Completely Unnecessary

Dust off your virginity, and prepare to be creeped out all. over. again.

Besides the ostentatious religious displays and reliance on abstinence-only dogma, I could never really pinpoint what it was about purity balls that gave me such a massive wiggins.

Luckily, the NYT provided a picture gallery this year: aaand, it’s number 8 that provides the wig factor.

Let’s just run through the litany of terrifying quotes, shall we?

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.”
…
“It inspires me to be spiritual and moral in turn. If I’m holding them to such high standards, you can be sure I won’t be cheating on their mother.”
…
“Something I need from dad is affirmation, being told I’m beautiful,” said Jordyn Wilson, 19, another daughter of Randy and Lisa. “If we don’t get it from home, we will go out to the culture and get it from them.”

Not content with making millions off taxpayers, abstinence groups are branching out:

The Abstinence Clearinghouse, an advocacy group, says it sells hundreds of purity ball kits annually to interested groups all over the country and abroad.

Luckily, study after study shows that these fine young ladies will almost assuredly be having sex within a couple of years (except hopefully for the two 9-year-olds one father saw fit to bring).

Granted, they probably won’t use condoms - since they’ve been told they don’t work - but at least they’ll have good relationships with their dads. Might help with the shotgun wedding part!

Links:
Dancing the Night Away, With a Higher Purpose [NYT]
Picture Gallery [NYT]

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• Colorado Initiative Would Grant Personhood to Embryos

There’s no better way to say this than has already been said:

On Tuesday the group Colorado for Equal Rights submitted 131,245 signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would define a fertilized embryo as a person. Voters will decide on the measure that would amend the state Constitution to extend a fertilized embryo equal rights and protections. It would define “any human being from the moment of fertilization” as a “person” for purposes of the state’s constitutional provisions “relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law.”

Mother Jones notes that such an amendment might ‘trigger governmental investigations into miscarriages, restrict in-vitro fertilization by couples trying to conceive, and could limit birth-control methods.’

Aside from its glaring, rage-inducing absurdity and almost certain unconstitutionality, this initiative raises some amazing questions.

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers, for instance, asks if she can move to CO and receive Social Security benefits sooner.

Could a woman be charged with manslaughter or reckless homicide for a miscarriage? Or, better yet, what if the family carries Accidental Death insurance? Given how many zygotes self-terminate, you could make a pretty penny just claiming based on statistics.

And what do we do if the fetus kills the mother, in childbirth or otherwise? Is it incumbent upon the state to try the infant for manslaughter? Can the father sue his newborn or fetus for loss of consortium, wages, etc?

And perhaps the most obvious question - how on Earth can anyone know when the moment of fertilization is? Outside of a science lab, it’s pretty darn unprovable. And even if a test was developed, I’m pretty sure it would involve the government asking a woman to put her feet in the stirrups. So let’s hope Colorado for Equal Rights has something to nix the Fourteenth, as well.

As recent years have shown, however, this initiative is perhaps just crazy enough to pass.

I mean, a veterinarian was selected by the Bush Administration to head up the Office of Women’s Health in 2005. (Alderson was quickly removed after a number of groups justifiably lost their minds.) Minnesota’s Right to Know laws required doctors to provide state-scripted information on abortion that defied medical science. Missouri lawmakers are trying to get Plan B regulated as an abortifacient.

Anyway ladies, I suggest looking into Accidental Death insurance, just in case. If we move to Colorado, natural self-termination might be the new sugardaddie.

H/T: Andrew Sullivan via Mother Jones

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He probably saw them frequently, perhaps as he and his parents gathered around the breakfast table each morning. But we’ll leave the incest jokes for a moment, as I urge you to watch at least the first minute and a half of the video below.

The backstory on this is that Florida’s Board of Ed just approved classroom materials containing the world ‘evolution’ for the first time. Previously, the ’science’ taught to Florida schoolchildren simply referred to ‘changes over time.’

When you think with quiet rage about what has been passing for education in Florida, the fact that right-wingers got the Board to refer to evolution simply as ‘a theory’ really doesn’t seem so bad. It’s like they’ve finally been given math - the fact that they aren’t learning calculus is small beans.

To clarify: there are generations of Floridians who apparently never heard the word ‘evolution’ during their K-12 schooling.

Anyway, the man above is clearly the product of such an excellent system. Even given the primary source material, he’s failed to grasp its salient points.

Ps - I love the look on the Board member’s face about eight seconds in. Rarely does one see ‘what the fuck?’ so honestly personified.

h/t to Wonkette and ThinkProgress

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Excellent question, Bill Bennett.

During the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy addressed the public about Catholicism and its impact on his candidacy. Being a Catholic in 1960, JFK had to reassure the public that the Pope wouldn’t be running the US of A.

Today, Mitt Romney spoke about his Mormon faith, how it shouldn’t be used as a yardstick, etc, etc. It’s so much like Kennedy everyone is saying.

“There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution,” the former Massachusetts governor said.

Sounds pretty good, very Kennedy-esque.

“No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”
…
“Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone,” the GOP contender said.

Um. That’s less like Kennedy. Here’s how JFK put it:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners [sic] for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

We’ve moved from, ‘It doesn’t matter what religion I am because there’s a separation between church and state’ to ‘It doesn’t matter what religion I am because all religion is important.’

Those are very different ideas. Kennedy noted that the important issues facing America were void of religion - ‘for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.’ We have the same issues now, though they are rife with religious feeling and spending these days.

In today’s America, Romney wants voters to know it doesn’t matter what faith a candidate has… just so long as they have one.

Links:
Romney: President needs prayers of people of all faiths [CNN]
Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association [JKF Presidential Library]

Video excerpt from Romney’s Speech [CNN]

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ThinkProgress is reporting that it looks as though President Bush (see: biggest disappointment) plans to recess appoint Dr. James Holsinger as Surgeon General.

Holsinger is anti-gay, to the point of setting up a church to minister ‘to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian”. As Surgeon General, Dr. Holsinger would have the power to cure all the homos. Amen.

His nomination hasn’t gotten a vote in the Senate yet because he refuses to fill out a follow-up questionnaire put to him by the health committee; he’s over two months late in responding.

Yet, the good doctor resigned from his the board of trustees of Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Ky and is ‘telling people the president plans to appoint him to the post anyway once the Congress goes into its holiday recess, a well-connected Wilmore source says.’

If he were appointed by Bush, he could serve until the end of the next Congress, after the election and just before Bush’s term ends. Two weeks ago, Peter Pitts, president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington and New York, said he thought that a recess appointment would be ‘too divisive’, rendering it unlikely.

Not only to I think it’s likely, I think it’s exactly what he would have done with Mukasey (or someone worse).

Links:
Homophobic Surgeon General Nominee Reveals Bush Plans To Recess Appoint Him [Think Progress]
Surgeon general nominee resigns from seminary board [Bible Belt Blogger]
Surgeon general nominee in limbo [Courier-Journal]

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I generally prefer keeping bigots like Fred Phelps’ Westboro baptist church* off the radar. Any media presence, be it praise, derision, or just insanity, fuels the fire of these kinds of people.

It’s like the KKK - I respect their right to exist, but I’m down with their marginalization. Or like dog training; they’re not totally rational, so the best way to stop their bad behavior is through calm ignoring.

So view this post instead as a shout out to the American justice system, which today ordered Westboro to pay $11 million to the father of a dead soldier. Those familiar with the church will no doubt guess why - they protested the kid’s funeral because we’re all going to hell and Iraq is about gays. Or something.

Anyway, according to the judge, the award “far exceeds the net worth of the defendants,” which sounds like good news to me. Even posterboard and tempra paint can be pricey when you’ve got $11 mil to pay back.

* - I’m not using proper nouns for those two words because I think the church perverts the teachings of Baptists beyond recognition as part of the faith. That’s my own personal opinion, though - others would probably disagree.

Church ordered to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest [CNN]

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Last blog today. I swear. I didn’t want to read about media regulation anyway.

So apparently, this exists. Here’s the poster! And here’s a still:

Also, here are some excerpts from the moviefone website:

There was a time when Lazarus (SAMUEL L. JACKSON) played the blues; a time he got Bojo’s Juke Joint shakin’ back in the day….

The God-fearing, middle-aged black man quickly learns that the young white woman he’s nursing back to health is none other than the town tramp from the small Tennessee town where they live…Abused as a child and abandoned by her mother, Rae is used by just about every man in the phone book…

Refusing to know her in the biblical sense, Lazarus decides to cure Rae of her wicked ways – and vent some unresolved male vengeance of his own. He chains her to his radiator, justifying his unorthodox methods with quoted scripture… Unleashing Rae emotionally, Lazarus unchains his heart, finding love again in Angela (S. EPATHA MERKERSON). By saving Rae, he frees himself.

And the trailer, which you have to watch before we can proceed and which I’m having trouble embedding.

I don’t even know where to start with this movie, though I should probably figure it out before I write my thesis on it next year. Things that come to mind, just off the top of my head:

• No pants on Christina Ricci at any point
• The name Lazarus
• Yet another appearance by the ‘magical black man’! (I mean Eko was killed off on LOST, so…)
• “Everything is Hotter Down South” as the tagline
• The racial and sexual double entendres in the title
• Curing a woman of her sluttishness
• Chaining a woman against her will in your home
• The comedic holds in the trailer
• Moms cause sluttishness!
• That Christina Ricci still has not gained any weight

Shit, I can’t even do this today. I’m supposed to be napping, but now I’m not going to be able to sleep because this movie is so horrific and wonderful. Plus, I’m going to need the time to work “blackfemreligiousploitation” into popular vernacular.

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So, it seems as though this might be a joke - the most convincing evidence is that there are rosary beads on the website and those aren’t so popular with the Evangelistic crowd. It’s still amazing, though.

I keep thinking about things like the (god help me) Gray’s Anatomy fracas and how much we allow gays to be battered about in the media. For context, one actor on the show has repeatedly called another actor “faggot,” even at the Golden Globes when denying that he ever said it. There are too many clauses in that ridiculous sentence, but it’s kind of a ridiculous story. Isaiah Washington seems unable to keep his mouth shut, despite glares, angry comments, and punches in the face from his fellow cast members. I keep thinking about what would happen if the tables were turned, though. Washington, the offending actor is black; somehow, I think coverage of this story would be pretty different if it had gone down the other way. And I think Knight would be out of a job.

Then again, this video isn’t really about gays at all; it’s really about an intolerant community. I would probably laugh at a send up of white supremacists, too. But I think one could argue (as I will attempt to do inarticulately here in a second) that a parody of the KKK is harder to do because the minority group targeted by the hate group is better respected in the United States. Maybe it’s easier to bash gay-bashers because it’s pretty acceptable in the US to make fun of homosexuality in the first place. So, when someone sings, “God Hates a Fag” it’s more acceptable to laugh than at a video of a klanner singing, “God Hates a Negro.” It’s even hard to type.

So here I am, conflicted between my love of gays and my love of satire with good production values.

Well! I guess this was a fortutious time for Orgin of Love to come up on iTunes. Love for the gays it is.

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Wow, I couldn’t be more excited about writing this blog today. There has been a bounty of horrible things you can do on the internet, and I’ve participated with the glee of an eight-year old rolling down a hill.

Firstly, most have heard about AOL releasing the searches of 500,000 members. But! Did you know that you can look people up (by #) or by search (for instance: “baby boiling”) and read their entire search histories?

Glory of glories, you can. All you have to do is go to this link and enter a user number.

I give to you AOL customer (or, as I believe, at least two, possibly three customers sharing one account) # 711391. The Poor Man Institute is calling this the “Greatest Character Study in Literary History,” and I have to agree. What novel could possibly take the reader from ” how to kill annoying birds in your yards” to “pink pussy lips” to “meeting an online friend” to “the guy i had an affair with won’t leave me alone” to “i feel bad cause the person i had an affair with got caught but i didn’t” and everywhere in between? No modern American author has gone where 711391 has gone. Amazing. Make sure to pay attention to the beginning of the month in both April and May, but really the whole saga is captivating.

You can also search by searches, meaning that you can find everyone who searched for some permutation involving the word “lemongrass” if you’d like. Or, as Latest Searches suggests, “shit in my mouth.” Whatever you fancy.

Moving on!

Thanks to Noel Black of The Stranger, I ordered myself $91.00 worth of free crap from Focus on the Family today! This includes The Chronicles of Narnia on DVD, which they valued at $30.00 - I think that’s over-priced. But really, it’s under priced, because when you buy things from Focus on the Family, the cost is a suggested donation. My actual donation was $0.00. Check it out, below:

Mr. Black gives you the run down on how to do it, and encourages you to sell your stuff on Ebay, thus profiting off of these hateful, but generous, do-gooders. I dunno, I’m pretty excited to read For Women Only. It’s going to tell me everything I need to know about men. Not to mention the obvious, sitting right up there at number 1.

Also, it appears you can do this as often as you want, though FotF will only give you $100 at any given time.

Lastly, in accordance with my unyielding fear of eHarmony, Brian has been kind enough to provide us all with this YouTube video:

Thanks to Brian, James Dobson, and AOL for rocking so incredibly hard.

One last matter of business: In 7-10 business days who would like to come over and watch Narnia? Please bring cupcakes.

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Amazing, even when Fox News covers a story from a, shall we say, “liberal” point of view, they still manage to do it in the least rational fashion:

You know it’s bad when you want the “reporter” to shut up so you can hear what the godhatesfags.com lady has to say.

This is not journalism.

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