Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Focus on the Family has been dinking with their mail-based news system, and it hasn't worked completely correctly once this week. This is why I've been posting complete stories a few times. They actually say that's okay as long as it's not for "political" purposes - which is pretty funny given that they're a 501(c)(3) and etc etc etc. Consider all Focus on the Family stories here to be informational, rather than political, please, and this will meet their guideline requests. Also, you'll be doing more to separate their political and charitable activities than they do! Anyway, that's what's up with that.

Student at Poway (CA) High School kept out of class after refusing to remove anti-gay T-shirt in school (Front: "Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned" Back: "Homosexuality is Shameful"), but was not otherwise disciplined; he sued; ADF stepped in to support him; Focus on the Family condemns appeals court for ruling against him, defends T-shirt as "biblical"; I'm slightly divided here, in that if they actually meant their talk about free speech on campuses I'd be pretty sympathetic, but their history shows they don't, except for themselves, so;

FotF story on a bill allowing religious groups acting as agents of the state for adoptions to continue to discriminate against same-sex married couples introduced; they admit it has little chance of passage; the fundamentalists have pulled together some people to testify that having children in the care of gay and lesbian couples is abusive;

Story on appeal of previous anti-abortion legislation in South Dakota, before the complete ban; this one's up to the Court of Appeals; arguments don't seem to be going well for the anti-abortion-rights side;

***** Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM demanding passage of Rep. Fred Upton's Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, H.R. 310, a bill to radically increase "indecency" enforcement in the broadcast media, and raise fines to a half million per incident; it already passed the house, is stalled in the Senate. They dismiss suggestions that it's the parents' job to manage what their children watch, and demand government intervention;

Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM in Alberta to allow clergy and marriage commissioners to refuse to marry same-sex couples; also amends the school act to say that "no student shall be required to attend and no teacher shall be required to teach that part of a course that has in its curriculum that marriage may be a union between persons of the same sex," including public schools; also requires pre-notification and opt-out of any discussion in schools of same-sex marriage, and provides blanket exemption for teachers and students from any ramifications for refusing to participate; I'd support it if it was clergy-and-religious-schools only, but of course it's not; (full text here: http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=bills_bill&selectbill=208 );

Focus on the Family Canada ACTION ITEM to protest the Public Service Alliance of Canada's internal "zero tolerance" antidiscrimination policies towards GBLT citizens; they want those policies removed as violations of religious freedom;

Focus on the Family Canada story on "intelligent design" in Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's decision to reject a study on ID making populist inroads against evolutionary theory on the basis that the grant application didn't take ID seriously as science;

Focus on the Family US: Judicial battles "could resume in May"; former nominee Judge Charles Pickering wants a Constitutional amendment to overturn Marlbury v Madison (1803) and assign judgment of Constitutionality of a law to the legislature which passed it, thus, to my mind, making the entire damn idea of a limiting Constitution meaningless, since all Congress would have to do is say, "Yeah, we think this is Constitutional," which they'd obviously be able to do since they had a majority vote to pass the thing;

Focus on the Family US condemns Planned Parenthood safer-sex ad as promoting teen sex;

FotF rejects Federalism, condemns the idea that states should be able to decide on same-sex marriage; compares same-sex marriage to rapists, pedophiles, stalkers, and so on; asserts the federal anti-marriage amendment does not discriminate against lesbian and gay couples and that GBLT people want to "rip apart an institution that has been around for thousands of years";

FotF story on a group of private religious schools trying to get a Federal bill mandating that accreditation boards cannot require nondiscrimination policies, in particular cannot require nondiscrimination polities protecting GBLT people, as part of the accreditation process; the House has already passed the bill, it's going to the Senate now; FotF says, "non-discrimination statutes and policies are a bad idea for all segments of society, not just for Christian or religious colleges";

FotF condemns Harvard stem-cell research plans as "Human Cloning," and killing human beings; note the "human cloning" language used for stem-cell research, this is what I've been talking about whenever you see a "human cloning" bill;

Federal judge overturns local clinic buffer-zone law, says, "perhaps more than at any other place and any other time, in cases such as this, speech guaranteed by the First Amendment must be protected"; okay, good, now let's get these so-called "free speech zone/protest zone" abominations before this judge and watch him change his mind instantly - or not, in which case yay! he'll be a hero! and I really mean that, but somehow I think he'd come up with new ideas;

***** Kansas doctor who performs abortions - Focus on the Family refers to him as "George R. Tiller, one of the most notorious late-term abortionists in the U.S." - had a patient die last year; he's been cleared by the state medical board, but fundamentalists have succeeded in getting enough signatures on a petition to force a grand jury investigation; apparently Kansas law allows this(!); Operation Rescue says, "It's high time that this man is held accountable for his actions that have caused untold misery and loss of life";

Focus on the Family (US) ACTION ITEM to support anti-marriage amendment; claims "diverse coalition" supporting the anti-marriage amendment, talks about how anti-marrige-rights unites the country against the queers;

Faith and Freedom Network reports news from Tim Eyman on progress gaining signatures for a referendum to overturn the state GBLT-civil-rights protection bill passed earlier this year; Gary Randall asks for help collecting more signatures;

Family Research Council ACTION ITEM on Illinois anti-marriage amendment petition drive; internal deadline extended to 30 April; calls on all churches to get petitions in now now now, and to get more signatures;

Family Research Council ACTION ITEM to sign petition supporting Federal anti-marriage amendment; they're really serious about this run at it;

Traditional Values Coalition ACTION ITEM against California bill banning anti-GBLT lesson plans in California public schools;

TVC: "ADF Wins Jury Trial Over Botched Abortion";

TVC cranky at bill introduction - the Freedom of Choice Act - that would overturn anti-abortion law at the Federal level, overriding state law; it has no shot, of course;

TVC, which thinks that transgendered people should be involuntarily institutionalised, rails against TG people in the media;

Canada Family Action Coalition accuses BC schools of being anti-heterosexual; suggests taking children out of public education;

Illinois Family Institute says they're on track to get enough signatures for their anti-marriage rights amendment; also plays the "diseased faggots" card, with the "posing a health risk to YOUR CHILDREN!!!!1!" card; this line in particular is interesting, as it implies God created AIDS: "Dr. John Diggs, author of "The "Health Risks of Gay Sex," says homosexual sodomy is so dangerous that it's almost as if it was created to spread disease." (Underlining in original; c.f. creationism); full version has lists of diseases supposedly almost only queers get;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM to condemn Ford Motor for its support of GBLT rights; AFA says their boycott is the reason Ford stock is down (as are sales), takes credit for Ford's financial troubles; I'm sure their boycott isn't help any, but Ford has been on the rocks for a while;

AFA/Agape Press quotes fundamentalist wonk Dr. Jeffrey Satinover in anti-pr0n article; the other name mentioned, Peter Stock, is a big Canadian anti-pr0n crusader, from the Canadian Institute for Education on the Family and also a member of the Canadian Family Action Coalition, a fundamentalist group I also monitor;

Baptist Press freaks out over an elementary-school book with gay characters - "King and King."

( Articles and excerpts below )

also not very surprising

Modern vegetables not as nutritious as those grown 50 years ago - unless you're talking about organically-grown, in which case they're as healthful as they were then. In short, fast-growth post-Green-Revolution fruits and vegs aren't as good for you. Still better than not eating them! But not as good.

not much at all

January Clouds (Kenmore) (3)

Wednesday's miles: 2.0
Thursday's miles: 1.2
Saturday's miles: 2.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 713.3
Miles out of Rivendell: 253.5
Miles to Lothlórien: 212.9

Saw the first of the regular run of series 28 Doctor Who tonight. Not bad; I miss Chris, but David's not doing a bad job at all. Today during the day I mostly caught up on email and housecleaning (need to do more of that...) and worked on the garden. There are a few surviving rockery plants that the previous owner's landscaper put in, I think; I divided several of them, amended soil in a few key places, and hopefully now they'll survive and take root. Rock retaining walls look a lot better with more plants in.

I have a lot of flower pictures now, but I need to process them and get them online so I can post them. Until then, it's more from January.


Lo These Mighty Years (Edge of the World)