What I’m Reading, June 19, 2014

"Obama meets with Congressional Leadership July 2011," Official White House Photo by Pete Souza [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsWhy Republicans Hate Their Leaders: Eric Cantor Edition, Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, June 12, 2014 (h/t BooMan)

As far as that activist base is concerned, every Republican politician should be nothing but an agent of chaos and destruction, or at least pretend that’s who he is. It’s not only incompatible with governing, it’s barely compatible with holding office. Anyone who actually tries to accomplish anything is quickly turned from hero to traitor, as Marco Rubio was when he attempted to devise an immigration plan; Tea Partiers who once celebrated Rubio now view him with contempt. The only kind of legislator who can stay in their good graces is one who never bothers legislating, like Ted Cruz. Writing laws is for compromisers and turncoats; what matters is that the revolution continue forever.

All things considered, Eric Cantor probably lost because he’s a dick, TBogg, The Raw Story, June 11, 2014 Continue reading

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What I’m Reading, May 23, 2014

By User Magnus Manske on en.wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsAnti-Choicers Desperately Insist You See Things That Are Clearly Not There, Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check, May 12, 2014

To hear the lurid descriptions of what anti-choicers imagine abortion to be, it seems that they imagine someone killing an actual baby. Upending that narrative and reminding people, through incontrovertible visual proof, that during a first-trimester abortion the embryo is so small as to barely register as a potential baby, much less an actual baby, might be the most threatening part of the Letts video. Her stomach is flat. The abortion is quite obviously a quick gynecological procedure. If she had stayed pregnant, eventually there would be a baby. But it’s clear as could be, watching the video, that only fantasists have the ability to see “baby” where realists see nothing more than the beginning of a long process known as “pregnancy.” It’s no more a baby than a seed is a tree.

While the debate over abortion is really about sexuality and women’s rights, the official line from anti-choicers is that they’re against killing “babies,” and so this probably is pretty embarrassing for them, because it reveals that their cover story is perhaps even sillier than their fears about female sexuality. So, their effort to save face involves multiple variations of “Don’t believe your lying eyes! Just because you can’t see a baby doesn’t mean there isn’t a baby there!”

The Myth Of White, Heterosexual Christian Entitlement, Manny Schewitz, Forward Progressives, May 12, 2014 Continue reading

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What I’m Reading, May 19, 2014

By Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsAmazon’s ridiculous photography patent makes Mark Cuban happy, Andrew Leonard, Salon, May 9, 2014

If you are, like Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, a person who believes that the U.S. patent system is completely out-of-whack, then the news that Amazon was recently granted a patent for the process of shooting pictures against a white backdrop was simultaneously a cause for outrage and reason for jubilation.

The outrage part is easy. Studio photographers have been taking pictures against white backgrounds for ages. The notion that such a thing could be patented strikes many people as inexplicable and bizarre. But that’s also exactly why this particular tidbit exploded so quickly out of the amateur photography blogosphere and into the mainstream tech press and finally to the attention of Mr. Cuban. It’s the perfect example of why we need comprehensive patent reform.

The NFL Will Never Be ‘Ready’ for an Openly Gay Player, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, February 10, 2014

[Sam] will be challenging a deep and discrepant mythology of who is capable of inflicting violence and who isn’t. Last week, Jonathan Vilma speculated about how he might feel if a gay teammate saw him naked:

Imagine if he’s the guy next to me and, you know, I get dressed, naked, taking a shower, the whole nine, and it just so happens he looks at me. How am I supposed to respond?

What undergirds this logic is a fear of being made into a woman, which is to say a fear of being regarded sexually by someone who is as strong as, or stronger than, you. Implicit to the fear is the gay player’s ability to do violence. It exists right alongside a belief that the gay player is a “sissy.” (“Grown men should not have female tendencies. Period,” Vilma once tweeted.) The logic is kin to the old Confederate belief that Southern slaves were so loyal and cowardly yet they must never be given guns.

The mythology Jonathan Vilma endorses will not fade through vague endorsements of “tolerance,” lectures on “acceptance,” nor any other species of heartfelt magic. The question which we so often have been offered—is the NFL ready for a gay player?—is backwards. Powerful interests are rarely “ready” for change, so much as they are assaulted by it. We refer to barriers being “broken” for a reason. The reason is not because great powers generally like to unbar the gates and hold a picnic in the honor of the previously excluded. The NFL has no moral right to be “ready” for a gay player, which is to say it has no right to discriminate against gay men at its leisure which anyone is bound to respect.

Photo credit: By Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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There’s More to Marriage than Lust

Chris Sevier, whom you might remember as the guy who sued Apple for not stopping him from looking at porn, is really mad about the prospect of two dudes getting married. So mad, in fact, that he has decided to once again embarrass himself on the national stage in protest:

In Florida, James Domer Brenner and his partner are currently suing the state to recognize their marriage, which was legally performed in Canada. Florida does not currently allow same-sex marriage or recognize marriages performed legally elsewhere, so this is likely to be a pretty important case.

However, one man is really not happy about it. His name is Chris Savier, “a former Judge Advocate and combat veteran” who is really just a treasure. In order to protest the case before it even starts, he filed a motion to intervene in this case and demand the right to marry his “porn-filled Apple computer.” In the 24-page long document, Savier insists that if gay people “have the right to marry their object of sexual desire, even if they lack corresponding sexual parts, then I should have the right to marry my preferred sexual object.”

So instead of “girlfriend,” “fiancée,” or “wife,” should I be saying “preferred sexual object”? I don’t see that going over well. At all.

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What I’m Reading, May 16, 2014

Youth (1893) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsHow the Purity Myth Perpetuates Rape Culture, Miri, Brute Reason, May 13, 2014

The purity myth, as Jessica Valenti calls it in her book of the same name, includes several interlocking beliefs about women and sexuality that are enforced by many religions and ideologies and continue to inform many Americans’ views of sex–even those who consider themselves liberal or even progressive.

Some components of the purity myth include:

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What I’m Reading, April. 21, 2014

Торжествуют (They are triumphant) by Vasily Vereshchagin [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsThe Lost Empire that Ruled the Silk Road, Annalee Newitz, io9, April 15, 2014

Today, the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan is relatively remote, known mostly for its magnificent medieval ruins. But over a millennium ago, it was one of the richest cities on the infamous trade route known as the Silk Road. Back in the 600s CE, that route was called simply “the road to Samarkand.”

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The term “Silk Road” was popularized by European explorers in the nineteenth century. German scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term in 1877, while attempting to follow its eroded pathways centuries after the world economy had come to rely on ocean shipping routes. Also, there is no evidence that anyone traveled along the entire route from Europe to China until Marco Polo wrote about his journey in the thirteenth century. (Polo probably wasn’t the first traveler to do this, but his account popularized the idea and led to many more journeys.)

But for most people the Silk Road was just a local highway system. They used the routes to go from one city to another, and more rarely to cross the borders between empires.

Bill Russell, Boston Celtics Veteran, Sounds Off On Gay Athletes, Jim Vertuno, AP, April 10, 2014

NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell said Wednesday that gay athletes’ current fight for equality and acceptance reminds him of some of the same struggles black athletes faced in the 1960s. Continue reading

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I’M MISSISSIPPI, B!TCH!!!

Several states with Republican-led legislatures have passed laws in recent months that purport to expand the range of things people in those states can do while pretending that it’s due to their religion. This is presumably because the Republican base has reached a point of no return, and it is only a matter of time before they are clamoring for the actual flesh of those they deem unworthy.

The good news is that the Republican Party is still also the party of rich people, and money still talks. This led Kansas and Arizona to kill their bills.

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I’m Not Smiling, but I’m Not Crying, Either

Fred Phelps is dead.

I don’t have much else to say about this man. I don’t hate him, and I’d like to say I never did. I don’t quite pity him, either. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. I think the best legacy we could all leave for the man is a clear message that no one cares about him.

He must have led a miserable life, but I have no way of knowing that. I can only apply my own ideas about what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. If he derived joy out of the life he led, then the world is probably a better place without him.

If nothing else, his death has inspired an unusual reaction in the search algorithms of the world. These are the “related links” I saw on Facebook under a link to the CNN article:

Screen Shot 2014-03-20 at 6.15.19 PM

Now then, go forth and lead a better life than Fred Phelps. That’s setting the bar pretty low.

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Learning Not to Hate

Per a friend ‘s Facebook post, there is a rumor that Fred Phelps is dying. It is surprisingly difficult to know how to feel about this, or whether I should even feel anything at all. I like the way my friend put it: “I’m not glad he’s dying. But I sure as hell ain’t sad.”

There is also a rumor, which the church will not confirm, that Phelps was excommunicated last summer, whatever that means.

How much real influence has Westboro Baptist Church really had? Has it really been a force for hate and/or evil in the world, or just sort of an oddity? It gave us a Supreme Court ruling that confirmed things we already knew about free speech. To an extent, though, WBC’s protests have galvanized opposition to their kind of hate.

You might say, however, that WBC has given cover to less ostentatious homophobes, who can truthfully say that whatever they may do to fight against marriage equality and LGBTQ rights, at least they never picket funerals. That said, WBC probably undercut its own mission by picketing military funerals, thereby driving away all those potential right-wing allies.

I would never celebrate anyone’s death (although I can’t say I’ve always held to that.) On a larger scale, Phelps’ death will mean that his particular brand of hatred is one step closer to dying out. On a smaller, more personal scale, it makes me sad that anyone goes to their grave with that much fear and hatred in them, and leaves that sort of legacy behind.

All I can really predict with any confidence is that Phelps and the WBC will be, at best, a footnote in the “miscellaneous” section of human history. Keith Brekhus said it quite well at PoliticusUSA:

As Fred Phelps approaches his final days, the temptation to attend his funeral, once he passes, with a “God hates Fred” sign, might be tough to resist. However, a stronger message would be to avoid his funeral altogether rather than answering hate with hate. Besides, if he was ex-communicated last year, it is almost a sure bet that the surviving members who have not yet left Westboro Baptist Church, will be picketing his funeral. Ironically they will be holding signs arguing that this bitter, hateful man was not hateful enough. If so, their hateful signs will serve as a tragically fitting reminder to the legacy Reverend Phelps will leave behind.

Believe it or not, Mr. Phelps, but I do not hate you. I also do not envy a life so full of anger and hatred like the one you seem to have led. I doubt much of anything can atone for that sort of life, but I do hope you find some kind of peace.

See also: this (h/t Sarah). Definitely see what George Takei said.

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Get Your Mind Back in the Gutter

"Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals" by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr

Try this: Whenever you think you’re about to start thinking of gay stuff, picture this puppy covered in rose petals instead. Feel better?

According to at least some people, growing tolerance of LGBTQ individuals and issues (this really only applies to the “G” part, I guess) is due to the fact that people just aren’t thinking about gay sex, and about how icky it is, nearly enough. If people could just get an image of anal intercourse back into their minds, then, uh, things would improve or something.

Alicia Colon, who writes for the American Thinker, really thinks we should be thinking about rectums and poo more often. Roy Edroso at alicublog quotes her as saying:

Those lovable characters in the sitcoms are robustly healthy and affluent, cuddly folks who never even hint at any of the negative consequences that follow on a lifetime of practicing anal intercourse. Nobody wears Depends, nobody deals with feces-borne diseases, and the devastation of AIDS is left for a few feature films that generate sympathy for the victims without addressing the behavioral component of the disease vector.

He goes on to add:

Colon obviously missed that very special Will & Grace episode, “Giardia is Not a River in Italy.” Colon does approve of gay Catholics who do not have anal intercourse, and hopes a book her friend is writing about them “may enlighten others and be helpful to Catholic gays as Bill W’s book was for alcoholics.”

It’s almost charming that such people still exist; they’re like bigot Shakers. I wonder if they ever perceive the irony of the likelihood that the carriers of the Gay Plague will outlast them.

Seriously, what is it with people and their obsession with same-sex sex? Specifically, gay sex, because no one ever quite seems to get so perturbed by thoughts of Sapphic lovemaking (or at least they don’t embarrass themselves in public about it as much.)

I like the way Allen Clifton put it when speaking of that Duck Dynasty guy and his apparent inability not to think of gay people primarily in terms of appendages and orifices:

When I read Phil Robertson’s comments, I wasn’t mad – I felt sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine feeling such disdain toward so many people based on who they love – something that has zero impact on my life. I can’t even wrap my mind around what it must be like to obsess so much about man on man anal sex to the point that it would bother me. To be honest, I never think about it. But then again, I’m straight and don’t care what other people do in their own bedroom – so why would I think about it?

Photo credit: “Free Sugar Baby Puppy Dog and Pink Rose Petals” by Pink Sherbet Photography [CC-BY-2.0], via Flickr.

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