Today's Cultural Warfare Update

A local story first; the new Oklahoma-based owners of the Seattle Supersonics and Seattle Storm NBA and WNBA teams - who are demanding $300M from the legislature to build them a new arena even while they aren't selling out the current (and recent, and very nice) Key Arena at Seattle Centre, spent $1.1 million dollars bankrolling anti-gay Family Research Council maven Gary Bauer in 2004 and 2005. I'm already opposed to government funding for pro sports arenas; now I'm opposed and pissed off;

CBN News reports on local Christianist groups having various issues with Mitt Romney;

Wyoming GOP state rep Dan Zwonitzer speaks against the anti-gay activities in his own state - and could use some support;

Focus on the Family complains about Illinois state action against the Illinois DOMA; I have no idea how far (if at all) this'll go;

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, "an open homosexual" as Focus on the Family says, reintroduces California SB1437 (passed last year, vetoed) as SB 777; anything you remember about SB1437 probably applies to SB 777;

Christian Medical Association condemns "harm-reduction" approach to AIDS prevention in prostitutes; it and Focus on the Family are pleased at Bush Administration decision not to support condom distribution to prostitutes in Vietnam because the AIDS prevention organisation doing so refuses to condemn prostitution in general was upheld by the DC Court of Appeals. At first glance I suspect the DC ruling is legally correct, but I'm certainly opposed to the policy;

Focus on the Family state-level-leadership confab produces this great line, which Focus on the Family support-quotes: "Right now the church believes there's a difference between public policy and theological issues. And I see no difference." (Jeff Laszloffy, president of the Montana Family Foundation.) You don't really get a whole lot clearer statement on theocratic rule than that;

Focus on the Family short article on the Anglican/Episcopalian fight over a gay bishop in the US church;

Anglican Archbishop Akinola (Nigeria) supports bill in Nigerian Senate to criminalise gay and lesbian people (five year prison terms), support for GBLT rights, and censor the media to that end;

FotF glad that US Supreme Court did not accept an appeal of a Utah Supreme Court ruling against polygamous marriage; they bring up Lawrence v. Texas (2003) again as a potential "wedge" for legal recognition of polygamy; longtime readers know that Lawrence is the Supreme Court ruling stating that states couldn't make gay people illegal. Focus on the Family wants it overturned;

FotF article talks explicitly about how Lawrence v. Texas (2003) "overturned all the nation's sodomy laws," which is to say, ended the illegal status of gay people in 24 states, and how "pro-family groups" think it should be overturned, or at least limited;

FotF ACTION ITEM to tell a school principal not to "allow students to make a mockery of marriage" by letting gay students stage "fake wedding ceremonies" in the school cafeteria; FotF alleges "counterfeit marriage certificates" were handed out, which implies illegality and fraud, but hey; I looked for a real news story about this but didn't see one;

"Alliance for Marriage" and Focus on the Family to shift anti-gay activities more to states, to get local marriage bans in place; in states with marriage bans, they'll work to ban civil unions and domestic partnerships, which they call "counterfeit marriage efforts;"

Maryland "Citizens for Responsible Curriculum" fighting GBLT-inclusive sex education lesson plan; there appears to be some traction, so if you know anyone in Maryland, you might let them know; they're most upset that gay people are presented as normal;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM against adoption by gay and lesbian people in New Hampshire and Michigan; "people of faith should keep fighting attempts to place children in homes that, by definition, exclude either a mom or a dad;"

Focus on the Family condemns a Federal judge's throwing out a bill against Massachusetts state schools over their GBLT-inclusive curriculum, particularly regarding marriage - despite the fact that same-sex marriage is legal and recognised in Massachusetts;

I guess Wyoming State Representative Dan Zwonitzer (R) did a good job - the Wyoming anti-marriage bill fails to get out of House Rules and is dead for the year;

Focus on the Family condemns Iowa bill "easing restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research"; anti-abortion Democrat who voted for the bill "sold out thousands of unborn babies for 30 pieces of silver";

FotF doesn't like medical marijuana;

"Faith-Based Initiative Goes on Trial"; supporters of the programme say that opponents "are trying to stop all government... funding of religion" - yes, really;

American Psychological Association considers opposition so-called "reparative" therapy, which claims to "convert" lesbian and gay people to straight. Focus on the Family, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, and the usual suspects are up in arms;

Senator Brownback introduces video-game rating bill; Penny Arcade has talked a lot about various versions of this floating around; last I heard, Senator Brownback's was incoherent at the practical level, but that doesn't stop him;

FotF complains about the Supreme Court not overturning a billboard ruling involving "Bible passages concerning homosexuality" - anybody know what the case was actually about? - and another involving the "War on Christmas";

FotF cranky as Rhode Island atty. general opinion indicates that RI would and should recognise same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts;

South Dakota Senate Committee votes 8-1 to kill another attempt to ban abortion in South Dakota; this follows the overturning of the comprehensive ban passed last year, and popular-vote rejection of a similar ban attempt; remember, kids, the voter's will only matters when it agrees with you;

Sen. Joe Lieberman threatens to join GOP over any war vote; I include this mostly because I haven't seen it elsewhere;

Focus on the Family (USA) celebrates successful effort to get Canadian cell phone company TELUS to block access to pr0n on cell phones;

Focus on the Family Canada version of the story;

Focus on the Family Canada scare-story against t3h int4rwebs;

Focus on the Family Canada scare-story about open WAP; the very first word in the headline and the story is "Pedophiles";

American Family Association ACTION ITEM against the Discovery Channel, headlined "The Discovery Channel documentary says Christianity is a lie";

AFA ACTION ITEM against including sexual orientation in existing Federal violent hate-crimes law; claims it will lead to a laundry list of evils, such as landlords having to rent to qualified queer applicants and not being able to fire someone just because they're gay, and oh yeah, "Biblical language used to define homosexuality" will be banned;

Family Research Council - started as a Focus on the Family project, if you're not aware - cheers lack of vote on civil unions bill in Hawai'i;

FRC reports anti-abortion MP in the UK introduces a bill to ban abortion after 21 weeks;

FRC condemns Federal court ruling upholding Massachusetts school policy guidelines on GBLT marriage;

Family Research Council: letting queers marry is exactly the same as letting a man marry a horse.

( Articles and excerpts below )

and while we're posting

Popping in again with a CWU (yay). But I didn't want that to be top thing on my LJ, so what's new with me? Mostly school, and how everybody I know who is in school is just shriekingly sick of this quarter. I don't know what it is, but it's true. We've all got the emo flu or something. (Oh, and speaking of which, jwz found the best local news story evar, you should clickie.)

annathepiper and I went down to Westlake Centre last weekend and I got these really cool metal shelves at Daiso. They're free-standing wire-rack shelving, the nice kind that I used in Din's bathroom, only, I dunno, HO-scale or something. They're modular, and so flexible, and so fit in our weird under-the-stove pots-and-pans storage space, and now we have a cheap solution to our no-longer-endlessly-annoying pan storage problem. Yay! It sounds like such a pointless thing, but it's so much nicer not to have to worry about Ambush Stacking anymore.

Well, there, anyway.

So if you're down at Westlake - say, at the new Lush which opened two days ago, w00t! - go downstairs to Daiso, too.

Anyway, we got that, and I got new shoes - my old ones were worn through their soles again - and a new backpack that doesn't suck (the $4 one I was hoping would make it through the year didn't even last two quarters!) at REI, and that was fun.

And no, I haven't written the bit I talked about last weekend yet. I'm t3h failure.


Scale Leafs
Whup, 4" of snow at Murkworks North and counting. I looked outside and thought, "gosh, that's up to a couple of inches now" and checked and HOLY CRAP over 4" @whee! I wonder how it is elsewhere? They were predicting an inch or less, still, earlier this evening - but I see they've updated that a bit as of 9:30(ish), and are saying up to three additional inches overnight. I wonder whether I'll have school tomorrow.

It's not cold enough, I don't think, to do any harm to the garden. I haven't planted anything new yet, I just did the second round of soil prep last week, so I don't have any new shoots to worry about.

I'm really looking forward to planting stuff, though. I've decided I want to build a second a second cold-frame specifically for the smaller garden bed; I think the larger one would just get ripped up if I tried to use it there. It's a pretty good (and certainly easy to build!) design I have, but the plastic drop-cloth sheeting I use isn't the strongest thing in the world.

Weekday miles last week: 9.1
Saturday's miles: 3.7
Weekday miles so far this week: 5.8
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1540.5
Miles out of Rivendell: 1083.5
Miles out of Lothlórien: 628.5
Miles past Rauros Falls: 210.6
Miles to Isengard: 256.1

Here, have a few links:

Lethal flatware of the 18^th century, found by stickmaker;

ScienceBlog has a more serious take on the whole Conservapedia fiasco, but really, I'm too busy giggling at this image. Apparently Jesus is filling in for Fred.