Today's Cultural Warfare Update

There's more going on than is covered in this CWA, but I wanted to get this one out, since I've been trying to get it going for a few days. Highlights... well, there aren't really highlights to the World's Worst Webcomic, but I try.

And now, today's news:

Focus on the Family's James Dobson responds to the researchers who went vocally public about his lies about their work, asserting that he did no such thing, and implicitly asserting that he knows their research did better than they do; their headline is "Dobson Rebuffs Gay Activists Over Time Article," trying to divert attention away from the researchers' complaints and to queers;

American Family Association/Agape Press demands Congress excise pr0n from the military, blames "behavior as seen in the Abu Ghraib photos" on "lust" and pornography "addictions";

Daily Mail article on Northern Ireland religious protests against GBLT rights; of course, they have the Let's Scare the Str8s photo up;

Muslim taxi drivers at the Minnesota airport system still refusing to carry passengers based on religious dictate about "cooperating in sin";

Focus on the Family applauds Pope complaints that people in Europe aren't having enough children;

FotF complains about judicial nominations again; ACTION ITEM to declare, this time, "fair treatment" of Bush nominees to the courts; note that they've stopped asking for "up or down votes";

FotF: Georgia legislator Melvin Everson introduces comprehensive abortion ban, decreeing that "life begins at conception"; make that a matter of law and you ban the birth control pill, which is, well, the idea in the long run;

New Kansas AG to dismiss the previous AG's special prosecutor in charge of searching medical records to look for anti-abortion charges to bring against clinics providing abortion services;

Vermont legislator to introduce GBLT marriage bill; Focus on the Family, et al., to oppose; state group also favours Federal anti-marriage bill;

How to change a study's result: a pair of researchers report that Plan B's availability has not had an effect on pregnancy or abortion rates, and state that the methodology for determining field effectiveness of the drug is flawed; Focus on the Family changes that to "proof" that Plan B "doesn't work" and should be made prescription-only. Note that this is emergency contraception, not RU-486, the "abortion pill";

FotF ACTION ITEM against H.R.3, the bill moving through Congress now to support stem-cell research generally;

ADF, Focus on the Family defending a nurse reduced from full-time to part-time status at her hospital for refusing to dispense the morning-after birth-control pill (emergency contraception) because of her religious beliefs; see the taxi issue above for comparison purposes;

FotF notes Washington State Senator Ed Murray's plans to introduce reciprocal-benefits and civil unions bills; they point to our very own set of fundamentalist asshats, the Faith and Freedom Network;

South Dakota law requires doctors to tell patients that "abortion... ends a human life" and other anti-abortion rhetoric; there's a lawsuit against it now;

Focus on the Family launches a major ACTION ITEM campaign against a lobbying reform bill; they seem mostly upset with a reporting requirement; I don't know whether they have a point or not, but they're sure working hard to stop it;

FotF story on the anti-Dr. George Tiller, anti-abortion-clinic special prosecutor appointed by previous attourney general; "Morrison said he would fire me because I was not a 'neutral third party.' That's a smoke screen," McKinney said. "Nobody is neutral about aborting late-term babies. A special prosecutor isn't supposed to be neutral, he's supposed to prosecute the defendant";

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM for an amendment striking section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill; this section would require disclosure of expenditures; see two items above for more on that; Dobson claims the intent of the section's disclosure requirement is "to hide what goes on from the public... and to punish and silence those of us who would talk about what the Congress is doing";

FotF email-only ACTION ITEM to sign a petition against S.1, or to delete section 220;

FotF attacks National Council of Churches is a purely-political front for liberal causes with no good theological backing; oh the irony;

FotF attacks the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Moderate Baptists as liberal front groups;

FotF short article about African Anglicans snubbing American bishop Katherine Schori; notes also a couple of Episcopalian churches moving to African jurisdiction over GBLT issues; does not talk explicitly about the position of the African Anglican bishop in particular that GBLT people should be illegal, probably because they don't like saying that in those terms, even though that's what they're talking about when they go on about the need to overturn Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which said you couldn't do that anymore;

Faith and Freedom Network campaigns against DP benefits in any form - Ed Murray has a bill in to provide DP benefits for health and hospitalisation purposes - and also against Ed Murray's DOA marriage bill; the DP benefits bill allows old heterosexual unmarried couples to register as well;

FFN news item against GBLT marriage rights, saying God requires opposition ("God requires that we stand up for what matters," which is to say, keeping queers furtive and miserable;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM against Senate Bill 1, specifically section 220, which reportedly requires disclosure of lobbying efforts;

AFA takes credit for Ford Motor's financial troubles, attacks Ford for advertising on TV shows with any GBLT content at all, most recently an episode of Cold Case on CBS; includes ACTION ITEM against Ford Motor and all Ford-related brand dealerships;

American Family Association condemns Sears for advertising on LOGO, a GBLT-themed cable TV channel; includes ACTION ITEM to cease all advertising on LOGO;

AFA/Agape Press news roundup includes all sorts of fun, including allegations that former President Jimmy "Camp David Peace Accords" Carter is anti-semitic for opposing Israeli policy towards the West Bank and Gaza;

AFA pushes support for Georgia blanket abortion ban which also defines "life" as starting at conception - which would ban most forms of hormonal birth control, as well;

Concerned Women for America ACTION ITEM against S. 1, the lobbying reform bill, in its current form; they want it amended to strike the disclosure requirements they oppose;

CWA's Matt Barber condemns any attempt to revisit the military's gay and lesbian service ban; I think they're getting defensive about all the men representing Concerned Women for America - the refer to him as "one of the 'like-minded men' with Concerned Women for America" who "serves as CWA's Policy Director for Cultural Issues";

Concerned Women for America does not understand Japan; result: hilarity;

CWA sends out their "talking points" on "amniotic stem cell research."

( Articles and excerpts below )