaker vote.  And as usual, the Miter Mafia would see the individual freedom and lives of people with uteruses subsumed to the will of the Church.

Fuck.  These.  Assholes.  I cannot say this clearly enough.  The Miter Mafia is worming its way further and further into the lawmaking and regulation activities of an explicitly secular government which governs a population comprising many different faiths and often, no faith at all.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

And I can only hope that the Obama administration and HSS have the spine to stand up to them and tell them exactly where they can shove their notions of Catholic moral supremacy.