LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mysticknyght)

I know a lot of you read DailyKos, but this stuff bears repeating as louldy and often as possible today:

( what you can do now )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gleef)

Justice Sandra Day O'Conner has officially announced her retirement. While I have not agreed with all of her positions on things, she often acted as a voice of sanity and reason in the highest court in this nation. I expect the administration to attempt to replace her with a voice of insanity and unreason. This can get very messy

...seeing as I think we all can use it with the whole Supreme Court justice retirement thing :P

http://www.washblade.com/print.cfm?content_id=5967

Apparently the state of Tennessee is investigating whether Love In Action/Refuge can be shut down as an unlicensed healthcare facility.

The one possible bit of bad news is if they can successfully claim they're "faith based" they may be exempt; however, as they've claimed they have licensed counselors (admittedly licensed by having degrees from dominionist groups that in part act as certification mills as well as indoctrination centers, such as Liberty University) they fall under purview of a new Tennessee law.

According to the article, there is also apparently legal precedent in Tennessee for emancipation of teens who are at threat of being sent to dominionist-run clinics like Love In Action/Refuge. Also, the state of Tennessee has permanently revoked the license of at least one Memphis-area counselor who was practicing as an "ex-gay therapist" and promoting the commitment of kids to Love In Action et al.

(Forwarded to ISAC, Southern Poverty Law Center, Emancipation Project, nospank.net)

http://www.caica.org/

Coalition Against Institutionalised Child Abuse is a watchdog group, much like ISAC (http://www.isaccorp.org) and Emancipation Project (http://www.emancipationproject.org) that focuses on awareness of and fighting against coercive "behaviour modification" facilities.

(Again, this is of note because many if not the vast majority of "behaviour mod" facilities of this type are in fact operated by dominionist groups; Love In Action is promoted in literature from Focus on the Family and the American Family Association, for example. Some groups such as WWASP have also been known to promote causes in the dominionist community (such as "de-gaying therapy"); many dominionist-run schools are also promoting themselves as "tough love" schools. A number of former WWASP schools, too, are now owned and operated as blatantly dominionist "correction schools".)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY bennu_)

While listening to NPR on the way home, I heard about Justice Sandra O'Connor's resignation from the Supreme Court. They played a snippet of Bush saying that he's asked his administration to submit for his consideration, nominees of integrity who would "faithfully interpret the Constitution".

faithfully....

I don't think I like the sound of that.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

The ever-eloquent solarbird has posted a kind of "special edition" cultural warfare update to her blog, along with commentary. It deals with the new Supreme Court vacancy as well as other threats to gay rights and reproductive freedom. Here's an excerpt:

Scalia and Thomas aren't just reliable votes against abortion rights, but also voted to uphold laws criminalising the lives of gayfolk. Scalia in particular is also strongly hostile to minourity [sic] religions, writing just last week that the concerns of polytheists and atheists could simply be ignored in the law. Scalia has also written that any religious practice may be banned by government, as long as oppressing the religion is not the specific and stated goal of the legislation.

Neither of these justices share any great love for liberty in general - only in the specific and narrow areas they prefer. They may have voted the right way in Kelo v. New London - and I applaud them for that, tho' I see it very much a case of the stopped clock being right twice a day - but in almost every other way, they are a disaster for the freedom of the person.

And they're what President Bush has said, repeatedly, consistantly [sic], from 2000 to as recently as late last year, that he wants more of on the courts.

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