Giant Step Toward Gilead

I've been saying it for years:  These "religious freedom" laws are nothing but a massive power grab by freakazoids.

And there's no place to hide, because the U.S. Supreme Court has just made xian mythology the law the of the land.

Via LGM:

The 5–4 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby prompted a now-famous dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who condemned the court’s decision to use RFRA, a law originally intended to protect religious minorities, to legalize discrimination. “No tradition,” Ginsburg noted, “and no prior decision under RFRA, allows a religion-based exemption when the accommodation would be harmful to others.” Through Hobby Lobby, the court had transformed RFRA from a shield into a sword, creating a license to discriminate with no clear limitations.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration proved Ginsburg right. In a decision of startling breadth, the Department of Health and Human Services declared that, under RFRA, a federally funded foster care agency in South Carolina has a right to discriminate against non-Christians, closing its doors to would-be parents of different faiths. As Ginsburg predicted, the administration’s interpretation of the law has no limiting principle: It all but announced that taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies may now engage in flagrant discrimination without consequence, so long as they state a religious rationale for their actions. The grim future that Ginsburg foresaw in Hobby Lobby has arrived.

Need proof?  Here are the freakazoids demanding tens of millions of Kentucky tax dollars to indoctrinate children with their evil mythology

Watch the video here.

With several hundred students from private schools looking on in the cold Thursday morning outside the state Capitol, several public officials touted a proposal to offer tax deductions to provide school scholarships.

The event was a rally at the Capitol to celebrate school choice and National School Choice Week.

House Majority Leader John “Bam” Carney, R-Campbellsville, told the crowd that he will file a bill in early February that would grant a generous tax credit to those who donate money for student financial aid at private schools.

Yeah, no.  "School Choice" does not mean you get to steal money from public education.  "School Choice" does not mean you get tax dollars because your invisible sky wizard wants it.

SNIP

Vandiver said the bill is expected to generate $25 million to help about 7,000 families.

The tax credit would amount to up to 95 percent of the contribution. “You donate $10,000, you get $9,500 credit,” he said.

SNIP

The measure has never gotten out of a legislative chamber’s committee, “but we are optimistic this year,” he said. He acknowledged that the revenue bill would have to receive at least 60 percent of the vote, instead of a majority in each chamber, to pass since lawmakers are not scheduled to pass a two-year state budget this year.

Stephanie Winkler, president of the Kentucky Education Association, said her group has “a strong belief that school choice already exists in Kentucky.”

“Our organization fights hard for for the commonwealth’s constitutionally-mandated system of common schools that allow any child, no matter their abilities, to have the right to a high quality education,” Winkler said. “The local public schools of these ‘school choice’ activists would benefit greatly from the energy and financial support they give to this cause.”

No biggie, you say?  It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercising their "religious freedom" punished homosexuality by firing you from your job, evicting you from your home and denying you civil rights.

It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercising their "religious freedom" got away with lynching black people for the crime of getting uppity, because the bibble tells them so.

It is within the memory of people still alive when xians exercised their "religious freedom" to imprison women in abusive marriages, to beat children to death for disobedience, to force women to give birth annually until they died.

Every tyrant in history has used this kind of "religious freedom" to justify every form of oppression, torture and genocide.

Forget the Russians.  "Religious freedom" is where Democracy dies.

KY Repugs Have No Budget, Just a Mandatory Day of Prayer for Students

Also no gun laws. No pension fix. No tax reform.

Just the most grossly unconstitutional gambit by a bunch of freakazoids that specialize in unconstitutional bullshit.

There should be some kind of fine these assholes have to pay for pulling this shit, wasting taxpayers' money and time.

From the Herald:

An annual day of prayer for Kentucky’s students at school would become state law under a bill passed Thursday in the House.

But Amber Duke, a spokeswoman for ACLU Kentucky told the Herald-Leader Friday that if the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, “it should be made clear to our public schools that they should not be in the business of endorsing religious practices in violation of students’ constitutional rights.”

“The content of the bill doesn’t mandate prayer, but as we’ve seen time and time again in the Commonwealth when it comes to religion and schools, what is intended by the General Assembly can be lost in translation when it reaches the local school level,” Duke said.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article205562774.html#storylink=cpy

How about this?  Every time a bill gets overturned in the courts by a lawsuit, the bill's sponsors, NOT the taxpayers of the Commonwealth, have to pay all the legal bills and courts costs of both sides, plus a six-figure fine to the ACLU, Freedom from Religion Foundation, NAACP, American Atheists, Fairness Campaign or whatever civil rights organization won the case.

It Will Be Anarchy

And anarchy is exactly what the freakazoids want.

 

LGM:

Although the Court could reinvigorate the principle it stated in the Boy Scouts case, the consequence would be anarchy. It would allow anyone to violate any law if obeying it would conventionally be taken to convey a message with which the objector disagrees.

There is a similar absurdity in Phillips’s claim that the state is discriminating on the basis of viewpoint because the antidiscrimination law, as applied, “favors cake artists who support same-sex marriage over those like Phillips who do not.” The law makes no reference at all to viewpoint. It just prohibits discrimination. It is true that the law favors those who oppose the conduct it prohibits over those who would like to engage in it. But that is true of every law. Again, there is no way to articulate the principle behind this claim that is not an invitation to chaos.

But Wonkette really nails it.

But It's the Christians Who Are the Only Victims

I don't think this story accurately portrays how courageous this boy really is to endure the abuse that only freakazoids hiding behind the unconstitutional cover of governmental authority can dish out.Yo

Because yes, in Kentucky, taxpayer-supported public fucking schools are openly and blatantly forcing children to endure religious indoctrination.

Coming soon from a homophobic bakery to public facilities near you.

From the Herald:

Heather Estes says her son, fifth-grader Devin Estes, has been bullied by other students at Stanton Elementary in Powell County and has been given a hard time by teachers because he doesn’t believe in God and doesn’t attend a morning religious service at the school. 

“They run it like a Christian school,” Estes told the Herald-Leader. “They have this program called the Upper Room. When I first got the permission slip, I asked around: What is the Upper Room? Why would I have to sign for something that’s during school hours?

“It’s like a little Sunday School program that they have during school hours,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s fair that they bully me because I’m not religious or Christian,” Devin, 10, told the Herald-Leader. “Because I don’t bully them. I’m fine with them being Christian. But for some reason, they are not fine with me being atheist.”

“It makes me feel like a bad person,” he said in a video his mother made one morning at the assembly. “I don’t want to feel like I’m a bad person.”

Don't think you're immune, blue-staters. The Supreme Court is getting ready to gut the Establishment Clause and bring freakazoid authority to every public facility near you.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article187938144.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article187938144.html#storylink=cpy

What's next? Child marriages and executing gays. They won't stop.

Don't worry, they said.  Allowing public prayer by citizens at public meetings is harmless.  It's not like elected officials themselves proselityzing on public property at public meetings ... oh WAIT.


From the press release, because they're not even trying to hide it.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Nov. 16, 2017) – Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is joining with West Virginia and 20 other states in filing an amicus brief in support of North Carolina’s writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review Rowan County v. Lund.

The Bevin Administration along with the states of West Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin are petitioning the Court to uphold well-established precedents protecting the freedom of prayer before public meetings. (SIC)

“Intervention is critical to resolve the disagreement in the lower courts and to preserve the ability of state and local legislative bodies to accommodate the spiritual needs of lawmakers,” states the brief. “This Court should grant review to provide certainty for the thousands of state and local governments that have long allowed lawmaker-led prayer in their proceedings—and thereby continue a tradition that has become part of the fabric of our society.”

In recent months, lower courts have issued conflicting rulings in regard to this topic. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit (which covers Kentucky) and a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit both ruled in favor of religious liberty (SIC). However, the full 4th Circuit later reversed its panel’s earlier decision.

Citing two landmark Supreme Court cases—Marsh v. Chambers (1983) and Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), the states argue that the 4th Circuit’s conclusion “is entirely unmoored from [Supreme Court] precedent.”

“Lawmaker-led prayer is a common and important form of legislative prayer, which connects lawmakers to a tradition dating to the time of the Framers and allows part-time and volunteer lawmakers to reflect the values they hold as private citizens,” the brief notes. “This Court’s review is necessary to undo the 4th Circuit’s erroneous decision, which would sweep away what has so long been settled, and threaten to create new controversy and begin anew the very divisions along religious lines that the Establishment Claus seeks to prevent.”

A copy of the full amicus brief can be downloaded here.

First, that's not how you spell "Clause." Second, "religious liberty" under the Establishment Clause does not mean "everybody else has to follow my religion."

In fifty years, christianist have gone from following biblical injunctions to not engage in the world outside the church to demanding that secular society adopt their freakazoid stupidity.

We ignored the warnings of history and the Founders and let them take over one step at a time, and now they're too powerful and our secular institutions too weak to stop them.

When they arrest you for mowing your lawn on a Sunday, don't say I didn't warn you.  

Religious Liberty is Neither

When it is the kind defined by conservatives and freakazoids.

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

What struck me are the assumptions that everyone made about this memo. That is because the words, “religious liberty” have come to mean something very specific in our current political climate. The truth is that, when people use that term, they most often don’t mean religious liberty, but the liberty of white evangelical Christians to both practice their religion and impose it on others. For example, Sessions should consider distinctions such as this:

Don't Let bibble "literacy" Get Away With Murder in Your School

You know damn well that this bullshit is just a cover for freakazoids to intimidate and proselytize students.

The ACLU knows it, too, and is ready to fight the motherfuckers, but they need your help.

Kentucky has more than 170 public school districts that are responsible for approximately 1,200 public schools. Many of those schools will soon be offering "Bible Literacy" courses to their students as a direct result of HB 128 that passed into law last session by the General Assembly. 

While courses on the Bible can be taught in public schools in a constitutionally permissible way, the ACLU of Kentucky has reason to believe that not all of the schools that offer this class will faithfully adhere to those constitutional limits.

Contact us if you, or someone you know, has specific information about your school district using these courses to "preach," instead of "teach." Also, please keep copies of any classroom assignments, worksheets, or other materials that you think highlight that fact. Simply email us at info@aclu-ky.org and include "Bible literacy" in the subject line, or fill out our legal intake form.

Best of luck to all of Kentucky's teachers and students as they kick off the school year. While school officials are not permitted to sponsor prayer or proselytize in school, students may freely express and exercise their faith. There are always a number of Know Your Rights resources on free exercise of religious liberty in public schools available on our national organization's website.

This Is Not the Religious Freedom We Fought For, But It Is the One They're Looking For

The freakazoids don't have to get the constitutional convention they are drooling for if they just destroy the one we have one right at a time.

Charlie Pierce:

But, seriously, Ambassador At Large For Religious Freedom? How is that even a job under a secular Constitution? And given Brownback's history as a radically conservative Catholic, one of those Crisis/First Things types who look with great envy at how Pat Robertson does business and who long for the days when a pope could terrify people at a distance, I suspect that easing the pain of the prejudice that might be afflicting, say, Muslims in Europe is not going to be at the top of agenda.

Even so, how is this even a thing? Are we going to have Ambassadors to all First Amendment freedoms? Because I'd really like to be Ambassador At Large For Press Freedom. How about the whole Bill of Rights? I think, in some countries, Ambassador At Large Against Quartering Troops might be a tougher job than it sounds. No, alas, I suspect this, along with the bizarre presidential* announcement about transgender troops on Wednesday morning, is one of the opening shots in the 2018 midterm elections, which apparently are going to be conducted according to 1998 rules, and which I already hate with a considerable passion.

In 1817, in what have come down to us as his Detached Memoranda, James Madison discussed the appointments of congressional chaplains. Mr. Jemmy was not impressed.

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation. The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority.

Damn that little feller. He saw all of this coming, centuries down the road.

UPDATE -- To some of the Top Commenters, I am aware that the position was not created specifically for Brownback, which is why I didn't say it was. I don't believe it ought to exist at all.

Bible in School? Then Let's Have Atheism in Church.

No, I mean it.  Freedom OF religion is also Freedom FROM religion, so let's have a fair fight.

Truthfully, Bevin's new Inquisition is not new.  When I was in Kentucky high school in the 1970s, there was an English class elective in "The Bible as Literature."  Everybody took it because easy A, right?

"Bible Literacy," however, is quite a bit more blatant about its religious indoctrination.

So I say: bring it on, motherfuckers. As long as it also requires churches to provide an "elective" Sunday School class in Atheism.

Only we won't call it Atheism.  We'll call it "Reading the Bible Word for Word."

Because that is the never-fail recipe for turning christianists into atheists.

No more taking your preacher's word that the Bible condemns gays and blacks and muslims and poor people.  Read it for yourself!  Read what a vicious, bloodthirsty, genocidal piece of shit the Old Testament god really is. Decide for yourself if Liviticus' ban on shellfish makes sense.

Read the gospels of the New Testament and try to fit jesus' words about helping the poor and the sick into the repug kill-the-poor-to-enrich-the-obscenely-wealthy platform.

Ask converts to atheism what turned them against the christianist upbringing, and they all tell the same story: In order to become a better christian, they started really studying the Bible.  And what they read opened their eyes to the scam all religions are.

So read your bible, Kentucky students!  Read it really, really well.

xians stole "easter," too

Really, all of christianity is stolen from earlier myths.

The Guardian:

Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life.

In ironic twist, the Cybele cult flourished on today's Vatican Hill. Cybele's lover Attis, was born of a virgin, died and was reborn annually. This spring festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday, rising to a crescendo after three days, in rejoicing over the resurrection. There was violent conflict on Vatican Hill in the early days of Christianity between the Jesus worshippers and pagans who quarrelled over whose God was the true, and whose the imitation. What is interesting to note here is that in the ancient world, wherever you had popular resurrected god myths, Christianity found lots of converts. So, eventually Christianity came to an accommodation with the pagan Spring festival. Although we see no celebration of Easter in the New Testament, early church fathers celebrated it, and today many churches are offering "sunrise services" at Easter – an obvious pagan solar celebration. The date of Easter is not fixed, but instead is governed by the phases of the moon – how pagan is that?

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All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre, a great northern goddess whose symbol was a rabbit or hare. Exchange of eggs is an ancient custom, celebrated by many cultures. Hot cross buns are very ancient too. In the Old Testament we see the Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. The early church clergy also tried to put a stop to sacred cakes being baked at Easter. In the end, in the face of defiant cake-baking pagan women, they gave up and blessed the cake instead.

Easter is essentially a pagan festival which is celebrated with cards, gifts and novelty Easter products, because it's fun and the ancient symbolism still works. It's always struck me that the power of nature and the longer days are often most felt in modern towns and cities, where we set off to work without putting on our car headlights and when our alarm clock goes off in the mornings, the streetlights outside are not still on because of the darkness.

What better way to celebrate, than to bite the head off the bunny goddess, go to a "sunrise service", get yourself a sticky-footed fluffy chick and stick it on your TV, whilst helping yourself to a hefty slice of pagan simnel cake? Happy Easter everyone!

Bevin Turns State Employee Charity into Freakazoid Con Job

No, Gov. Lying Coward, state employees are not your private workers you can force to follow your freakazoid idiocy. 

"Servant leadership" is freakazoid code for fundamentalist proselytizing pretending to be secular.

State employees are secular representatives of a secular government providing secular services to residents of all religions and no religions.

Gov. Lying Coward does not get to appropriate the public service he does not pay for to spread his own freakazoid propaganda.

There are many excellent reasons for state employees to NOT contribute to KECC, most obviously the fact that it washes donations through the corrupt United Way, which takes a five percent cut.

But the best reason of all not to contribute is that Gov. Lying Coward has turned KECC into a freakazoid con game.

Dear Leaders of the Commonwealth,

As state employees, we work together each day to make Kentucky the greatest version of itself. Our roles may be varied and cabinet functions distinct, but we all make a significant difference. We lead by caring for others, devoting our time and talents, and lending a helping hand.

Kentucky Employees Charitable Campaign (KECC) provides a great opportunity to put this leadership into practice. Charities represented by KECC improve academic achievement, provide medical care to children and rebuild communities after disasters strike.

I am honored to serve as this year’s KECC Chair. The reason I selected Servant Leadership as our campaign theme is because servant leaders improve the well-being of their community through selfless generosity and commitment.

I challenge each of you to step up and be a servant leader. Your generous participation in KECC will touch the lives of those who need it most throughout the Commonwealth, including people and families in your community. Donations of any size help, and even more importantly, they assist Kentuckians in reaching their fullest potential.

Each year, the KECC Charities are carefully vetted, and work in partnership through this campaign to improve the lives of children, seniors and families across the Commonwealth. I encourage you to watch this year’s video and learn more about the charities through the links below. It’s important to understand how your donation can change the life of a fellow Kentuckian.

Thank you for your consideration. As citizens, we should take our state motto to heart: “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” By working together, we can create a Kentucky that shines like a beacon for the entire world to see and emulate.

Sincerely,

Governor Matt Bevin

2016 KECC Chair

Bevin Demands Forced Indoctrination for Foster Children

Violations of the Establishment Clause forbidding government from promoting religion rarely gets as blatant as this. Not that Governor Lying Coward gives a shit about the Constitution, genuine religion freedom or the well-being of foster children.

From the AP:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's administration has asked a judge to throw out a legal settlement made under former Gov. Steve Beshear that was meant to ensure church-run foster care programs don't sway children to their religious beliefs.

Executive branch lawyers said this week that the court should undo the settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Courier-Journal reported (http://cjky.it/2atVLI1 ). The state's position and all-around "philosophy" has changed now that Bevin is in office, the lawyers said in court filings.

Bevin is a Republican, while Beshear is a Democrat.

Alex Luchenitser, an attorney for Americans United, said the state must stick to the agreement.

"It's a binding agreement and there is no basis for the state to get out of the agreement," Luchenitser said.

The state agreed in 2014 to let Americans United and the ACLU access surveys and exit interviews with children under certain conditions to ensure foster programs aren't trying to proselytize to children. According to the settlement, the two organizations can access the information only if a state inspector general investigation has been initiated.

Freakazoid Pig-Headedness Will Bankrupt Wilmore

Hey, Mayor Moron:  Google "Freedom From Religion Foundation."  They've spent years suing dozens of idiots like you and winning every time.  The real stupid cities keep appealing until they're bankrupt.

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

The longtime mayor of Wilmore said Sunday that a lighted white cross that sits on top of the city's water tower will not be moved despite a legal threat by a Madison, Wisconsin, group that says the cross is unconstitutional.

"In nearly 40 years, no one has ever complained about this cross except this group from Madison," said Wilmore Mayor Harold Rainwater, who has been mayor of the Jessamine County town of about 6,000 almost that long. "It means a lot to us. It's important to our town. There's nothing that's drawn our town together more than the possibility of losing this cross."

On Sept. 29, lawyers with the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent Rainwater an email asking that the cross be removed from the water tower and that pictures of the water tower and cross be removed from Wilmore's official website.

"It is unlawful for Wilmore to display a patently religious symbol such as a Christian cross on public property," wrote Rebecca S. Markert, a staff attorney for the foundation. The group could not be reached for additional comment Sunday.

The email cites several federal court cases regarding the separation of church and state, adding that "a majority of federal courts has held displays of Latin crosses on public property to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion."

In the email, Markert says the group successfully sued Whiteville, Tenn., in 2011 over a similar case. The Tennessee town had a large cross on its water tower that was also lit up at night. The case was settled for $20,000, with the town paying for the Freedom From Religion Foundation's legal fees. Whiteville also was sent a letter asking that the cross be removed, and a suit was filed after the letter was ignored, Markert wrote.

 And of course the freakazoids turned out to protect their invisible sky wizard.

It Harms Only Non-Rich Non-Men, So Who Gives a Fuck

Between the adulation for popeyfrankie still refusing to value adult women over blastocysts and government shutdown to force national de-funding of women's healthcare, if Saudia Arabia is going to remain the global leader of anti-woman laws, it's going to have to up its game.

Kevin Drum:

Molly Redden writes (Sept. 11) that the war on women is largely over, and women have lost:

This is what 2015 looks like: Abortion providers struggle against overwhelming odds to stay open, while women "turn themselves into pretzels" to get to them, as one researcher put it. Activists have been calling it the "war on women." But the onslaught of new abortion restrictions has been so successful, so strategically designed, and so well coordinated that the war in many places has essentially been lost.

Most abortions today involve some combination of endless wait, interminable journey, military-level coordination, and lots of money. Roe v. Wade was supposed to put an end to women crossing state lines for their abortions. But while reporting this story, I learned of women who drove from Kentucky to New Jersey, or flew from Texas to Washington, DC, because it was the only way they could have the procedure. Even where laws can't quite make it impossible for abortion clinics to stay open—they are closing down at a rate of 1.5 every single week—they can make it exhausting to operate one. In every corner of America, four years of unrelenting assaults on reproductive rights have transformed all facets of giving an abortion or getting one—possibly for good.

The whole piece is worth reading, but I just want to add one comment. This is the least original comment possible, but here it is: it's really only poor women in red states who have lost this war. Prosperous women in red states can easily purchase a quiet flight to a nearby Sodom if they need an abortion. And most women in blue states still have reasonable access to abortions.

That's why this tidal wave of new abortion restrictions hasn't gotten more attention than it has. If it were happening in blue states, there would be a revolt. If it were inconveniencing affluent women in red states, there would be a revolt. But poor women in Republican-controlled flyover country? Plenty of people care about them—but not enough to mount a revolt. And of course, poor women themselves have no political power of their own. As it is so often, the lesson here is that you can get away with almost anything, as long as you do it to poor people who are far away.

Sarah Erdreich at TPM wonders why no one is talking about forcing freakazoid pharmacists and nurses and doctors and hospitals who deny women reproductive health care to do their fucking jobs or resign.

The law that Kim Davis is so hellbent on defying does nothing more or less than give people equal rights. It provides men and women with a measure of autonomy and choice that had been unfairly denied them for generations. And in this, Davis’s crusade is a perfect parallel to the story of refusal clauses, which also came about because a law gave women autonomy and choice, and some people thought that was wrong. Constraining an individual’s choice in their healthcare decisions due to someone else’s objections is as nonsensical as telling a couple that they can’t get married because some stranger believes they shouldn’t. For too long, refusal clauses have allowed unnecessary outside interference in women’s reproductive healthcare. The same thing must not be allowed to happen in the wake of the landmark Obergefell ruling.

Stay Out of Laurel County; They've Put Their Invisible Sky Friends in Charge

So if I get stopped for speeding through Laurel Count on I-75, and I tell the deputy that the god he trusts told me to do it, he'll let me go, right?

From the AP:

 A Kentucky sheriff says he is adding decals that say "In God We Trust" to all marked patrol cars.

Laurel County Sheriff John Root said in a statement on Tuesday that he is paying for the patriotic decals with his own money.

Unless you paid for the cruisers and are paying the salaries and benefits of the deputies that drive them, and you inform the populace that the deputies no longer have the public authority of county government - which by the Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions is secular - you're still in violation of said Constitutions.

In other words, motherfucker, no jeebus-fucking stickers.

He says the move is a response to recent violence against law enforcement officers around the nation.

Really, moron? Adhesive paper saying you abdicate your job responsibilities to your invisible sky wizard is going to stop criminals from killing cops?

Whoever runs against you next year needs to run ads pointing out that you are not doing your fucking job.

The End Game of the "Religious Freedom" Fraud

Forcing everyone to be religious. At taxpayer expense. It's already happening today, and not just in New Mexico. 

In Kentucky and the rest of the South, it's virtually impossible to win a civil case against a church or someone who is ostentatiously church-going, especially if you are not a freakazoid yourself.  Failure to attend church is taken automatically as evidence of anti-social if not outright criminal behavior. Solitary, elderly women have literally lost their homes and freedom to freakazoid relatives for the "crime" of not belonging to a church.

Kaili Joy Gray at Wonkette:

There is a war on religious freedom and religious liberty (both kinds!) in US America right now, as we all know. American citizens are being persecuted and criminalized and jailed just for trying to exercise their First Amendment rights. It’s pretty bad out there these days, so here is a real effed-to-heck story about a single mom whose religious liberty was trampled on, kicked in the groin, decapitated, and left to rot in the hot New Mexico sun.

The family court in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a divorced couple to attend 10 counseling sessions, so they could learn how to be good parents to their 11-year-old twin sons, even while screaming “I NEVER LOVED YOU EITHER!” and splitting up their combined record collection. This is a thing family courts do to divorced parents who can sometimes forget to take care of their children because they’re too busy stalking their exes with their new fucktoys on the Facebook, or whatever.

But the counseling sessions Holly Salzman and her ex attended did not start with the basics of parenting, but rather, mandatory prayer:

“I walked into the session and the very first thing she said to me was, ‘I start my sessions by praying,’” Salzman said. “When I expressed my concerns that I didn’t pray she said, ‘well this is what I do’ and she proceeded to say a prayer out loud.” […]

There were handouts with quotes of Psalms and other religious quotes. Pepper also gave her homework titled “who is God to me?”

“Every session there was some sort of religion that was intertwined with the sessions,” Salzman said.

Now, a thinking person might wonder if the court (aka, The Government) can compel citizens to attend religious-based classes and participate in prayer, because of that whole First Amendment separation of church and state thing. And Holly Salzman was a thinking person, and she did wonder that. So she went to the court and said, “Um, yeah, I think this violates my constitutional rights, and you can’t make me do this.” But the court told her that yes uh-huh it can TOO make her go to this specific counselor to get proselytized, for the good of her children, OR ELSE. Or else what?

The single mother of two said she felt so “offended and disgusted” that she stopped going to the court-ordered sessions. The result was that the court took her kids away. […]

To get her kids back she had to finish the classes.

Court spokesman Tim Korte, while not commenting on this specific case, insisted that the court would never do such a thing:

The court does not refer parties to religious-based counseling. Some of the counseling organizations where individuals are referred may offer optional religious counseling, but the individual is not ordered by the court to participate in the religious counseling.

To be fair, the court-appointed counselor, Mary Pepper, MA, does not currently advertise her business as religious-based counseling. But she isn’t especially shy about being “a believer” and how she incorporates that into her counseling and thinks there’s no problem with her discussing religion in a court-ordered counseling session. Like so:

KRQE News 13 rolled undercover video and audio in the final three classes between Salzman and Pepper. There were several references of religion.\

“The meaning in my life is to know love and serve God,” Pepper told Salzman in one of the meetings. “If you want to explore how God was in your past,  how God was in your life and not in your life…  I know you don’t believe in God which is fine but I know at some points he was in your life in some way.”

Oh, it gets way worse - or better, depending on your view of freakazoids being hypocritcal law-breaking criminals.  Seems Pepper knows goddamn well that her taking tax dollars to proselytize is breaking the law, because for years she has been taking illegal cash under the table to hold her prayer-filled "parenting" sessions in secret.

Meanwhile, Salzman sucked it up and completed her What Does God Mean To Me? counseling with Pepper, and the court certified that she does indeed now know how to parent good and gets to have her kids back. While we’d suggest that the court undertake a more thorough vetting process of the classes it requires parents to attend, we certainly look forward to all the religious liberty activists descending on the courthouse in Albuquerque, with songs and signs and lots of outrage, to protest this blatant trashing of an American mother’s First Amendment freedoms.

 Not just mandatory prayer, but mandatory xian freakazoid only prayer.

Some People Know How to Do Their Jobs

Despite their sincere religious beliefs.

TPM:

Over the weekend, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suggested that local clerks with religious objections could opt-out of granting marriage licenses to gay couples in light of the Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage. But at least one Texas clerk who opposes gay marriage on religious grounds doesn't see a need for the exemption.

“Personally, same-sex marriage is a contradiction to my faith and belief that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Denton County Clerk Juli Luke said in a statement Sunday, according to the the Denton Record-Chronicle. “However, first and foremost, I took an oath on my family Bible to uphold the law, and as an elected public official, my personal belief cannot prevent me from issuing the licenses as required.”

Her clerk's office oversaw its first gay marriage Monday morning, the Denton Record-Chronicle. The couple, Sara Bollinger and Whitney Hennen, received their license a little after 8 a.m.

Doughnut Persecution

Divine Irony:

Reblogged from Hemant Mehta.

Religious Freedom

But if the freakazoids can't cram their mythology down everybody's throat, what's the point of being a freakazoid?

Divine Irony:

Just Do Your Fucking Job

Next time my boss gives me an assignment I don't like, or just tells me to get to work when I'd rather nap, I'm going say that my religious conscience prevents me from doing it.

Wonkette:

How’s about, instead of passing laws like this, we instead pass “competency clauses,” which state that if your religious beliefs don’t allow you to do your job completely and correctly, then maybe you are not qualified to have that job and should maybe get a different job. Sounds like a fine fuckin’ idea to us.

Conscience clauses are another huge step toward Dominionism. Only christians - and only the most fundamentalist flavor of christian - will be citizens.  Only they will be fully human and thus entitled to civil and human rights.  

Rude Pundit:

Conscience clauses when it comes to things like this are just impositions of one's religion on others. Do your fucking job. If you can't do your fucking job properly, find another fucking job. If your bullshit beliefs are going to prevent you from fulfilling basic duties, then get the fuck out of the public sector. Go work for a church. Just stay away from people who might need you to shut the fuck up and do the job. Conservatives like to talk about "special rights" for different groups. An exclusion from the duties of your profession is pretty much the picture book definition of "special rights."

It ain't just religion. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a school nurse refused to assist a middle school student and threw the girl out of her office. The girl's crime? She didn't stand during the Pledge of Allegiance, the loyalty oath students around the country are asked to recite every morning at their indoctrination center schools. Except, interestingly enough, the Pledge is voluntary, and the nurse is being investigated for abiding by her patriotic conscience. So there is a line.

When it comes to religion, though, that line is being erased. We are not far from just letting shit burn.