Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Brutal update: the American Family Association is starting to talk about how abortion bans should not include exemptions to save the life of the woman; they're also pushing attacks against birth control in any form. Also, I'm seeing stepped up activity from Canadian fundamentalist groups, with CFAC endorsing and joining the anti-gay boycott of Ford Motor Corporation, and Focus on the Family's Canadian branch having a couple of new articles out.

Here's today's news.

Bush administration gets it ass-backwards yet again: queers can be denied security clearance for being gay now, unless they are "strictly private" and "discreet" - in other words, in the closet, which makes them more, not less vulnerable to blackmail threats, which is exactly the wrong fucking thing to do yet again, but probably makes his fundamentalist friends slightly happier. And god knows this asshat has never let rationality get in the way of things like that;

The article on Sharia law that got Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo pulled off the Telegraph;

Clips from the debate on Al-Jazeera that later caused Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Los Angeles-resident Syrian psychiatrist, go have to go into hiding for fear of her life;

Roberton's school gets Virginia Beach police to arrest Soulforce members as they attempt to cross a police line blocking them from campus;

Focus on the Family praises Chief Justice Roberts and his "new day at the court";

FotF: There is no middle ground on abortion;

FotF talks up its letter campaigns and email activism, and condemns DefCon's membership;

FotF attacks religious groups working with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force;

Blogger posts information on how to do abortions; American Life League says, "Anyone who engages in this should be prosecuted for what it is -- murder";

Concerned Women for America attack abortion bans which include exceptions for rape victims AND emergency contraception, apparently joining the Rapist's Rights bandwagon by claiming that the morning-after pill actually benefits the rapist; says the zygote is more innocent than the mother;

Director Of South Dakota Planned Parenthood Affiliate To Decide On Possible Legal Challenge To State Abortion Ban; State has a special fund to defend the abortion ban that takes anonymous donations and is exempt from state reporting laws;

Concerned Women for America applaud FCC indecency fines;

CWA upset that Maryland filibuster against a stem-cell research bill failed;

***** American Family Association/Agape Press attack contraception, also attacks abortion bans with any exemptions whatsoever including to save a woman's life;

Family Research Council says fundamentalist voters are unhappy with a lack action on the fundamentalist agenda from Congress;

The "Values Voters Contract with Congress" - a campaign manifesto for the theoconservative right for 2006 - includes demands for Constitutional bans on GBLT marriage and partnership rights, bans on church-state cases (unless those cases endorse the Christianist point of view), bans on courts-cost payments in the event a court challenge gets to court and wins, bans on equal-protection cases for gays and lesbian challenges to state marriage laws; a comprehensive federal ban on abortion in all cases; bans on many forms of bioresearch (what they call "human cloning" and any use of embryonic stem cells); Federal bans on pornography and obscenity; more;

The federal government temporarily lifted the ban on HIV+ travel to this country for the purposes of athletes and visitors attending the Gay Games in Chicago; Traditional Values Coalition has an ACTION ITEM to demand the ban be put back in place, condemns Gay Games as one big orgy;

Senate Republican Policy Committee sends out "State-by-state Marriage Protection Update," which is to say, a list of states banning marriage rights for gay and lesbian people in their state constitutions and/or via DOMA;

TVC condemns National Gay and Lesbian Task Force alliance with an assortment of religious groups;

TVC pushes "Values Voter's Contract";

***** Canada Family Action Coalition endorses AFA boycott of Ford Motor Corporation, urges its membership to boycott Ford Motor as well;

Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM to protest attempts to stop provincial funding of religious schools that teach religious or racial intolerance;

Focus on the Family Canada runs article against genetic screening in pregnancy;

Concerned Women for America accuses Illinois official of "name calling" for saying that fundamentalist anti-gay groups are hateful; I guess the truth hurts.

( Articles and excerpts )

okay, that's weird

My kitchen timer now makes two different tones instead of just the one, and does so in a random sequence which sounds like an alarm sfx noise from a bad superhero movie. I fully expected that a secret door would open as soon as I hit the buttons to shut it off.

in other news

Google hates Seattle drivers and wants them to die a fiery death.

Google hates Seattle bikers and wants them to drown like rats in the river.

have some pictures

The Inevitable Space Needle Shot

The Kenmore Downtown Plan meeting went reasonably well last night; there were a few of the usual idiots who hate everything, but other than that, things seemed to be basically alright. I ended up collecting a bunch of signatures for I-937, too - the renewable energy initiative. So that was good. Clyde (a guy on the task force who ran for city council but lost - I voted for him) seemed to think it was pretty amazing that I walked there - it's a mile and a quarter away zomgwtfbbq.

When I got back, I found I'd gotten a mailer from Villanova University's biology graduate programme. I guess they must have bought GRE score reports and liked mine.

Tuesday's token: 0.4 miles
Wednesday's miles: 2.6
Miles out of Hobbiton: 668.7
Miles out of Rivendell: 208.9
Miles to Lothlórien: 257.5


The Slightly Less Inevitable Space Needle Shot