Words For All: You Are A Warrior.

Image: Vice President Joe Biden speaks to '60 Minutes' (Screen capture)

Image: Vice President Joe Biden speaks to ’60 Minutes’ (Screen capture)

VP Joe Biden has written an open letter to the woman raped by Brock Turner. The only thing I have to say is that these words are for all victims of rape and sexual assault, not just women. Via Raw Story.

An Open Letter to a Courageous Young Woman

I do not know your name—but your words are forever seared on my soul. Words that should be required reading for men and women of all ages.

Words that I wish with all of my heart you never had to write.

I am in awe of your courage for speaking out—for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity.

And I am filled with furious anger—both that this happened to you and that our culture is still so broken that you were ever put in the position of defending your own worth.

It must have been wrenching—to relive what he did to you all over again. But you did it anyway, in the hope that your strength might prevent this crime from happening to someone else. Your bravery is breathtaking.

You are a warrior—with a solid steel spine.

[Read more…]

The punishment for rape should be longer than a semester in college.

Ted Poe calls for Judge Aaron Persky to be removed (C-SPAN/screen grab)

Ted Poe calls for Judge Aaron Persky to be removed (C-SPAN/screen grab)

I never thought I’d be supportive of a conservative congressperson, but I am all the way with Ted Poe here.

Conservative Texas Congressman Ted Poe (R) on Thursday lashed out at Judge Aaron Persky after he sentenced former Stanford student Brock Turner to six months in jail for the sexual assault of an unconscious woman.

“The woman, just 22 years of age at the time, was being raped and the rapist was caught in the act,” Poe explained in a speech delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Brock was found guilty of the sexual assault on three counts. His sentence, a mere six months in prison and three years probation.”

“Because the judge said a prison sentence would have a ‘severe impact’ on him,” the Texas Republican continued. “Well, isn’t that the point? Mr. Speaker, the punishment for rape should be longer than a semester in college.”

[…]

“This judge got it wrong,” he insisted. “There’s an archaic philosophy in some courts that sin ain’t sin as long as good folk do it. In this case, the court and defendant’s father wanted a pass for the rapist because he was a big shot swimmer.”

“The judge should be removed,” Poe remarked. “The rapist should do more time for the dastardly deed that he did that night.”

Poe added that he hope an appeals court would “overturn the pathetic sentence and give him the punishment he deserves.”

“The entitlement mentality of being a good college athlete and self-righteousness do not trump justice,” the lawmaker declared. “The criminal has given her a life sentence of mental pain, anguish and turmoil. When rape occurs the criminal is trying to steal the very soul of the victim.”

“Justice demands the judge be removed!” he exclaimed. “And we, the community, must assist the victim in all possible ways. Because rape is never the fault of the victim. And that’s just the way it is.”

Wow, sing it, Mr. Poe! Here’s hoping he is listened to, and yes, that travesty of so-called sentence needs to be overturned.

Via Raw Story.

Fighting for womens’ rights — the unborn womens’ rights.

Scottie Nell Hughes talks to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on June 8, 2016. (YouTube)

Scottie Nell Hughes talks to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on June 8, 2016. (YouTube)

Tea Party radio host and Donald Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes argued on Wednesday that the Republican candidate would make a better president for women who haven’t even been born yet.

“We actually are fighting for womens’ rights — the unborn womens’ rights,” she told former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). “We are pro-life for a reason. We want all women to have the chance to live. And men as well. So yes, I consider him to be very feminist when it comes to the pro-life era.”

I guess all you men should be happy you made afterthought status. Well, the unborn men at any rate. I don’t think living, breathing people are counting for much here.

The discussion then circled back to womens’ health care, with Hughes saying that that Trump would improve health care choices for women by replacing the Affordable Care Act — a.k.a “Obamacare” — with a more “competitive” system that would allow states to create their own system.

Oh, that will work well. uStates has such a great track record of coordinated, cohesive social programs and safety nets across all states. How deluded do you have to be to say such utter shite with a straight face? I suppose having a blank brain helps.

“You need to separate womens’ health care from abortion,” Hughes responded. “If they are sitting there doing tax-funded abortions, those should be shut down.”

Oh, when is this going to stop? Federal funding is not used to perform abortions. How many times has this been said now? Emphasized over and over and over.

Via Raw Story.

Applied Bioethics…

Shutterstock. [The Right-minded people at College Fix couldn't bother with a credit.]

Shutterstock. [The right-minded people at College Fix couldn’t bother with a credit.]

Christian style. Oklahoma Wesleyan University is launching an applied bioethics certificate program this July that will train students in pro-life activism and pregnancy center management.

Equip yourself to answer pro-choice arguments compellingly and winsomely in any setting. Recognizing that an abstract approach to bioethics is insufficient, Oklahoma Wesleyan University is proud to be one of the few universities in the nation committed to equipping the next generation of life-affirming apologists, politicians, and pregnancy center executives.

“Applied Bioethics at OKWU is the most important pro-life training you will ever receive…I went from the frustration of finding myself flat-footed in conversations about abortion to being thoroughly equipped to winsomely answer arguments in ways that are life changing. Don’t pass up this opportunity to take your ministry to the next level and begin making abortion unthinkable in your community.” – Jody Ward (Project Manager, Women’s Care Center, Baltimore, MD)

Nationally recognized pro-life organizations are partnering with Oklahoma Wesleyan University to offer certifications in pro-life training and ministry essentials.

My emphasis there. Winsomely? I take this to mean they’re trying for a folksy Huckabee type of approach and argumentation. Perhaps they think they can simply charm people into a rabid anti-life position.

From the Right-Minded College Fix:

OKWU is also studying the “feasibility” of expanding the program into a full-blown bachelor’s degree that prepares students for “vocational work in pro-life apologetics, political consulting, or for an executive role” in pregnancy help centers and medical clinics, according to the program website.

I think someone doesn’t understand how quote marks work. I know that’s on the petty side, but it’s bothersome. Why is feasibility in scare quotes? Moving past that, this is on the seriously depressing side. Fake clinics already proliferate the landscape, and there are plenty of professional liars staffing them already. More are not needed, winsome or no.

While OKWU says applied-bioethics credits earned by students will be transferable, it’s still working out the details because the program is “in the very early stages,” England told The College Fix.

It ran a pilot session last summer after “a group of highly-respected pro-life voices put the curriculum together and began looking for a university to take the idea and run with it,” she added.

One of those voices was Scott Klusendorf, founder and president of the Life Training Institute. If Christian students want to simply keep their faith through college but not make a larger cultural impact, “then we are in trouble,” Klusendorf told The Fix in a phone interview. Students “need to be able to make a case for the pro-life view in one minute or less if necessary,” he said: “There is no major out there anywhere that is teaching people to do this.” Klusendorf teaches an ethics and abortion course that examines “the toughest critics of the pro-life view, the academic critics,” and equips students to answer their objections, he said.

If you can cope with it, there’s a 45 minute video of Klusendorf giving one of his talks in the UK at the site, along with Sribd documents describing the Ethics of Abortion online class. Apparently, Mr. Klusendorf can’t limit his arguments to one minute.

Mourning Contraception.

wisconsinprolife

Griswold Vigils to Be Hosted Around the State!
Every year pro-lifers throughout Wisconsin mark the anniversary of the June 7, 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut U.S. Supreme Court decision with prayer vigils at local birth control centers. The landmark Griswold decision paved the way for abortion on demand in America by legalizing contraception and defining the so-called “right to privacy” upon which the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was based.

[…]

In an email to members yesterday, the anti-abortion group Pro-Life Wisconsin announced the latest round of its annual “prayer vigils at local birth control centers” marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down laws banning married women from accessing birth control.

Pro-Life Wisconsin, which advocates for a fetal “personhood” amendment in the state that would ban abortion with no exceptions, boasts that in contrast to the state’s National Right to Life Committee affiliate, it “opposes all forms of artificial birth control.”

I cannot express the depth of my disgust for these people, and those with similar views. It’s not enough to try and remove every person’s right to bodily autonomy, no. You want to make sure that people are slaves to their reproductive systems. Nosiness isn’t a virtue, and these people take it to despicable lengths. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how my personal reproductive choices could possibly matter to people I don’t know, and will never know. What kind of an evil person do you have to be, to take enjoyment and satisfaction from the thought that you might be able to shut down bodily autonomy rights? You folks are a fucktonne nastier than the bloodthirsty, psychopathic god you worship, who, by the way, didn’t really have a problem with abortion.

While looking at their announcement for vigils mourning contraception, I noticed an ad for a coffee company, Lifeboat Coffee, where there’s a donation to your favourite group of evil, anti-life assholes every time you purchase coffee.

slide4

1. All human life is sacred, beautiful and deserving of protection from natural conception to natural death. No exceptions & no compromise.

2. Our coffees must be ethically sourced, sustainable and of superior quality and taste.

3. We’ll give 10% of every purchase back to YOUR favorite life-affirming charity. 

HOW WE STARTED

Our founder and President, John Lillis, (known affectionately as: The Skipper), is married and he and his wife have been blessed with seven children. He is, in fact, a proto-survivor of America’s abortion-holocaust, being born and abandoned (left for adoption), in San Francisco at the end of August of 1967, some five-months after the California legislature passed the Therapeutic Abortion Act!  This is personal.

Personal. Right. I’d dearly like to to make Mind Your Own Fucking Business a commandment. One of the items you can purchase from the anti-life coffee store is an incredibly tacky little doll, fully kitsched out, so you can spiritually adopt an unborn child. Yep.

This is a great opportunity to Spiritually Adopt an unborn child who is at-risk for abortion!  Along with your gorgeous ornament, you’ll receive an Adoption Certificate where you can Name and Pray for this little-one!  What an experience! Add to that this hand-designed ornament is made by legendary doll maker Yolonda Bello and is featured here exclusively!  This pro-life ornament stands 8″ tall and is wrapped with a vine over a brass stand with the baby swaddled in cotton inside the glass ornament!  Proudly display your Spiritual Adoption Certificate and it makes a great conversation piece!

Yes, what an experience! What. The. Fuck.

PreciousBabyOrnament

certificate
The certificate of adoption reads: On this day______, I___________ do spiritually adopt and name this child___________ I will pray and intercede for this child. And I will be ever mindful of how great a gift life is and how precious this child.

Well. That should take care of the problem of all those medical decisions being made (that are none of your business), right? After all, your god is mighty and all that stuff, so you get everyone to buy adopt a dolly, and pray. Everything is settled!

Via Right Wing Watch.

Bloodless Persecution and Transgender Depravity.

(Knights of Columbus website) Baltimore Archbishop William Lori says institutions protecting religious freedom and morality are 'under assault.'

(Knights of Columbus website)
Baltimore Archbishop William Lori says institutions protecting religious freedom and morality are ‘under assault.’

Oh my! First up, bloodless persecution.

A Roman Catholic archbishop, however, warned that there is such a thing as “bloodless” persecution, and it is happening in the nation that is supposed to be one of the freest in the world, the United States.

During his address at the opening of the Divine Mercy University in Virginia, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said Catholic institutions in America are “experiencing the severest threats to their religious liberty” at present.

[…]

“The institutions that are under challenge are places of mercy that seek to bring the healing balm of truth, love, and human skill to the spiritual, emotional, and physical wounds of human existence, to be indeed the ‘field hospital’ amid a culture where many are wounded daily,” the archbishop said, as quoted by LifeSiteNews.

To illustrate his point, the Roman Catholic official cited the legalisation of same-sex marriage and U.S. President Barack Obama’s contraceptive mandate as particular threats to religious freedom.

“We have only to think about the arbitrary redefinition of marriage and family or anti-family welfare and relief policies. As these intermediate structures either disappear or come under the direct control of the government, our society becomes less merciful and more impersonal, less apt to be a setting for human flourishing,” Lori said.

[…]

The prelate urged the faithful and all Christian groups to be steadfast in promoting values, especially during this year, called the Holy Year of Mercy by Catholics.

This year “presents us with a graced opportunity to see the most fundamental of our freedoms, religious freedom, through the prism of God’s mercy and compassion,” he said.

Mercy? Christians have a damn odd notion of mercy. Oh so merciful to force people to submit to your psychopathic figment of a god, unable to live life in a manner they wish, and meddlesome priests and parishioners to go poking their noses where they don’t belong. Merciful. Right. Well, I guess you don’t get to torture and crispy critter people anymore. That’s something, I suppose.

Jack Englehard.

Jack Engelhard.

Time for Transgender Depravity with Jack Engelhard.

Transgenders, some 700,000 of them nationwide, are less than one percent of the population, but they rule. Progressives want you to know that you are a bigot if you have a problem with men and women side by side in the same privy. What do we say about this? Nothing. Have we no shame? My cat won’t use the litter box until we leave the room. My cat knows dignity.

That’s nice, Jack. You have a sensitive kitty cat. What about all those people with distinctly undignified cats? The ones who don’t mind digging in the litter box, spraying sand all over the place while you are in the room? Do they need to die? Go to Ex-Undignified Cat Therapy? Sent to church? Rounded up and shipped off somewhere? There are even cats who go outside the box! *Gasp* Perhaps we best not talk about them.

Thanks to the depravity forced upon us by degenerate Liberals, the rest of us have been plunged down to the lowest rung of the animal kingdom. Your daughter is not safe in any school throughout the United States.

How sweet. Jack, like most all the other bigots, is terribly concerned with daughters.  All those sons can just take care of themselves, I guess. Back to daughters. The word choice is an interesting one. Not girls. Not young women. Not women. Daughters. Written with the heavy hand of patriarchy, and the weight of ownership. The concern over potentially damaged property.

I raised the alarm here on May 3 and again here on May 22 in a piece titled, “How Bruce Jenner changed the life of every American.”

The stats for that article reveal that it was read by about 25,000 Americans, which means I failed. I needed to reach all 320 million Americans to let them know that when Big Brother forbids you the rights for your most intimate acts and denies you your most hushed moments, all is lost.

Big Brother has forbidden me the rights for my most intimate acts and hushed moments? Hmmm. Okay, I’ll admit to being lost on the hushed moments bit, no idea. (It’s not like everyone can’t hear you tinkling away). Generally speaking, my most intimate acts don’t take place in public, but even if they did, I’d be with Mrs. Campbell, and as long as no one was in the street scaring the horses, who cares? I don’t really consider pissing to be an act of intimacy. It’s a necessary bodily function, and yes, if I have a choice, I prefer privacy, such as it is in a public lav. I was in a public lav last week. I went into a stall, and peed. End of story. No rights violated in any way.

I failed again now that we read this: “The international association of Conservative rabbis passed a resolution declaring its embrace of transgender people, and called on Jewish institutions and government agencies to ensure their full equality.” What is this?

This is not equality. This is not civil rights. This is an abomination – or so it was back in the days when decency meant something. This is not Jewish. This is not Christian. This is not American. This is an enormous sell-out against our Judeo/Christian ethics.

I do not care how many rabbis or ministers or priests support the transgender mythology, common sense tells us that this is wrong. Let’s be honest and call it sinful.

Oh, how about if we don’t, Jack. By the way, there’s no such thing as transgender mythology. Well, at least not as far as I know. I don’t think transgender people have all gotten together to create gods just yet. A sell-out of Judeo-Christian ethics sounds good to me, we could finally start living by actual ethics, which don’t harm people, and aren’t based on hatred, fear, and judgment.

To live in a time when any man can call himself a woman and any woman can call herself a man puts us outside the laws of civilization and into the lawlessness of the jungle. Together as a nation we have been declawed. We have been neutered. We have been dehumanized.

SIGH. Jungles! What in the fuck do you know about jungles, Jack? My bet would be nothing at all. Neutered. Declawed. Dehumanized. Are people being neutered and declawed somewhere? I certainly haven’t heard anything like that. As for you, Jack, well, you have your little claws out, don’t you? Scratching and scraping away at any move towards a more compassionate, caring and humane society. I haven’t been dehumanized in the least by anyone under the GLBT umbrella. No one has tried to declaw or neuter me, either. That last one would be a tad difficult where I’m concerned, but it’s not women you care about, is it, Jack? Nope, it’s all about the men. Manly men, howling the losses of patriarchy. Tsk.

To live in a place where the rules are upside down and where each man is his own judge is to live in a wilderness of moral decay.

There’s this men only thing again. I’m quite good with being my own judge of how to live my life. I’m not terribly interested in telling other people how to live their lives, and I’m too busy for that kind of thing anyway. Instead, I’m very good with all people having basic human rights, and being left in peace to judge what’s good for themselves.

Pink. Amazing, Miraculous Pink.

Saad sent this fine example of everyday patriarchy, and the Power of Pink™:

JCAsXLu

Okay, the only actual difference I see here is the pill colour. Orange in the standard package, pink in the special Pink Power package. Oh, wait, the Pink Power states it’s for sensitive stomachs. Going by the handy dandy coding, this means only women have sensitive stomachs. Sorry men, you can’t have one of those. There’s a bit more interesting coding, too. The standard package: Gentle, predictable overnight relief. The Pink Power package: Gentle, dependable relief for sensitive stomachs. Women aren’t interested in predictable, no. They want dependable. Got to have that specifically coded assurance of stability and security, a pat on the hand, a pink promise you’ll be taken care of, sensitively.

Jesus, what a load of shit. A bright pink load of shit.

A Lavatory Story.

How did public bathrooms get to be separated by sex in the first place? May 26, 2016 10.03pm EDT A 19th-century photograph of a women’s restroom in a Pittsburgh factory. Author provided

How did public bathrooms get to be separated by sex in the first place? May 26, 2016 10.03pm EDT A 19th-century photograph of a women’s restroom in a Pittsburgh factory. Author provided.

…In fact, laws in the U.S. did not even address the issue of separating public restrooms by sex until the end of the 19th century, when Massachusetts became the first state to enact such a statute. By 1920, over 40 states had adopted similar legislation requiring that public restrooms be separated by sex.

So why did states in the U.S. begin passing such laws?

[…]

Nonetheless, American culture didn’t abandon the separate spheres ideology, and most moves by women outside the domestic sphere were viewed with suspicion and concern. By the middle of the century, scientists set their sights on reaffirming the ideology by undertaking research to prove that the female body was inherently weaker than the male body.

Armed with such “scientific” facts (now understood as merely bolstering political views against the emergent women’s rights movement), legislators and other policymakers began enacting laws aimed at protecting “weaker” women in the workplace. Examples included laws that limited women’s work hours, laws that required a rest period for women during the work day or seats at their work stations, and laws that prohibited women from taking certain jobs and assignments considered dangerous.

Midcentury regulators also adopted architectural solutions to “protect” women who ventured outside the home.

Architects and other planners began to cordon off various public spaces for the exclusive use of women. For example, a separate ladies’ reading room – with furnishings that resembled those of a private home – became an accepted part of American public library design. And in the 1840s, American railroads began designating a “ladies’ car” for the exclusive use of women and their male escorts. By the end of the 19th century, women-only parlor spaces had been created in other establishments, including photography studios, hotels, banks and department stores.

It was in this spirit that legislators enacted the first laws requiring that factory restrooms be separated by sex.

[…]

Finally, Victorian values that stressed the importance of privacy and modesty were subjected to special challenge in factories, where women worked side by side with men, often sharing the same single-user restrooms.

It was the confluence of these anxieties that led legislators in Massachusetts and other states to enact the first laws requiring that factory restrooms be sex-separated. Despite the ubiquitious presence of women in the public realm, the spirit of the early century separate spheres ideology was clearly reflected in this legislation.

Understanding that “inherently weaker” women could not be forced back into the home, legislators opted instead to create a protective, home-like haven in the workplace for women by requiring separate restrooms, along with separate dressing rooms and resting rooms for women.

Thus the historical justifications for the first laws in the United States requiring that public restrooms be sex-separated were not based on some notion that men’s and women’s restrooms were “separate but equal” – a gender-neutral policy that simply reflected anatomical differences.

Rather, these laws were adopted as a way to further early 19th century moral ideology that dictated the appropriate role and place for women in society.

The whole article is very good, click over and read.

Second Skin

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Second Skin (2015), Esmay Wagemans. All images courtesy to the artist.

Instagram itself is quite clear about it: nudity is in no way allowed. Yet there’s still a lot of discussion going around this policy. A question that often arises, for example, is: Why are male nipples allowed while female ones aren’t?’ Last year, the #freethennipple movement unexpectedly took surface. Woman from all around the globe took to Instagram and Facebook, and shared selfies of their nude bodies. They still got censored, but the motivation was clear. Advocates of the movement accused the Western world in general (and the platform itself) of a sexist double-standard. Instagram subsequently defended their policy by stating they wanted their platform to be suited for all age groups (the app has a 12+ rating in the App Store). And children, so it seems—according to their general opinion—shouldn’t see any female nipples.

If it’s up to Esmay Wagemans, a fourth year at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, this will soon change. For her project Second Skin, she worked out a way to bypass Instagram’s nudity censorship. By using a self-developed special kind of latex, she actually managed to show her nipples without showing any skin.

I spoke to Wagemans about the creation of Second Skin, how people reacted on it, and why she thinks it’s important to revolt against any patronizing platform.

[…]

Why do you think it’s important to put your breasts on Instagram?

To me, Instagram is a very important platform to share my work as an artist. And I’m not going to change the essence of my work just because it would be too shocking for other people, or because it wouldn’t fit the social norms. Sure, I get that pornographic images shouldn’t be on it, but then again Instagram should focus on creating a different, less sexist and more refined nudity and censorship policy. Apart from all of this though, I do think Instagram’s strict nudity policy is sustaining the idea of a woman’s body as a sexual object.

How do you mean, “sustaining the idea of a female body as sexual object?” Don’t you think it’s a good thing children are restricted from seeing naked breasts?

I myself don’t think nudity should be such a taboo, because it feeds objectification. Look, if you’re not portraying breasts in an erotic or pornographic way, I think everyone should be able to see them, even children. By withholding those kinds of “normal” nudes from young teenagers, you’re still presenting the female body as something sexual. That’s simply not beneficial for anyone. Within that abstinence, the idea of the body starts being seen as something separate from the woman. It’s right there, where the objectification starts.

Sunday Facepalm

March_sign

Wikimedia Commons.

Christians Sue State over ‘Abortion Mandate’.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Pushing back against the state’s notoriously liberal stance on abortion, a number of New York’s Christian organizations served the Department of Financial Services with a lawsuit, claiming the agency obscured regulatory language which forces employers to cover abortions.

The 44-page filing in Albany County Supreme Court uses terms like “moral evil” and “unspeakable crime” to describe abortion. It highlights a section of the “model language” used by DFS over the last two years — a standard state form which dictates how insurance companies operating in-state should present their coverage to clients.

According to the lawsuit, Section 6 of the “model language” includes a subsection dealing with “Interruption of Pregnancy.” The language states: “We cover therapeutic abortions. We also cover non-therapeutic abortions in cases of rape, incest or fetal malformation.”

“Practically speaking, ‘therapeutic’ would include abortions for emotional health, fetal health, fetal malformation,” said Mary DeTurris Poust, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. “Really, we’re talking about any abortion.”

The Diocese of Albany is one of 13 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which also includes Episcopalians, Baptists, Lutherans, a nursing company and a general contractor in Plattsburgh. Their document goes to significant lengths to outline core beliefs on the “sanctity of every life,” including a number of paragraphs dealing with the concept of life beginning at conception in the mother’s womb.

The group claims the model language was “known only to DFS and the health insurers, and never disclosed to plaintiffs.” They go on to say they were caught unaware when their respective insurance companies informed the group that “they had been separately covering abortions under the service category of ‘medically necessary’ surgery.”

“There is a possibility that we could have already been forced to pay for an abortion,” DeTurris Poust said on Friday.

The full story is here. I will be forever grateful that when I had an abortion back in the 1970s, no one thought that was any of their business. Mine was quiet and professional, and there were no screaming, hateful people anywhere, thinking they had an absolute right to interfere with a private decision to have a medical procedure.

Six Amazing Moms

It’s Mother’s Day. This is not a day which affects me personally, in either direction. That said, I want to thank all those women who are also mothers, and are doing an amazing job at raising up thoughtful, accepting, inclusive children. Here are some of those moms, via HRC.

1. Michelle: Michelle is just your average mom in Northern California. She is the mother of three children, including her transgender daughter, Malisa. “Malisa is your typical pre-adolescent girl,” Michelle said in a video for HRC. “She loves to craft and sing.” Michelle and her father, Congressman Mike Honda, have both been open about their undivided support for Malisa and equality for the transgender community.

2. Annie: Annie always knew there was something special about her grandchild, Kaycee. “I knew it was something different about Kaycee,” she said in a HRC video. “Kaycee didn’t have to tell me. I knew it.” While Kaycee was worried about coming out to her family as transgender, her grandmother stood by her side every step of the way.

There are four more wonderful moms, check them out at HRC.

Rape Pregnancies A Silver Lining From God

Ugh. I can’t even suppress the nausea induced by this mess of a person.

via YouTube Republican State Rep. Tila Hubrecht held a press conference Thursday to defend her views on rape pregnancies.

During an intense Tuesday floor debate on the measure, Hubrecht made the case that women should not be allowed to abort pregnancies caused by rape.

“When God gives life he does so because there’s a reason, no matter what,” she said. “Sometimes bad things happen, horrible things, but sometimes God can give us a silver lining through the birth of a child.” Because, yeah, rape sucks, but there’s nothing like nine months of living with your rapist’s baby growing inside you to help you get over it!

Full Story Here.

Fetal Idolatry

The Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple (Screenshot/YouTube)

The Detroit chapter of the Satanic Temple (Screenshot/YouTube)

Anti-abortion activists were met head-on in Detroit by the city’s chapter of the Satanic Temple, who trolled them by dressing up in baby gear and decrying “fetal idolatry.”

According to the Temple’s Detroit chapter leader, Jex Blackmore, “the anti-choice movement’s obsession with, and mischaracterization of the fetus obscures medical reality and a woman’s constitutional right to choice.”

Full Story Here.