Let’s rename ‘school’ as ‘uterus’ so maybe Republican lawmakers will want to do something about the children dying inside them.— Nathan G (@nwg83) February 15, 2018
Short takes on recent news stories that, in my view, are worth passing along to all of you:
Cameron Kasky of Marjorie Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida, speaking with Anderson Cooper about the mass murder that just took place at his school:
There is a segment of this society that will shrug this off and send their thoughts and prayers but march for hours over a rainbow wedding cake.
It is worth noting that the Russians believed that the best way to damage America was help elect Donald Trump.— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) February 16, 2018
Ed Mazza:
Bess Kalb, a writer for "Jimmy Kimmel Live," is responding to each lawmaker tweeting condolences over the murders by listing how much they've taken from the National Rifle Association, which has consistently fought any move to tighten gun control laws.
Bruce MacKinnon, Halifas Herald
Hello 911? I'd like to report an emotionally disturbed young man with behavioral issues who owns an entire arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and posts crazy stuff online
911: none of that is illegal or an emergency ma'am
Ok, but the President said
911: have a good day
Click https://t.co/G0wA6xPFBz— rabia O'chaudry (@rabiasquared) February 15, 2018
Force these allegedly Christian men and women that stuff their pockets with money from the NRA year after year after year to do something now. . . . Children are being murdered! Just do something! We still haven’t even talked about it. You still haven’t done anything!
~ Jimmy Kimmel
Rose Hackman:
Historically, religious exclusion has repeatedly gone hand-in-hand with racial exclusion in the US.
Katherine Webb-Hehn:
There's a narrative we’re asked to believe in the discussion surrounding same-sex adoption: A great battle exists between Christians and queers. If you are of the opinion that exposure to an LGBT lifestyle might turn children queer and therefore land them in eternal damnation then I’m not sure harm on earth has much argumentative power. But everyone I spoke to for this story, most of whom identify as queer, made a point to tell me they identify as Christian, too. Beyond a battle over the role of religion as it pertains to government, in Alabama, a law like HB24 is a battle over interpretations of Christianity.
SueAnn Shiah:
I've spent my entire Christian life pursuing relationships with white and straight people, reaching out, building bridges—after the election I wondered, what good did that do? . . . [T]his church, the congregation, the denomination, the entire American evangelical church, wasn't created for someone like me to live, serve, love, worship, and flourish in.
Patrick Hornbeck:
GOP education bill would radically rewrite religious freedom and license virtually any form of discrimination.
My comments: As astute observers of this religious-liberty-turned-upside-down theory have said, it's implicitly arguing that, if my sincere religious belief tells me stop signs are immoral, I should have the right to drive through them with impunity.
The kind of society we build when we permit religion to posture as beyond law and beyond human decency in this way is an atrocious society.
And more commentary from me:
Every one of the Republican political leaders tweeting their "thoughts and prayers" right now are owned lock, stock, and barrel — from their eye teeth right to their souls — by the blood-soaked National Rifle Association:
And yet "pro-life" white Christians keep putting them into office.
The "pro-life" movement has become one of the most evil movements imaginable in American Christianity and culture.
Not abortion: "pro-life" Christianity, which fetishizes sperm and ova and zygotes, but shrugs its shoulders as children in American schools are slaughtered over and over again by madmen wielding assault weapons obtained legally and easily in this "pro-life" nation, or as people going to concerts, theaters, and nightclubs are slaughtered in the very same way.
Blood is all over the hands of so-called "pro-life" Christians who enable this by their votes — this and capital punishment, and the destruction of the environment, and the immiseration of the poor, and the snatching of food from the mouths of the hungry and medical care from poor families, and the separation of families by draconian sweeps of immigrants, and militarism and war, and a rapacious economic system that bleeds all but the super-rich dry.
Blood is on the hands of so-called "pro-life" Christians who, following massacres like the one that occurred at a school in Florida this week, want to throw up the abortion canard to stop discussion of the problem of too many guns in too many hands in the U.S. — when the large majority of abortions occur in the U.S. in the very early stages of pregnancy when, in the view of many people, there are sound, legitimate scientific reasons for doubting that the fetus has developed to the stage that it can legitimately be called a human person.
Blood on their hands.
There's a reason that the tweet by NathanG at the top of this posting has been retweeted 161K times as I publish this posting.
(Thanks to Brian Gallagher for sharing the Bruce MacKinnon cartoon in a discussion thread here recently.)