I love this podcast for making laws and court rulings understandable to the public. Also for those that are hearing impaired they do a transcript of the show. Sadly the transcript for this episode is not up yet. I hope you enjoy the show and the breakdown of how the six conservatives justices are gaslighting the country to make these religious laws not based on the constitution but on their religious dictates to give religion a superior place in US society, to make place the Christian religion above all others and to demote secularism to mean discrimination of the Christian religion. Hugs
OA608: Forget Church-State Separation, SCOTUS Mandates Christian Favoritism
The hits just keep on coming with this disgraceful, illegitimate Supreme Court. Andrew Seidel joins us to break down Carson v. Makin, and explains why precedent is meaningless, and the only thing that matters to this court when it comes to Church/State cases is: Christians win. Then, Ace Associate Morgan Stringer joins us to explain why the entire internet is wrong about Biden “banning Juuls and cigarettes.”
FILE – The drug misoprostol sits on a gynecological table at Casa Fusa, a health center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano, File)
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FILE – Boxes of the drug mifepristone line a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File)
Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That’s when the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right.
Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some even offered to mail the prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.
Almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of these posts, just as millions across the U.S. were searching for clarity around abortion access. General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.
By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions.
The AP obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.
“DM me if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours,” the post on Instagram read.
Instagram took it down within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of both Facebook and Instagram, was taking down posts about abortion pills.
On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.”
The post was removed within one minute.
The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.”
Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun,” the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.
Marijuana is illegal under federal law and it is illegal to send it through the mail.
Abortion pills, however, can legally be obtained through the mail after an online consultation from prescribers who have undergone certification and training.
In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed in a tweet Monday that the company will not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills. Stone acknowledged some problems with enforcing that policy across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said in the tweet.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the medication used to induce an abortion.
“States may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” Garland said in a Friday statement.
But some Republicans have already tried to stop their residents from obtaining abortion pills through the mail, with some states like West Virginia and Tennessee prohibiting providers from prescribing the medication through telemedicine consultation.
Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We've discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.
Again these people insist the LGBTQ+ are the moral degenerates and that men dressed in costume reading to kids in public is somehow grooming kids for abuse. Hugs
A Kissimmee pastor was arrested Monday after he was suspected of exposing his genitals and masturbating at a Starbucks, according to Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon, 39, was arrested and taken to Osceola County Jail, where he faces a charge of exposure of sexual organs, OCSO said. Muniz-Colon is a pastor and teaches online Ministry classes, according to OCSO.
On May 9, deputies received a report of an incident involving a man exposing his genitals and pleasuring himself at a Starbucks at 1041 W Osceola Parkway, OCSO said. The sheriff’s office Special Victim’s Unit began investigating and found Muniz-Colon had similar charges at the same Starbucks.
Deputies with the @OsceolaSheriff have arrested Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon after they say he was found exposing himself, masturbating on the patio of Starbucks on Osceola Pkwy. They say this isn’t the first time and that he’s a pastor in Kissimmee. @WESHpic.twitter.com/ju2JEpLvza
I am confused, can Scotland just vote to leave the UK and then just do it? Would there be a war or something if they tried? Here in the US we have a lot of rabid right wingers talk about leaving the Union but it is well known it can not be done unless all states and the federal government agree. Some say it can not be legally done at all. Hugs
Scottish first minister on collision course with Boris Johnson over plans for second referendum next year.
Britain is headed for a fresh constitutional crisis as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to outline plans for a second vote on Scottish independence — with or without Boris Johnson’s agreement.
In a 20-minute speech to lawmakers in the Scottish parliament (Holyrood) on Tuesday, Sturgeon will set out her long-awaited route to some form of a second referendum, vowing to press ahead even if — as expected — Johnson’s U.K. government continues to withhold consent.
The first poll in 2014, in which the pro-Union side triumphed by 55 percent to 45 percent, followed then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to temporarily hand Holyrood the power to hold a referendum. This time, no such consent from Westminster will be forthcoming.
After pro-independence parties gained a majority of seats in last year’s Holyrood elections, Sturgeon argued her government now had a mandate to hold a fresh vote. In response, Johnson and U.K. ministers have pointed to nationalist statements from 2014 that the first referendum would be a “once in a generation” event, and say Sturgeon’s current focus should be on helping Scots with the cost-of-living-crisis.
Sturgeon will say Tuesday that her preferred option remains a repeat of the 2014 transfer of powers, stating in pre-released remarks: “Westminster rule over Scotland cannot be based on anything other than a consented, voluntary partnership.”
“It is time to give people the democratic choice they have voted for.”
Nationalists and unionists alike expect this plea to fall on deaf ears. An official from the U.K. government said its position in opposition to another referendum would not change.
The most hotly anticipated portion of Sturgeon’s speech will therefore concern how her government plans to hold a referendum if Westminster does not grant consent.
In a press conference earlier this month, Sturgeon stressed that any efforts to hold a referendum must be done “in a lawful manner” — a reference to the widely-held view that either the U.K. government or an activist private citizen would take the Scottish government to court if it tried to hold a referendum against the will of Westminster.
One way to get around the legal difficulties could be to hold a purely advisory poll, according to a former senior civil servant involved in the negotiations for the 2014 referendum.
“Perhaps instead of a ‘referendum on independence,’ the bill is instead about something like asking the people of Scotland for a mandate to open independence negotiations with the U.K,” Ciaran Martin wrote in the Sunday Times. He added that such a measure “might stand a better chance in court.”
Some unionists have made clear they would boycott any consultative poll, regardless of its legality. But with October 2023 penciled in as Sturgeon’s ideal date for a fresh referendum, and legislation to enact a vote expected in Holyrood later this year, a court battle looks increasingly inevitable.
POTENTIAL SCOTLAND INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM POLL OF POLLS
📢 This just in: the Scottish are coming … for their independence! 🏴
The UK is headed for a fresh crisis as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to outline plans for a second vote on Scottish independence.https://t.co/8X8ZcWo7Zs
Nicola Sturgeon accused of sowing ‘division and strife’ over plan for second Scottish independence referendum – UK politics live https://t.co/CLokWtcNk3
Congratulations to the Conservative Party of the UK, who as paid agents of the Russian government have installed Russian oligarchs in the House of Lords, compromised the NHS in the middle of a global pandemic, knocked the legs out from under several UK industries, weakened the EU, weakened NATO and brought about the likely dissolution of the UK.
David Cameron, Teresa May, Boris Johnson… traitors to their country, all.
Christ. I don’t know if I should bother with this one, since everyone’s going to be talking Braveheart shite.
The SNP have no currency plan. They are lying about us getting straight into the EU. Scexit negotiations, if they happened, would make Brexit negotiations look like cancelling a broadband contract, and this time the tories they’d be negotiating with would actually (not in their lies) hold all the cards.
I live in Scotland, and I am dependent on state benefits and the NHS. My appetite for risk is very fucking limited indeed. As is the appetite of most people in Scotland. Unless a non-binding referendum was boycotted, like the private referendum financed by SNP donor Brian Souter when he wanted to keep Section 28, Remain would win.
First, Braveheart is 20 years old and is an overrated film with the historical accuracy of sheep shit.
Second, not everyone. There is a strange draw I admit in the States to independence from everything it seems, definitely in light of the Crown (talk about a solution in search of a problem), Ireland, and Scotland. As if anything associated with England is tethered to a war that a bunch of colonists won only with the aide of France.
There is definitely a need for more input in terms of Scotland’s access to economically driven initiatives, particularly in the Highlands and the Northern Islands/Hebredes, which, in truth, the SNP doesn’t seem to deal much with at all. The loss of association with the EU definitely hurt crofters for one small example, and of course, the whole fishing industry thing. But those, and even increased voice in Westminster, can be resolved without a total break, which would just create even more chaos. Let’s face it: the economic ties bind; the whole separation thing might have been wonders when Catholics and Protestants were burning each other at the stake, but Mary, we’ve moved on.
It’s not the Scotland hates England; to be honest, that is a very American centric view. Are there representation issues? Yes, but independence is not a strong way to go for a country that is so linked economically to its neighbor to the south, and that is, truly, so small in population to support its own without that economic (and etc.) safety net. We are talking a country that has about 1/.2 the population not of England but only of London. There are too many ties that bind for a complete separation.
Honest question here… Right now the EU seems (to my American ass) poised to accelerate membership for a few countries such as Ukraine and Moldova for very obvious reasons. I’m assuming that the expectation is that it wouldn’t do the same for Scotland despite it being a former member because Scotland isn’t under the same kind of threat as Ukraine and Moldova. And thus Scotland would have to go through a some-number-of-years long process to join. Have I got that right?
My uncle, when a student in Edinburgh, was arrested when he climbed a flagpole to replace the Union Jack with the flag of Scotland. That would have been sometime In the late 1930s. Independence has been festering for a long time, but it’s a lot like Texas seceding in that it’ll cause more problems than it solves.
YouGov’s latest tracking data on an independence vote shows that, if there was a vote today, the outcome would be identical to how it was in 2014, with 55% saying they would vote No and 45% Yes. Since the referendum, support for remaining in the UK has tended to be above support for leaving, and while in 2020 we saw the biggest Yes lead of any YouGov poll at 53%, this support has dwindled in subsequent polls through 2021 and 2022.
“The reason we had so many overreaching regulations in our nation is because the church complied. The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. And I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like what they say it does.” – GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, presumably referring an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson to a Baptist group.
Boebert’s primary is today.
Jesus said: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24).
If the church directed government, there would be a 100% tax on rich people.
If we had a functioning government, this would be grounds for expulsion from Congress (and no doubt not her first qualifying utterance). This statement violates her oath of office.
Doesn’t matter how many times you tell them the Founding Fathers didn’t want America to be a theocracy they chime in with “show me where the words ‘separation of church and state’ are in the Constitution!”
Some brave newsperson needs to ask her “which is ‘the‘ church?” Make her specify. Drill down. What flavor of which branch? Get to which version of ‘the‘ bible is the correct one as well. And definitely don’t let her get away with the garbage “Judeo-Christian” term, which is nonsensical anyway. One of those groups thinks the other is hellbound, the other thinks that the other folks don’t know how to read prophecy right. And it’s mostly used to ignore the third major Abrahamic religion in a rather deliberate way so they can be, pardon the term, demonized.
But knowing how the media works, I doubt such a brave interviewer will step up.
Of course. Many of whom belong to churches which are hyper-evangelical, very conservative, and scary. And they never, ever want to admit which church they belong to, since it’s “a relationship” not “a religion” and other such garbage to avoid answering.
The Federalist Papers, the commentary at the time of the founding on the Constitution wanted as much separation between church and State as possible. Like even more than you’ll hear from people today.
Boobert is painfully wrong and so is SCOTUS in Bremerton.
So, Lauren, WHICH church/Religion is supposed to run the government? There are literally thousands of different Christian sects with different canons and beliefs, then there is Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Satanism, Wicca, and so forth. Plus, many if the Founding Fathers were Master Masons, and many religions disagree with Freemasonry.
You usually have to go to a Christian school to find someone as dumb as Lauren. Or a homeschool. Or some private school for rich children who will never have to work.
Just among Protestant Christians in the US, there are about 3000 denominations (not counting independent congregations). That’s about one per county (or county equivalent, looking at you, Louisiana, Virginia cities, and DC). Seriously, I think a lot of “under-educated” Americans have trouble imagining a country any larger than their school district was back when they lost their virginity and found alcohol.
A new analysis has found that in areas with high Republican support—particularly those that have supported the current wave of anti-trans laws—the search volume for transgender porn is also exceptionally high.
The analysis comes from Lawsuit.org, who researched Google search trend data between June 1 to 19, 2022, segmented the search volume results by metro area, and compared this to voting patterns during the 2020 election and public opinion polls on LGBTQ+ rights.
According to Ahrefs.com, there are 4.7 million searches for trans-related porn each month. Lawsuit.org found that the top twenty states in the nation with the highest volume of searches for trans porn were all (except 5) red states in 2020. Texas, where Gov. Abbott’s directive seemingly began the wave of anti-trans legislation earlier this year, scored number 1.
In addition to looking at geographic distribution, the researchers plotted the data using linear regression trend lines. These graphs show a (literal) left-to-right correlation between the popularity of trans porn and political conservatism.
To look beyond the blue/red divide and compare the data with specific anti-queer sentiment, the group referenced data from the American Values Atlas, an organization that surveys Americans on social and religious attitudes.
The survey question they examined specifically was: “Do you support religiously based refusals to serve gay and lesbian people?” The researchers explain, “We felt this survey question was a decent proxy for baseline LGBT prejudice, though we recognize some may support the question on Libertarian or Personal freedom grounds that do not have to do with the specific demographics of others.”
The resulting graphalso shows a correlation between supporting discrimination against LGBTQ+ businesses and a high volume of trans porn searches.
According to the HRC, there have been more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced this year, the majority of them in red states. These have disproportionately attacked the transgender community. Some supporters of these measures have been caught up in scandals involving trans porn, including Alabama State Sen. Tom Whatley and queerphobic radio host Alex Jones. No one of course is knocking their porn preferences: it’s the hypocrisy we find unsurprising and exhausting.
Pride Glasgow was gate-crashed by a small group of counterprotestors. (PinkNews)
On Saturday (25 June) afternoon, Glasgow was decked in the colours of the rainbow for the first Pride Glasgow in three years due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
But a small group of less than a dozen counter-protesters bearing signs saying homosexuality is a “sin” as they set up camp in George Square.
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” read one sign.
The thousands of Pride-goers – many protesting against the British government’s refusal to ban trans conversion therapy – quickly circled the group. They drowned out the counter-protesters as they carried rainbow flags and kept spirits high.
Among them was Glasgow’s Metropolitan Community Church, an inclusive church founded by and for LGBTQ+ people, that stressed it is “fundamentally opposed” to what the counter-protesters stood for.
One of the groups of people who gathered to drown out the preachers' hate speech were from @MCCGlasgow – a church founded by queer people of faith which has been serving the LGBTQ+ community here in Glasgow since 2008 (2/?) pic.twitter.com/1KJ5mEs063
It didn’t take long for the religious demonstrators to get the message.
By around 3pm, the picketers took down their signs and walked away from the Pride to a chorus of cheers and whoops by Pride attendees.
This is the minute the anti-LGBTQ preachers finally gave up, packed up their signs and left #GlasgowPride, to a chorus of cheers and flag waving 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 (4/4) pic.twitter.com/notxTBgWZg
Scotland, however, may do things a little differently. Though riddled by delays, drafted legislation from the ruling Scottish National Party proposes that trans Scots should no longer have to receive this diagnosis before changing their legal gender.
This would mean they could more easily obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate and have their identity legally acknowledged. This move comes as part of the country’s ongoing discussions around reforming its gender recognition laws.
The Scottish government is also hoping to go ahead with its own trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban. As much as Boris Johnson’s proposals only apply to England and Wales, Scottish ministers have committed to legislating a ban that includes trans people regardless.
“We don’t fit into your boxes – we make our own,” said Glasgow’s first trans councillor, Elaine Gallagher, at Pride Glasgow.
Speaking to the crowd from atop a double-decker bus awash with rainbows, she said: “That’s why the people and the pundits and paid-for opinions all demand that trans people be eradicated. Starting with the kids that are excluded from sports, toilets, schools and life.”
“Conversion is torture,” she added, “it is child abuse. We don’t condone or practise child abuse no matter what the bigots say – it’s them who do.
“And after the trans people and the rest of the queer alphabet, who’s next? We’ve seen whose next. Women who wear their hair short or stand too tall, or don’t wear clothing a man approves of or, God forbid, want to have their own opinions or govern their own bodies.”
Rightwing justice appears to offer preview of the court’s potential future rulings after decision to remove US abortion rights
Donald Trump with Clarence Thomas as Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the supreme court in October 2020. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
Many Americans reacted to the supreme court’s decision to reverse Roe v Wade and remove federal abortion rights in the US with shock, but many also asked a terrified question: what might be next?
The conservative justice Clarence Thomas appeared to offer a preview of the court’s potential future rulings, suggesting the rightwing-controlled court may return to the issues of contraception access and marriage equality, threatening LGBTQ rights.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion to the ruling on Roe.
Griswold v Connecticut established a married couple’s right to use contraception without government interference in 1965. The court ruled in the 2003 case of Lawrence v Texas that states could not criminalize sodomy, and Obergefell v Hodges established the right for same-sex couples to marry in 2015.
In the decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the conservative majority makes it clear that the decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization should not be interpreted as a threat to other major precedent cases. But the court’s three liberal justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – dismissed that logic as a farce in their fiery dissenting opinion.
“Either the mass of the majority’s opinion is hypocrisy or additional constitutional rights are under threat,” the liberal justices wrote. “It is one or the other.”
Thomas’s concurring opinion confirmed what many progressive lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates have feared for years. The end of Roe marks the beginning, not the end, of judicial overreach by the court’s conservative majority, they say.
“It is important that Americans understand that this supreme court and Republicans in Congress will not stop here,” said Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It is clear [Thomas] and the court’s majority have no respect for other precedents that have been won in recent decades.”
Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, warned that the court’s decision to overturn Roe would only intensify its “giant legitimacy crisis” with millions of Americans.
“Five Republican justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote are routinely making hyper-partisan decisions that take away the rights of Americans,” Green said.
For now, Thomas does not seem to have the support of his conservative colleagues in overturning other major cases, as they did not join his opinion. But the majority decision written by Alito could lay the foundation for discarding decades-old precedents that have become central to the American way of life, said Paul Schiff Berman, a professor at George Washington University Law School.
“The logic of Justice Alito’s opinion, as the dissent pointed out, would absolutely threaten the constitutional legitimacy of all constitutional privacy rights,” Berman said. “It goes against the institutional obligation to respect precedent. And it also goes against, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out in his opinion, the principle that you don’t decide in a given case, more than you have to resolve in that case.”
Berman expressed concern that the Dobbs decision could weaken public trust in the supreme court, which has already been waning in recent years. According to a Gallup poll taken this month, only 25% of US adults say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the supreme court. That is the lowest reading in Gallup’s nearly 50-year history of polling public perception of the court.
“I think this opinion reflects the fact that a radical faction of the supreme court is moving in a maximalist direction, despite the fact that the American people as a whole are becoming increasingly progressive on this issue,” Berman said.
For the millions of Americans dismayed by the reversal of Roe, they have few options to change the composition of the court in the near future. Justices are appointed to lifelong terms, and the three conservative judges confirmed during Donald Trump’s presidency – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are all under 60.
Democratic lawmakers are instead looking at legislative ways to protect Americans’ fundamental rights, and demands for action will probably only intensify now that Roe has been overturned.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, issued an urgent demand for Americans to support Democrats in the midterm elections this November, thus giving them an opportunity to codify the right to abortion into federal law and protect other crucial freedoms.
“Termination of pregnancy is just the opening act,” Pelosi said on Friday. “A woman’s right to choose, reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November. We cannot allow [Republicans] to take charge so that they can institute their goal, which is to criminalize reproductive freedom.”
But some progressives are looking beyond legislation to significant reform of the court itself. Immediately after the decision in Dobbs was announced, a number of progressives reiterated their calls to expand the court, which would allow Democrats to confirm more liberal justices.
“As we fight to make abortion legal at the federal level, I continue to reject the legitimacy of such an undemocratic institution,” the progressive congresswoman Ilhan Omar said on Twitter. “Expand the court.”
01:47
‘A slap in the face to women’: Nancy Pelosi condemns overturning of Roe v Wade – video
As of now, Democrats do not have the votes in the Senate needed to expand the court. That could change after November, if the American people decide to give Democrats the chance to do so.
Scottie's Playtime 
