Today's Cultural Warfare Update

I'm still quite a bit behind on this, but partly that's because there's just so much going on. Traditional Values Coalition and American Family Association are really flipping out against the hate-crimes bill and is pulling out all the rhetorical stops. I have more, but I need to work on homework stuff now. More later.

The Vatican's Msgr Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declares abortion, RU-486, and any "manipulation" of a fertilised egg to be "terrorism";

A look into Muslims in Europe starting to deal with GBLT people and relationships; so far, it's mostly been by ignoring them, but that's starting to change;

Iranian officials reportedly cracking down on women who go out unveiled as "endanger[ing] the security and dignity of young men";

Clinic bombings don't get covered much, and aren't usually described as terrorism when they occur;

School sends surveillance camera footage of two female students exchanging a kiss to the students' parents - story courtesy spazzkat;

ginmar has an interesting and disturbing post comparing and contrasting the reaction of two men to the possibility of abortion, one of whom is extremely explicit about considering the foetus to be more important than the life of his wife;

Abstinence-only promoter and Bush appointee in President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) stepping down after Federal law enforcement officials found he was one of a high-profile prostitution ring's customers, and yes, of course he's married;

Mostly I post a link to this because before I was doing these Cultural Warfare Updates, I'd get a lot of "eh, that's just some of the crazies, most of the people in the movement aren't that bad," and then I started posting the leadership talking about the things it wants and does and started getting "the leadership doesn't represent the movement!" which I think is, in both cases, bullshit. Anyway, "Fundies say the darndest things!" is a blog that quotes fundamentalist rank-and-file from message boards, with linkbacks. It's kind of like a CWU, but with more sarcasm, and looking at the ground troops instead of the leadership. Have at;

In two parts, a performance artist and actor in New York City encounters a "Christian group" from California who showed up at the theatre where he was staging his current monologue... apparently solely to walk out en masse and pour water on his script;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to "Defend Dr. Dobson Against Doonesbury Lies" by using their letter generator to turn out roboletters to newspaper across the country against Doonesbury and Garry Trudeau after the 15 April strip, in Focus's words, "took a blatantly untrue swipe" at James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family;

Indiana school threatens to fire and forces transfer of teacher who did not stop a student from writing an editorial in the high school paper supporting tolerance of GBLT people; she's also been barred from having anything to do with journalism classes in the future. Story link courtesy annathepiper;

Faith and Freedom Network says that "secular" values are destroying America;

FFN says that domestic partnerships will bankrupt government, calling equal treatment of same-sex partners a "new class of entitlement"; compare and contrast to various theoconservative assertions that there are too few GBLT people to justify accommodating with equal treatment under the law and you get one of those right hand-left hand moments;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM condemns Ford Motor Corporation for "unyielding support for homosexual marriage" by signing on as a sponsor at the Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gays National Convention;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM against Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) and against Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Protection Act (HR 1592), calling them "thought crime" bills which are "constitutionally suspect, unfair, dangerous, indefinable, unnecessary and un-American," and adds, "your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime";

AFA's OneNewsNow guest columnist says GBLT rights will crush all dissent;

AFA's OneNewsNow runs "Inquiring minds lead to saved souls at Creation Museum" story pushing creationism and talking about how useful it is at creating fundamentalist converts; the story is interesting to me mostly because of the explicit tie it makes between "scientific creationism" and evangelism;

Family Research Council sponsors Family Policy Lecture by a Discovery Institute wonk - they're a creationist group - which ties evolutionary theory to eugenics, in a presentation called "Darwin's Dangerous Idea";

AFA's OneNewsNow critical of United Methodist Church's pro-abortion-rights position and work with pro-abortion-rights groups;

LifeSite calls European parliament condemnation of Poland's anti-gay policies "disgraceful";

Family Research Council has moved its pretensions of ministry to higher profile, creating a "Church Ministries" section with "The FRC Pastor's Portal";

FRC's "Defending Family Freedom" lists a Federal marriage ban first;

FRC condemns ENDA, and adding sexual orientation and gender identity to Federal hate-crimes law;

Traditional Values Coalition condemns "dangerous anti-Christian" bill adding sexual orientation and gender identity to Federal hate-crimes law, sating that with it, "the Democrats have proven their purpose is to silence Christians";

Cybercast News Service quotes the TVC's Rev. Sheldon and attempts to add anti-abortion-rights legislation extensively in their coverage of the bill;

Traditional Values Coalition PDF-format ACTION ITEM says hate-crimes bill will ban religious speech and quoting the Bible, will "fund anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to promote homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal behaviors in schools," "Silence the Bible-believing Churches, Pastors and Christians because of fear of fines or prison," and "Elevate homosexuality and cross-dressing behaviors such as drag queens, transsexualism, she-males, etc. to the status of federally-protected minorities. These behaviors will be considered equal to race under the federal law";

TVC declares ENDA a "Homosexual Quota Bill";

TVC says that nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a "slippery slope," goes through DSM-IV listing a bunch of other things that they allege will be included, such as - of course - paedophilia;

More TVC allegations that the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007" will lead to "prosecution of Christians";

Boston-area Christian school with a GBLT ban will welcome, rather than arrest, the Soulforce protest group; a series of presentations and discussions have been arranged.

( Articles and excerpts below )

Hm, here's a neat, by which I mean annoying, trick

Trying to practice singing warmups (and our class song) downstairs, I fall into all kinds of annoying bad singing habits again instantly and have to fight the entire time not to keep doing them.

I mean, I know I'm locative as all hell, but damn.