Mississippi Mud - Bigotry legalized in the Magnolia State

The deep south is a cesspool of bigotry. Since I live in Florida, let's start there.“If there is anybody under assault and discrimination, I’ll tell you who it is,” Ocala Florida Representative Dennis Baxley is quoted as saying back on March 2nd. “It is anyone who holds a biblical world view, and is simply trying to live by it. They are under assault. We are called haters.” Baxley was fuming as he helped push through the “Pastor Protection Act” following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year that same-sex couples have as much right to marry as heterosexual couples do. Outraged, Baxley immediately claimed the sky was falling and proposed legislation that had to be passed just in case someone objected to Christian bigotry.

Mizzippi Guv Phil "The Pill" Bryant

Baxley’s doppelgängers in Mississippi heard his clarion call from Florida’s capital of Tallahassee and passed their own legislation in Jackson called “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” that allows Mississippi’s Christians to maintain their hard-on against the LGBTQ community. The state’s Lieutenant-governor said “this bill simply protects those individuals from government interference when practicing their religious beliefs.” Which is another way of saying “legislation has to be passed in case someone objects to Christian bigotry.” Mississippi Senator Angela Burks Hil added “businesses are in jeopardy without this bill.” Because without the bill, those very same businesses wouldn't be allowed to mistreat someone who was perceived as different. The horror.

You see, bible-believing Christians think they are under assault. When they are not allowed to discriminate, that means they are being discriminated against. Their bible has a long-standing tradition of allowing them to vilify others based on what verses they choose to obey, so it’s heritage, not hate. Does that assertion sound a bit familiar? Same excuse for the canton in the upper left corner of the state’s flag.

Since the bible says Christians should condemn homosexuality, this bill will make it safe for ministers and religious leaders to urge their flock to treat LGBTQ people as pariahs and third-class citizens, and make sure the laws that are in place to protect the LGBTQ community are repealed. Businesses would have the right to refuse service to anyone they dislike and claim they're just exercising their religious freedom. Take that Supreme Court!

Now, hopefully Governor Phil Bryant and the Mississippi legislature are not complete hypocrites. If the bible is that important, they should step up to the plate and outlaw the rest of what their bible calls abominations; passing laws making it illegal to eat bacon, ham, and pork anywhere in the state. Leviticus 11:6-8 claims God orders people not to eat the meat, or touch the skin, of a dead pig because it makes the offender unclean. Implementing God’s revulsion of shellfish will play havoc with Mississippi’s shrimp industry too, as per Leviticus 11:9-12, but sacrifices will have to be made.

Eat shellfish...go to hell. It's that simple

Back to the abomination list: something needs to be done about all those people in the state working on the Sabbath since clearly in Exodus 31:14-15 those who break God’s command to observe the Sabbath with complete rest and no work must be put to death. Same with those who plant the wrong crops side by side, wear mixed fabric garments, have tattoos, and especially dealing with those foul-mouth kids who call mom and dad obscene names. (Here’s a job opportunity for an entrepreneur: start a rock distribution center to deliver them to Mississippians for stoning sessions outside their cities. If they ever get around to including adultery, you won’t be able to keep up with the rock demand.)

Hate seems like such a mild word to label what they’re doing in Mississippi…but as labels go, it fits perfectly. Many in the state refuse to concede the new law is in any way prejudicial against the LGBTQ community. They claim it’s meant to keep people from discriminating against Christians! So get out your Kleenex and let the tears flow because Christians are the real victims here.

Me thinks thou sanctimonious Mississippi Christians doth protest too much!

Jeb is as Dumb as Dubya - Why we don't need ANOTHER Bush!

            To paraphrase the old “pants/fat” joke…does the last name make him look like an idiot?

“I am asked sometimes whether I would ever allow my decisions in government to be influenced by my Christian faith. The simple and safe reply is no, never, of course not.”

The words of presidential hopeful Jeb Bush while giving the commencement address Saturday, May 9, 2015 at Liberty University, you know, the center of higher (that means Christian) learning started by Jerry Falwell. (Everyone remembers how tolerant, open-minded, and non-prejudicial Rev. Falwell was.) I am sure every student there breathed a sigh of relief that for once a candidate of Jeb’s stature wouldn’t be using the office of the presidency to expand his religious convictions, like, say, his brother George W. did. But when you read further, it’s obvious that’s exactly what Jeb would do.

                     The Senator made this statement in 1964. It has come to pass.

           

               The Bush article appeared in May 10^th newspapers across the nation and was entitled “Religious Freedom Defended at Liberty”. The problem is the title is incorrect, unless the word “freedom” has been flipped to mean the right to practice bigotry and intolerance.

              Expounding on what he views as an absolute religious right, he said “…as usual, the present [Obama] administration is supporting the use of coercive federal power. What should be easy calls, in favor of religious freedom, have instead become an aggressive stance against it. Somebody here is being small-minded and intolerant, and it sure isn’t the nuns, ministers, and laymen and women who ask only to live and practice their faith. Federal authorities are demanding obedience, in complete disregard of religious conscience – and in a free society, the answer [to obedience] is, ‘No.’”

                                Jeb looking confused, a typical Bush trait.

              Let me distill his gobbledygook so it’s clear what he meant. Business owners of faith want to discriminate against consumers based on a narrow-minded religious belief; and those who oppose that discrimination are being the “small-minded and intolerant” ones. The nuns, ministers, laymen and women living and practicing their faith should be allowed to use the power of law to continue their bigotry…because that’s what their holy book demands of them. We cannot allow that discrimination to be curtailed because without it, they cease to be true christians.”

             As usual, the clergy are allowed to select which parts of their holy books they’ll wield against the people they don’t like. Leviticus 11:9-12 states shellfish are an abomination but no church I know of demands government action against Red Lobster. And even though Leviticus 11:6-8 says don’t touch the skin of a dead pig, I have yet to hear, read, or see any person of faith ordering an end to American football games. But Jeb Bush wants to safeguard the religious bigotry of those who can’t abide gay marriage or the use of birth control. And he's considered the moderate GOP candidate.

             What is it about projection that is so appealing to politicians? Jeb wants to use the power of government so that people practicing their faith can continue to discriminate; not to use that power to grant all people the same rights. When it comes to religious bigotry, they deny there is any discrimination and instead claim it is those who are being discriminated against that are being small-minded and intolerant. Jeb drools over the ready-to-use accessibility of projecting religious discrimination. It’s the political version of "I know you are but what am I?".            

           Why should the government allow any loopholes for religious intolerance? Bigotry is bigotry whether it’s dressed up in the language of faith or not.

Bigots request the Supreme Court grant them continued discriminatory rights against gays

The fundamentalists just won’t give it up.

In a landmark 2003 decision, the US Supreme Court declared gay sex was not a crime. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Court’s opinion that “moral disapproval is not a valid justification for discriminatory laws that demean gay couples."

Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissent, predicted that eliminating moral disapproval as a rightful basis for a law would allow same-sex marriage. He only had to wait a few months when in May 2004; Massachusetts became the first state to declare gay couples had a right to marry. That set in motion state-by-state challenges to laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman. Many members of state legislatures still believed gay sex was a crime, therefore, gays shouldn't be allowed to marry and legitimize it, but they couldn't come right out and say that.

This created a legal black hole as lawyers defending anti-gay marriage laws scrambled to find a rational basis to continue discrimination that did not rely on “tradition”, or on the religious view that homosexuality was a sin. Initial efforts led them to suggest it was a procreation issue: Opposite-sex couples should marry because they could have children, even accidentally, and the state wanted them to wed. Ergo, it could legally limit marriage to heterosexual couples only...for the sake of the children, of course.

By 2015, Michigan had twisted Justice Kennedy's 2003 opinion about discriminatory laws by saying that they don't want to let gay people marry because getting married would demean gay people. Demeaning heterosexual couples via marriage, though, was not a problem.

 In Kentucky, they felt that their marriage ban wasn't discriminatory, since LGBTs are free to get married, as long as it’s straight-married. No, not a whiff of discrimination in that. What if we reversed it? Straights could wed anyone so long as it was only someone of the same sex.

Ohio wants to maintain its marriage ban out of concern for the people who voted for it...sort of like “Sorry folks, our ignorant voters were told by their preachers that this has to stay on the books or God’ll do really awful things to them, and they’re just filled with fear.”

Tennessee is fixated on sex….i.e. penises and vaginas. They are meant for each other and no other orifices are to be considered, except as gateways to hell. See, they use the bible to claim anything else is unnatural…as if a talking serpent is.

    A naturally occurring talking serpent charms Adam and Eve who seem equipped with something un-natural given their supposed 'origin'.

In the current case before the Supreme Court, the state of Michigan has denied a marriage license to two women who are raising four foster kids abandoned by their natural mothers. The women, who are both nurses, were allowed to adopt the children, but only as individuals, not as a couple. When asked why these women should be barred from marrying, Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch insisted the decision had nothing to do with disapproval of their lifestyle; that being gay was not the problem."Oh, gosh, no,” he said, “the state doesn't care about sexual orientation. We're not drawing distinctions based on the identity, the orientation or the choices of anyone. It's not meant to exclude." Clarifying the state’s position, Bursch said “The state's concern is that allowing the women to marry would have an effect on the rest of society. It would "de-link the idea that we're binding children with their biological mom and dad."

See the difference?                                                  

If not, let me re-interpret Mr. Bursch’s bloviating: “Oh gosh no, allowing the women to marry would have a detrimental effect on society because it would hamper our narrow-minded religious bigotry and discrimination because our holy book, written about 2 thousand years ago, before anyone had an understanding of human desire and human biology, made a claim that homosexuality was bad, (but never says why it’s bad) and therefore a sin, punishable by death. Moral disapproval is valid justification to maintain prejudiced and intolerant laws aimed solely at gay couples because the state of Michigan doesn’t want the children “de-linked” from the biological father and mother (the only ones who should be granted marriage rights), and have them “linked-up” with non-biological parents who are of the same sex.” Does Mr. Bursch actually think the four kids should be bound to the mothers and fathers that abandoned them, and not instead be linked with the two women who have loved them and raised them since? How would the women getting married "de-link" the kids from their biological parents? How does that work?
When two people of consenting age love each other, even if they are the same sex, why should it matter to anyone other than the two people involved if they get married?

I personally think the state's position should be bending over and touching their toes...while every LGBT boot in the state is screaming up from behind to land a well-aimed kick.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision before its term ends in June. So, if you’re in a committed gay relationship now, plan on a June wedding.