LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY antigone50)

I get that this is a link and you might not follow it, but this is serious. One of the scariest things coming out of the Republicans I have EVER seen.

Unauthorized Reproduction Bill:

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/10/3/223530/406

Confirmed here:

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2068

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2005/10/04/holy-shit-indiana/

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/12813691.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY helenangel)

State bill would limit procreation assistance: Process would rule out homosexuals, singles

( Full story, as taken from site, behind the cut )

You have GOT to be kidding me. If this isn't a glaring violation of personal rights, I don't know what is.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This editorial article from the Arizone Republic makes some interesting points:

Religion, holy ones strangling U.S. rights

By Linda Valdez
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 18, 2005 12:00 AM

An extraterrestrial sent to study the United States would look at the headlines about John Roberts' confirmation hearings and think the biggest issue facing the nation is abortion.

E.T. would be wrong.

The issue is religion, not abortion.

Questions from Democrats about Roberts' views about the right to privacy were code for: Hey, America! Religion has a stranglehold on your government.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

'Two Illinois pharmacists backed by the conservative group Americans United for Life sued Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday about his rule requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception.'

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY enkinhou)

Hey, everyone!

I was perusing through the archives of this community, and I've seen very little in the ways of John Roberts (not that the other topics covered, such as the Dominionist takeover of the military as well as the Dominionists praising such an awful disaster as Hurricane Katrina as God's retribution against the various sins of America and its citizens, are any less important than the issues concerning John Roberts). I have a small cache of John Roberts articles that may apply to this community, especially with the John Roberts hearings going on right now and the potential for this person, who is comfortably among the Dominionist ilk, to become the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:

Roberts Resisted Women's Rights

Top Court Nominee's Memos Questioned Right to Privacy

The Record of John G. Roberts, Jr.: A Preliminary Report

(PDF File) Final Pre-hearing Report in Opposition to the Confirmation of John Roberts to the United States Supreme Court

Documents Show Roberts' Influence in Reagan Era

However, the most disturbing thing in all of this is that, up until now, except for these few pockets of resistance, much of the media either is acquiescing (or outright heaping praises) to John Roberts' confirmation or just not caring at all, which is utterly sickening. I mean, though there were and still are Justices among the Dominionist camp (deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas come to mind), from the portrait painted by these articles, John Roberts, who is 50 now, was verily a Dominionist zealot since his 20s at the very latest. Plus, since the average life span is in the 70s, his confirmation as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would mean that he may very well have heavy influence in the Supreme Court for 20+ years, which is something everyone should be really wary of.

I hope that this post has been informational to you, as all of the posts to this community have been to me.

Not only are dominionists pushing for "moral objection" clauses in healthcare (they claim for people with objections to abortion, but increasingly used to prevent distribution of birth control; some states' statutes are so broadly worded as to quite literally allow doctors, nurses, and pharmacists to refuse *any* medical treatment to someone for reasons like being *gay*) but now they are going for the judiciary as well (to block off the one avenue that a lot of kids in dominionist households have to get abortions or women's healthcare or to even potentially escape from their abusive households):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/04recuse.html

Tennessee (particularly Shelby County--notably also home of Love In Action/Refuge), Alabama (notably home of several dominionist groups, and which had a flat out Christian Reconstructionist as chief justice of the state Supreme Court before he was disbarred), and Pennsylvania (home of raving dominionist Michael Marcaivage and http://www.repentamerica.org (which has claimed, among other things, that Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution against New Orleans for having drag shows on Bourbon Street)) are states with reported problems of judges recusing themselves on parental notification cases.

At least one judge in Shelby County has reported she has received an increased workload due to the judges in that county recusing themselves, and reportedly in Alabama and Pennsylvania teens have had to go to other counties to find a judge even *willing* to hear their case.

If judicial recusals end up being accepted in Supreme Courts (reportedly a complaint is being filed against the judges in Shelby County) this could lead to dominionist judges recusing themselves from all *manner* of court decisions potentially unfriendly to dominionists :P

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Talk To Action:

Antiabortion Militants Outraged: Planned Parenthood Helps Out
Apparently militant antiabortion activist Jim Sedlak thinks refugees from Katrina who have lost everything should have to pay for reproductive health services -- even if they are raped -- or (heaven forbid), happen to be so fortunate as to have consensual sex.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

A religious supremacist group says that Katrina is "God's punishment for LA having 10 abortion clinics".

The War Room on Salon has this quote:

We knew this was coming.

Two days after 9/11, Jerry Falwell took to the airwaves to proclaim that God had allowed the United States to be attacked because "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians" had tried to transform America into a secular society. Just this weekend, wingnuts from the Westboro Baptist Church turned out at the funerals of two fallen soldiers to say that God is punishing the United States in Iraq for its tolerance of homosexuality back home.

So when Hurricane Katrina hit land yesterday, we knew it was only a matter of time before we'd be hearing from the lunatic fringe again. And now, here it is. In an e-mail message we just received, a group calling itself Columbia Christians for Life alerts us to the fact that a satellite image of Hurricane Katrina as it hit the Gulf Coast Monday looks just like a six-week-old fetus.

"The image of the hurricane ... with its eye already ashore at 12:32 p.m. Monday, August 29, looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks)," the e-mail message says. "Even the orange color of the image is reminiscent of a commonly used pro-life picture of early prenatal development."

And in case you're not getting the point, the e-mail message spells it out in black and white: "Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers," the groups says, and "five are in New Orleans."

But why would God single out Louisiana? Other states have many more abortion clinics, and Louisiana and the other states hit hardest by Katrina all voted for the pro-life president of the United States. It didn't add up for us at first, but the Columbia Christians for Life have an answer for everything. God has already punished California with earthquakes, forest fires and mudslides; New York with 9/11; and Florida with Hurricanes Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne and the early version of Katrina.

-- T.G.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

From Media Matters: Quicktime Video of Pat Robertson calling homosexuals "self-absorbed narcissists" and blaming them for abortion & divorce

You go back to the various laws that took away the difficulty of getting a divorce, and the people leading the charge were homosexuals, way back in the '70s. So we have no-fault divorce. Who are leading the charge for abortions? So often, you'll find people who are lesbians leading the fight for the destruction of human life. Now they want to destroy marriage.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ccroft)

Following on from the article just posted on dark_christian about the serviceman's funeral, on the same site there is a fun column which provides some incisive observations against the GOP's so-called 'culture of life', which touches on many recent issues and brings them together: GOP's 'culture of life' is a joke, but no one else is laughing

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

A truly pathetic site maintained by dominionists.

It covers a variety of issues, including:

1. The False Green Gospel: Environmentalists are all pagans.

2. The Feminist Movement: Feminists are all pagans, lesbians, or "unstable women who are quilt ridden because of their sins, torn by lust".

3. The Impact of Feminism on the Family: Feminists are to blame for "Rampant illegitimacy and sexual disease, widespread divorce, and a generation of unloved, undisciplined, and uncared-for kids."

4. The Clinton Legacy: Bill Clinton is to blame for "The demise of morality, the loss of our freedom, the crime in our streets, the poverty in the inner-cities, the war zones in our homes and the violence of our children"

5. War on Christianity: Compares the brutal persecution of Christians in countries like Egypt, Pakistan, and China to the "persecution" of Christians in America

6. Christians in Politics: "Led by the ACLU, new agers, one-worlders, feminists, homosexuals, liberal churches, and godless politicians, an all out War on Christianity has been declared."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

(I've got the code in here for an lj-cut, but it's not working, and I don't know why. Weird.)

God said it. I believe it. That settles it." This familiar bumper sticker slogan appears to sum up the Religious Right's decision-making process on matters of heated public debate.

But when policies involving human biology and behavior are being hammered out, faith alone isn't always sufficient to win over voters and decision-makers. At such times, a bit of scientific evidence comes in handy, and some of the Religious Right's operatives aren't too choosy about where they get it.

( Continued... )

The story can be found at: http://www.alternet.org/story/24000/ ; the comments to the story are just as interesting.

(Crossposted at my own journal).

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY neadods)

Planned Parenthood has run a successful Pledge-a-Minute campaign, asking their supporters to pledge a certain amount of money for every minute someone pickets one of their offices. That is now being turned on Fred Phelps, who is picketing funerals of soldiers he thinks are gay. His latest victim is Sgt. Christopher Taylor; the money will go to his widow.

( The contact info. )

Considering what a bully Phelps is, it would really spoke his wheels to know that he was earning money for the people he's trying to hurt.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Talk To Action post talks about the courage of a Denver abortion doctor in standing up to "Operation Rescue".

Every summer Operation Save America takes a massive, weeklong protest to some fortunate city in America where their director, Flip Benham, leads them in “storming the gates of hell.” A couple of weeks ago, OSA swarmed Colorado in Operation Save Denver. But when Benham’s “saints” and “gentle Christian warriors” pack up to go marauding, they carry along so much hellfire and brimstone that they had plenty left over for Boulder, where they focused the wrath of their angry God upon Dr. Warren Hern.

Dr. Hern is a provider of exemplary abortion care. He is also a renowned anthropologist, as well as an internationally recognized authority in his highly specialized field of medicine. Together with Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Dr. Hern has been at the top of the antiabortion mob's hit list for over 20 years.

And this time was no exception.

OSA besieged various Colorado targets for a week--abortion-providing clinics, gay and lesbian groups, mosques, and even a school of theology—but they singled out Dr. Hern for some viciously personal attention by papering his North Boulder neighborhood with what looked very much like “wanted” posters.

Scary stuff. But if the “Reverend” Flip and his “gentle Christians” thought that Warren Hern would bolt for the basement and lay low until they left town, they mistook their man.

The indomitable Dr. Hern came out swinging, immediately purchasing a newspaper ad that gave the OSA flyer far greater exposure than Flip Benham could have dreamed of, along with some well chosen words of his own.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Looks like his God-fearin' constituents aren't too happy about his defection from the party line:

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050802211809990008

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Madison Journal:

Bill will try to bar UW from giving out pills

Phil Brinkman Wisconsin State Journal
March 19, 2005
A state lawmaker wants to prohibit clinics serving University of Wisconsin campuses from providing students with birth control pills and devices, contending such services promote promiscuity.

Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R- Oostburg, said he was outraged when he learned University Health Services, the clinic serving UW-Madison students, had taken out ads in the two campus newspapers suggesting students get advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions before leaving town for spring break.

LeMahieu has begun drafting legislation to prohibit university health centers from promoting or providing the medication, known as the morning after pill. But because the pill is just a higher dose of the contraceptive hormones found in birth control pills, LeMahieu said he also will seek to block the university from prescribing all birth control pills.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Guuuuyyyys...? What's going on here? Did I wake up in the right universe?

Anyone want to speculate on the story behind the story? Is this just a stunt to increase Frist's viability as a Presidential candidate?

===========================

Frist backs increased federal stem cell funding

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Friday threw his support behind House-passed legislation to expand federal financing for human embryonic stem cell research, breaking with President Bush and religious conservatives in a move that could impact his prospects for seeking the White House in 2008.

"It's not just a matter of faith, it's a matter of science," Frist, R-Tennessee, said on the floor of the Senate.

Frist's announcement immediately dented his support among Christian conservatives... The Christian Defense Coalition lambasted Frist's change of position.

"Sen. Frist should not expect support and endorsement from the pro-life community if he votes for embryonic research funding," it said.

"Senator Frist cannot have it both ways. He cannot be pro-life and pro-embryonic stem cell funding," said Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the group. "Nor can he turn around and expect widespread endorsement from the pro-life community if he should decide to run for president in 2008."

...It also could impact Frist's own political future. A likely presidential candidate in 2008, Frist has been courting religious conservatives who helped make Bush a twice-elected president and generally consider embryonic stem cell research a moral equivalent to abortion. But the announcement, coming just a month after Frist said he did not support expanded financing "at this juncture," could help him with centrist voters...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Source

Spiritual battles in ongoing war over abortion

Clergy that support Planned Parenthood say religion not just domain of opponents
By Jill Tucker


ANTI-ABORTION groups are good at getting the God message out.

Religion and the antiabortion movement are inextricably linked.

Not so on the other side.

Abortion advocates and national abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood seem far removed from religion, existing in a secular world free of Bible verses and scriptural sound bites.

And yet, faithful followers from various world religions line up with the abortion rights contingent — perhaps not as vocal or visual as anti-abortion advocates, but there nonetheless, historically and currently.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

solarbird has already published some notes on Bush's Supreme Court nominee, including the following:

Roberts argued, even though the case did not implicate Roe v. Wade, that "[w]e continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled... The Court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion... finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution."

Later stated in appeals court hearings, "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land.... There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." However, this seems to apply to someone in a position not capable to overturn it...

Roberts co-authored two briefs arguing for an expanded role for religion in public schools. In one case, he co-authored a government amicus curiae brief before the Supreme Court, in which he argued that public high schools should be allowed to conduct religious ceremonies as part of a graduation program, a position rejected by the Supreme Court.

Discussion?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

Family Research Council (FRC) Action Item:

Tell your Senators to Oppose Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research
July 14, 2005

In the next week or two, the Senate will probably vote on a House passed bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), H.R. 810, that will federally fund research that requires the destruction of human embryos. H.R. 810 will fund research on human embryos that supposedly are "leftover" from in vitro fertilization. Instead of promoting the adoption of these human embryos, this bill would require their death.

President Bush is the first president to federally fund human embryonic stem cell research. He determined that such research could be funded so long as the cells had been obtained from embryos on or prior to August 9, 2001. Since then, the government has funded research on over 22 stem cell lines. However, the President's policy does not encourage the further destruction of human embryos.

Just as abortion is currently legal, destroying human embryos is completely legal. The debate is about taxpayer support. Though legal we don't federally fund abortion. Likewise, we should not force US taxpayers to fund research that requires the killing of human embryos. However, H.R. 810 would overturn the Bush policy and create a direct incentive to create and kill human embryos for research with your money.

Contact your Senators and let them know that you strongly oppose H.R. 810 (and its Senate version, S. 471).

Source