Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Bathroom Bill, Part 1

Sunday, May 2, 2016, Miranda Blue reported in Right Wing Watch:
It turns out that anti-LGBT activists are right that men are taking advantage of a transgender-inclusive policy at Target to go into women’s restrooms — and those men are anti-LGBT activists. In an interview this morning with “Breitbart News Daily,” the American Family Association’s director of governmental affairs, Sandy Rios, said that activists have been “testing” Target’s policy by sending men into women’s rooms at the retail chain.
On Monday, May 3, 2016 www.joemygod.com ran a story on several male members of The Truly Religious trying to invade women’s restrooms to protest Target’s stated policy that their customers may use the restroom for their gender identity.  Are people so willfully ignorant that they cannot understand that transgender does not mean a guy wants to use a women’s locker room so he can watch them shower?  Is it so difficult to admit that a man may be trapped inside a woman’s body or vice versa?

In the post, this thread appeared:

zhera
Why aren't they protesting and disrupting Catholic churches? You know, where there are REAL pedophiles...

Reality.Bites
Not to mention actual men in dresses.

Bluto 
Why aren't WE disrupting catholic churches? Seriously, I'm so damn fed up with these assholes[?] [F]uck the high ground & strike back. Reason & civility do not work.
David Walker
The Civil Rights movement had both Dr. King and Malcolm X.  There are times, and I know you and I are in the minority, that something must be done to attract attention.  The suffrage movement demonstrations for women's votes in England were not particularly "lady-like."  I just wonder sometimes if we....
There are times I think we need our own Mrs. Pankhurst:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HdQ0iVrl2Y

Another area of comments sparked me to write this:
“In response to Bluto in zhera's observation, currently above this one, I suggested something a bit more violent, using Britain's suffragette movement as an example. I am all for protesting at churches, although we would have to be aware that open carry and concealed weapons laws exist. However, I am serious about this. As I said, the Civil Rights movement had both Dr. King and Malcolm X...and, I'm convinced, it needed both. Mrs. Pankhurst in London lived her convictions, she was in the trenches and chained in jail and force fed like the others. We made progress with the AIDS drugs by making noise, blocking streets and entrances to buildings, and by educating ourselves AND OTHERS about AIDS. I can see marriage equality going the way of abortion rights in the US. Abortion is legal, but it's also being chipped away and women soon will find it impossible to exercise that choice in many, many states. And what's being done? Nothing that anyone notices. We don't even have legal status as individuals. And we won't because The Truly Religious will continue to press their hateful advantage to make sure we are not in any way considered equals. I don't advocate violence, but I sure as hell advocate visibility, action, and maybe protesting at churches is the way to start.
“I understand that this may well offend a lot of you. However, being nice has got us where we are, with assholes making totally invalid accusations and winning elections and now demonstrating inside Target stores. Activism is needed now as much as with AIDS, as much as with sodomy laws, as much as with marriage equality. I like being nice. It's brought us a long way. But being nice is the HRC (organization) approach, and while we need to make nice with the money people, we also need to be more forceful in our standing up for ourselves, our brothers, and our sisters. Yes, it's different than it was in the '60s and the '70s. One of the differences is that this time it's about us.”

Why do we excuse ignorance, hate, and fear regarding our fellow humans…especially when the ignorance, hate, and fear come from The Truly Religious?  Why do our objections to their dysinformation need to be gentle, framed with deference that is neither earned nor deserved?  We should not shoot and kill people…that’s their game.  However, being gentle and understanding has not given us our equality.  Something needs to make them pay attention, to learn, to grasp how filled with hate their Christian Love™ is, and maybe even to help them understand just how not-Christian they are.


Monday, May 2, 2016

Roman Catholic Church opposed to lifting statute of limitations on sex abuse?

Today's (May 2, 2016) JoeMyGod included a full-page ad in the Albany, NY Times-Union newspaper warning legislators that “professional victims’ activists” would be in town to sway legislators to "a bill that would lift the statute of limitations on charging the perpetrators of sexual abuse against minors."  Apparently, as far as Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the church does not see this as a good thing, perhaps because it gives the victims rights.  I am not about to copy the ad.  If you're curious to see the Roman Catholic Church's stand on why the statute of limitations on children's ability to report sex abuse, see www.joemygod.com for this date.  I find it too offensive and infuriating to re-publish here.  However, this is what I posted on JMG:

The LGBT Center's DVD library received "Spotlight" last week and I watched it... twice...over the weekend. I've also read "Betrayal," the book upon which the movie is based. The book had me yelling out loud (Hubs is used to that). The movie, necessarily shorter, is more focused on the immediate goings on, but it's no less infuriating. There is a scene in the movie in which the Stanley Tucci character says, "It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to destroy one, too." As the Billy Crudup character says, the statute of limitations runs out quickly; the victims don't say anything because they're kids, and it's not the sort of thing a boy would admit to, especially in a working class neighborhood. Another character asks at the end of his silent victim speech, "How do you say 'no' to God?"
There is much I don't understand about humans, about powerful organizations who cannot admit to wrongdoing. Worse, I don't understand how an organization that professes love, compassion and understanding prefers to blame the victims of employees' abuses of the power given to them, and then continue to blame the victims by trying to deflect blame to others...I get it, they need to save their ass. Nixon said, "I am not a crook." Except he was.
I understand vested interest, too, but that doesn't mean that changing the law in favor of the victims is picking on the poor catholics. It means that ANY victim of child abuse would have the gift of time to understand what happened to her/him, to understand that it was wrong, that s/he has been suffering because of hiding it, but s/he would be older, understand, and could accuse. The catholic church is perhaps the largest organization facing child abuse accusations, but so what? It's not just about the catholics. It's ANY child abuse. Donahue gives the impression that it's just another catholic bashing, poor baby. He writes to try to justify something, "...less than 1% of priests nationwide have had a credible accusation made against him. Who can beat that record?" He sounds as if having a child molester in the holy organization is OK, he's defending the priests. Why in his god's name are the victims unimportant? If it's only one victim, that's one too many. The church was responsible for it; the church needs to own it. The priests broke both civil and moral law, yet Donahue and the rest want to continue to cover up.
"How do you say 'no' to God?" By helping the victims as much as we can.