Seriously important, especially since the SCOTUS just ruled for a Christian mail carrier who refused to work Sundays. She took the job knowing it would be required, then demanded special accommodations for her religious faith. You know, something Christians feel they have a right to, yet no other religion should be given. The post office she worked for tried to accommodate her but due to staffing needs they had to schedule her to work Sundays and she threw an entitled fit. So the court ruled for her right to have her religion take priority over everyone else and any other needs. If I was an employer, I would be wary of hiring Christians. Seriously this court is creating a theocracy for Christians. No other religion or atheist need to apply. It is a scary time, and this bode bad for the upcoming case of a made up pretend business to challenge anti-discrimination laws requiring equal treatment for same-sex couples. Hugs
Emboldened by recent Supreme Court decisions upholding prayer in schools, crosses erected on public lands, and flying Christian flags on public buildings, right-wing activists intend to “go on offense” by pushing Christian nationalist policies at all levels of government and society.
Among those leading the charge is Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty, which was integral to laying the groundwork for the right’s spate of Supreme Court victories. During a recent appearance on an Intercessors For America broadcast, Shackelford announced that his organization has launched a Restoring Faith In America campaign to mobilize far-right Christians to rush into the spaces opened by these court rulings and “occupy it”
“Everywhere that crosses went down, they go back up,” Shackelford declared. “Everywhere the 10 Commandments was taken into the closet, it comes back out. Everywhere that prayer was taken out, it goes back in. Everything has changed.”
As you’ll hear in the video below, Shackleford’s group plans a “major push” to inflict Jesus on public schools in a “thousand different” ways and “occupy the land God won for us” through the US Supreme Court. He last appeared here in May 2022 when he raged to Fox News about employers “forcing” the COVID vaccine on workers. Of note, First Liberty Institute is the former employer of anti-LGBTQ Texas federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who is attempting to ban abortion pills and PrEP insurance coverage.
And let’s remember: RELIGION is a LIFESTYLE CHOICE.
Yes, childhood experience is a strong factor, but there are plenty of churches, mosques, and other groups that are overjoyed to help you give up your false religion and adopt their true one.
Another example of hypocrisy: Dumb Idiot Ham bemoans “evolution” being shoved down the throats of kids in schools and churches everywhere while planning to shove down his own young earth creation fantasies down the throats of kids in schools and churches everywhere.
Is it any wonder why the number of people who identify as Christian or religious is shrinking
Christianity in the U.S. is quickly shrinking and may no longer be the majority religion within just a few decades, research finds https://www.cbsnews.com/new…
And as the numbers shrink amongst religions, those still within the faiths will be the most diehard, outspoken and obnoxious. I hope they continue to shrink until they are no longer relevant at all. That’s what is driving them nuts as it is…they are becoming less relevant and it hurts their feelings!
That’s the flaw in their plan. Back when prayer and religion were allowed in schools (the 50s), kids were a little more well-behaved/obedient/subservient as well as overall more religious. They were all mostly Protestant or Catholic. So it was easy just to fall in line. Now we have various religions represented in schools, and I am sure there will be maliciously complaint teachers who will have non-Christian prayers in their class.
It’s less about that so much as it’ll be clearer to kids something ugly’s being forced on them. Instead of just being able to think ‘It’s always been this way.’
The “religious freedom” crowd will now push their minority, theo-fascist “religious beliefs” down everyone else’s throats. And you will see there will be no tolerance of anyone whose faith (or no faith) is different from theirs.
I get the feeling that when these evangelicals say they are going to take the 10 Commandments back out of the closet, they mean the Protestant version of the 10 Commandments. Well, unlike the Catholic version, the Protestant version forbids graven images. (See commandment #2) So maybe they first should consider converting to Catholicism, since stone depictions of the 10 Commandments are themselves graven images, and are thus self-forbidding.
The woman claims the Massachusetts facility failed to diagnose her pregnancy as ectopic and, as a result, she lost a fallopian tube during emergency surgery.
A Massachusetts woman claims that an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center failed to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy during an ultrasound appointment and that the pregnancy later ruptured, requiring emergency surgery to remove one of her fallopian tubes. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and can be life-threatening; the pregnancy should have been terminated immediately.
The woman, known as Jane Doe, filed a class action lawsuit on Thursday in Worcester Superior Court alleging that Clearway Clinic in Worcester didn’t follow standard medical care. The suit also claims that Clearway engages in deceptive practices to lure in people seeking the full range of pregnancy options, when its actual purpose is just to dissuade them from getting abortions.
According to a press release, Doe thought she might be pregnant in October 2022 and wanted to get an ultrasound. She found Clearway through an online search and got an appointment later that day. A Clearway nurse did an ultrasound and said the pregnancy was both viable and in her uterus; the suit says it’s against state medical regulations for registered nurses to read ultrasounds because they’re not licensed diagnosticians. A physician didn’t see Doe, though her discharge paperwork said a medical doctor provided her care.
A month later, Doe felt shooting pain on her side and was so weak and lightheaded that her husband called 911, per the release. Emergency room doctors diagnosed her with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and internal hemorrhage. In order to stop the hemorrhaging, doctors did emergency surgery in which they had to remove of one of her fallopian tubes. None of this should have been necessary, as legitimate medical providers would have ended Doe’s life-threatening pregnancy with medication—typically the cancer drug methotrexate.
Jezebel contacted Clearway for comment and didn’t hear back by publication time. CEO Jill Jorgensen said in a statement to Mass Live, “We cannot speak as to any individual’s medical claims or history due to HIPAA regulations.” She added that Clearway hadn’t faced an allegation like this in its more than 20 years of operation.
Crisis pregnancy centers, or anti-abortion centers, already receive millions in state funds, and many lawmakers are trying to increase funding after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Many CPCs don’t employ medical professionals, but still have their staff perform dubious ultrasounds. They’ve also been known to mislead people by saying their pregnancies are less far along than they really are so they run out of time to get an abortion. CPCs using non-medical staff aren’t bound by the medical privacy law HIPAA. While this particular facility appears to have employed healthcare workers, they didn’t adhere to medical standards.
The woman’s attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, called Clearway’s actions “not only illegal, but abhorrent” in a statement. “Our client was forced to undergo a traumatic, dangerous, and completely avoidable emergency surgery to save her life because she was deceived into going to an anti-abortion clinic instead of an appropriate healthcare provider,” Liss-Riordan said. “At every step of the way, she was led to believe she was receiving appropriate medical care when in fact she was subject to a campaign of misinformation and unfair and deceptive practices.”
The Massachusetts-based group Reproductive Equity Now said anti-abortion centers outnumber real abortion clinics in the state by three to one. That figure is about the same nationally, but the ratio is often higher in Republican-controlled states.
Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now, said in a statement that the case proves that anti-abortion centers harm not only people seeking abortions but also people who need basic pregnancy care. “These facilities fail to offer safe or legitimate health services, putting patients at serious risk,” she said. “When a person is seeking compassionate abortion or pregnancy care, the last thing they should have to worry about is a false health diagnosis that delays or stands in the way of life-saving treatment.”
So this morons only shtick is to push hate and fear. Yes that is the standard operating mode of the right now. But this guy is riding high with his almost non-stop attacks on the LGBTQ+. Just like Matt Walsh it is all he has to have someone notice him. It is always the other that is the fault or reason things are bad with these people. But the guy is a flat out liar but it won’t matter as all his followers want to hear is the hate. He claims that it is illegal to fly Nazi flags, “We ban all sorts of flags from public spaces – Nazi flags … “ Hugs
Yes, I don’t know where any flags are banned in public spaces. He must be living in an alternate reality,
Also, Christians have a flag. So if he is saying that no one is a real American unless they only fly the American flag, he forgets those people, and all the people who fly the ‘don’t tread on me’ flag, university flags, etc
I drive by countless frontyard flag poles where they are flying a Trump flag instead of the American one. It’s their property and they can fly whatever they want, but it’s definitely not the American flag. Of course when Republicans do it it’s okay.
our planet is literally on fire in so many ways, and morons like this are worried about flags? air-quality high alert (dangerous levels) for us here today. visibility is wayyy down….looks like a ground fog. my nose has been dripping all morning, GAH! first time i have seen noaa use ‘smoke’ in our forecast. looks like afternoon garden projects are on hold. again.
“But is it more extreme than turning Christmas day into Christmas week into Christmas month into Christmas season into — left unchecked, I promise you — Christmas always.”
Only difference between my quote and his is that the ever-expanding Christmas season really seems to be a thing… yet folks like him always talk up a “War on Christmas” as if it’s the thing under assault and bringing death threats to employees and such.
In 2018 Kobach lost his bid for Kansas governor after flaming out as the head of Trump’s so-called “voter fraud” commission. Kobach’s campaign was funded in part by prominent white supremacists and anti-immigrant hate groups. Last year he resigned from the board of Steve Bannon’s private border wall scam outfit and unlike others involved, he has somehow evaded prosecution. That same day he appeared on Bannon’s show to compare Biden to Hitler. Then he complained that Republicans are being “demonized.”
Kansas AG Kobach sues to stop trans people from changing their birth certificates
The move is timed to facilitate enforcement of a sweeping statewide anti-transgender law in Kansas that is due to go into effect next week.https://t.co/Qv8MxitIMe via @nbcnews
Hmmm, should my birth certificate have stated the names of my birth parents or, as it does, state the names of my adoptive parents? If that can be changed, why not the sex…not to mention intersex children where it’s ambiguous….or surgically altered? Birth certificates aren’t %100 accurate to begin with. This is just cruelty in action.
Rethugs have been winning elections (and getting them close enough to steal (aka Dubya)) for a long while now by using a variety of tools: Gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc.
Among those tools is racism, bigotry, and xenophobia, intended to energize their base and also to scare the low-information voters in the middle who can be readily fooled into thinking there is some kind of ‘crisis’ that must be stopped at all costs.
In the 1950s, it was communists, Black people, and gay people. In the 1960s, it was “radical militant” hippies and Black people. In the 1970s and 80s, it was “radical” feminists and again, Black and gay people. 1990s, immigrants and Black people. 2000s, Muslims and Black people, with LGBTQ folks making a strong reappearance.
Anyway, now Rethugs have combined them all together, but their main focus is on immigrants and LGBTQ people, along with Black folks.
Always it’s the “hatred and fear of other” they pound upon, election after election.
Rethugs have been winning elections (and getting them close enough to steal (aka Dubya)) for a long while now by using a variety of tools: Gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc.
Among those tools is racism, bigotry, and xenophobia, intended to energize their base and also to scare the low-information voters in the middle who can be readily fooled into thinking there is some kind of ‘crisis’ that must be stopped at all costs.
In the 1950s, it was communists, Black people, and gay people. In the 1960s, it was “radical militant” hippies and Black people. In the 1970s and 80s, it was “radical” feminists and again, Black and gay people. 1990s, immigrants and Black people. 2000s, Muslims and Black people, with LGBTQ folks making a strong reappearance.
Anyway, now Rethugs have combined them all together, but their main focus is on immigrants and LGBTQ people, along with Black folks.
Always it’s the “hatred and fear of other” they pound upon, election after election.
Jesus fucking Christ, why is this such a big fucking issue to you filthy pukes??
Why can’t you just mind your own fucking business? Trans people have absolutely nothing to do with you, why can’t you even try walking a mile in their shoes? You know, like your (false, dead) god told you to do?
Fascists always need a nearly powerless underclass to scapegoat, oppress, and persecute. For some of them, the anti-Semitism is a little too on-target, so now it’s LGBTQ people, with a sharp focus on all the trans folks.
So, I am going to ask the question that conservatives just LOVE to ask and use against us: What standing does he have? On what basis is HE legally affected or pained by the use of an ‘X’ or other marker other than ‘M,’ or ‘F’ on a birth certificate, or for people requesting changes to said indications? He isn’t. The state of Kansas isn’t. The citizens are not. It is a fucking letter as far as he or the bigots should be concerned.
I don’t see how this should even be considered — judicial bias notwithstanding.
This is no longer a religious rights against civil rights, but one religious sect’s ideas forced on everyone regardless of their beliefs. It is now the minority of the minority forcing their hate on everyone. The new fundamentalist Taliban moral police, and every one even other religious people better have the right view of sex and morality or face the wrath of the gang thugs. From the link in the article above, “Mental emotional trauma is still a thing. That’s still a real thing. So many of our people are experiencing that kind of aftermath to this event,” said Gray.
A church in #Enfield was having a Pride celebration during their Sunday morning service when two men disrupted the ceremony with hate speech. Pastor Greg Gray of Enfield’s United Church of Christ wants to make it very clear: this is not okay. pic.twitter.com/CIH2C3qfzl
This anti-Christian attack should be condemned by all. But it begs the question “Why is it always the far-right fascists/anti-gay activists–the ones demanding “religious freedom”–who are the first to attack the faith and sincerely held religious beliefs of others?”
Because it is not, and never has been, about “freedom of religion.” Rather, it has always been about imposing their religion on everyone else whether wanted or not. They are called christofascists for a reason.
The early history of Christianity is a huge hodge-podge of competing gospels, doctrines, and schools. The orthodoxy that eventually emerged was the result of centuries of political arguments, and even then often very minor differences are contentious. If you really want to dive down that rabbit hole, I can recommend some books by Bible scholar Bart Ehrman, he has a number of books that are very readable for a non-scholarly audience.
The right still loves to bring up the ONE time ACT-UP demonstrated inside St Patrick’s Cathedral (with a closeted bishop presiding over the service!). That was almost 40 years ago and they are still upset. I’m sure they’ll be fine with this though.
Another American absurdity is that having a ‘sincerely held religious belief’ exempts you from obeying laws you disagree with. – and we are about to see this go down in the Supreme Court this week.
It’s one of the bizarre features of the current cabal of Federalist Society conspirators on the Court that they now hate Justice Scalia’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith. That case held that the 1st Amendment free exercise clause doesn’t require the state to grant a religious exemption to neutral laws of general applicability.
But that was fine because it denied members of the Native American Church an exemption concerning drug laws. Now that the Catholics have the numbers on the Court, they want to overrule Smith and make Catholics and other Xtians exempt from laws they don’t like.
Y’all know they didn’t come to persuade the masses to their hateful ideology, and they certainly didn’t change any minds that day. This was all about trolling, terrorizing & proclaiming their own warped sense of moral superiority.
When it comes to teen relationships and sex education, I’ve observed a pretty big difference in how those things are approached in many parts of the US compared to what I was used to being a teenager in Germany. Sara and Kevin from @MyMerryMessyGermanLife moved from the US to Germany and their 4 kids are now growing up there so I wanted to know what their experiences have been with these topics! 🙂
Compare news coverage from around the world and across the political spectrum with Ground News: https://ground.news/feli ▸”Florida principal forced to resign after showing students Michelangelo’s ‘David’ statue” or “Parents Complain About ‘Pornographic’ David Statue” 👈 These types of headlines went around the world a couple months ago and left many people in Italy and other countries utterly confused. What’s wrong with the David Statue? How could anyone think this is p*rn? So let’s talk about how nudity is handled in everyday situations in the US compared to Germany, and why it seems to be such a big taboo topic in the US!