Wearing a MAGA hat is like being openly gay in 1950! Really!!1!

Gavin McInnes, leader of the Proud Boys, has decided that wearing a MAGA hat in New York City is the worst of the worst, persecution wise.

“Here in New York City, wearing a MAGA hat is like being openly gay in 1950, and I’m not exaggerating,” McInnes said on Tuesday’s episode of his CRTV program. “You will get your ass beat, you will not last at a bar in Harlem—we try it all the time and get booted out. There’s many bars that say, ‘You cannot openly be here.’ If you go into a bar wearing a MAGA hat, people start getting uncomfortable. The bartender will ask you to leave politely and people will yell at you on the street and spit on you.”

Perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to push your way into Harlem bars, idiot. There’s one big difference between quietly minding your own business and getting hassled and going looking to get hassled. And of course you’re exaggerating – just what would you know about anyone being openly gay in the 1950s? Or anyone closeted and living in constant fear of being outed? Shoving your way  into Harlem bars while sporting arrogant whiteness with a stupid cap on is in no way equivalent.

It must have occurred to the rather dim Mr. McInnes that associating himself and his cadre of idiots with gay men might be a bit off agenda, so he closed with this incredibly offensive tidbit:

“You’re treating us like pedophiles,” he added.

Because of course, you can’t mention gay men without making an association with pedophiles. For that alone, I’d certainly consider spitting on you, Mr. McInnes.

RWW has the story and video.

“If you join a gym, don’t join one with gay men in it.”

Over at Barbwire, Robert Oscar Lopez has an article up on how to be a Manly, testosterone laden STRAIGHT DUDE, complete with ten ‘tips’ for getting over that awful gay. There’s so much material (two dense pages), I’m just going to pull bits here and there, you can check the whole mess for yourself, and calling it a mess is a serious understatement. As well as all the lies of the “ex-gay” bullshit, there’s a serious misconception of just what a “straight man” is, too. There’s a full embrace of toxic masculinity, along with some incredible mistakes in that regard. Altogether, it’s terribly pathetic, a complete caricature of being a man, a cartoon construct filled with desperation.

I don’t have much more time before the law makes it illegal for me to share the ten tips I will share in this blog. So I better type quickly and give you ten tips on: how to go from gay to straight. I am speaking from some expertise, but mostly from my own experience. These tips will be helpful if you find yourself wanting to get out of the gay world but your goal is not celibacy.

Oh, I see the drama has not been forsaken. It will be illegal to talk about my desire to be a straight dude, oh no!!1!!

There are certain perks about being gay that you are going to miss. For instance, if you identify as gay, people pity you and give you less responsibility for being a jerk. You get to be a complete whore and have that called liberation. Sex is easy to get and commitments easy to flake out on.

It’s a bad start, painting the queer communities all over the world this way, like a bad ’80s movie. Cruuuuise, baybee! Anyone can be a jerk. Anyone can sleep around. Sex is not always easy to get. Anyone can be afraid of commitment. Unfortunately, Mr. Lopez is all about the stereotypes.

In the gay world, you may have competed from time to time for the attention of men with nice physiques; now, you will be fighting against men with even more well-developed physiques, trying to achieve victory over them in order to win for yourself a coveted prize: a virtuous and desirable wife.

Soon you will see how much harder life is for straight guys.

:Snortsputter: Sorry, almost choked on my tea there. Oh yes, let’s hear it for the poor, pathetic straight dudes. Their lives are so gosh darn hard, livin’ the status quo! Now maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t really noticed a tonne of straight dudes with even MORE well-developed physiques wandering about. Maybe it’s where I live, but there seems to be a preponderance of pot bellies.

Once you go straight, you may go years without sex; nobody wants to hear you cry about it. Once you find your woman, you can’t just blow off things she complains about. You have to sit and listen to her whine about stupid stuff for hours without laughing or rolling your eyes or getting snarky.

I’m not sure the sacrifice is worth this, and while Mr. Lopez goes on and on about the big prize of a wife, owning that there woman, he paints a picture of complete subjection to said woman, and you just have to take it, because that’s the price you pay. There’s not one bloody word about finding a partner, a friend, someone to share your life with love and care. And I have to say, no one is getting my damn snark. It’s all mine, and I’m not sacrificing for anyone.

Most importantly, once you go straight, nobody wants to hear you complain or talk about your problems. The minute you leave gay identity behind, you go from being a pitiable and pathetic victim to a grown man with the ability to solve his own problems. This means you cannot break down or become defeatist, and you cannot expect sympathy just for being you. When straight men threaten to kill themselves if people do not give them what they want, this is called abusive rather than the grounds for a hashtag campaign.

So…you’re saying straight men suck at being friends? All the gay people I know are not considered to be pitiable or pathetic by anyone, least of all themselves, and I’m afraid they get stuck with solving their own problems, just like everyone else, you stupid dipshit. Of course straight men can break down, they can become defeatist, and depressed, just as anyone can, and that calls for support and help, not that you’d offer any, Mr. Lopez. And more to the point, Mr. Lopez, it’s perfectly normal and alright for straight men to break down, feel defeatist, or become depressed. No man should feel like he cannot reach out for help or that men don’t deserve help. Keeping crap all bottled up is the reason why a lot of angry, straight, mostly white men end up going on mass killings. It’s horrible, evil, toxic bullshit that men are supposed to be silent sufferers, that “real” men don’t do this and don’t do that. It’s a shit attitude, and it’s harmful. People are people, and all people should be able to reach out when they are in need, with no stigma attached.

Perhaps the biggest transformation signifies the most important change: your sexual identity will no longer be based on what you want, but rather, what you give to a woman. You must abandon the practice of dwelling on whether you like this or are excited by that–the issue now is: what body do you have, and how can it give pleasure to others? You have a penis, which is the basic piece of equipment to bring happiness to a woman (though you must make sure that match is right). But from now on, the quest is not to gratify your penis, but rather to give pleasure to her with it. You will measure your sex life by how happy she is, how pleasured she feels, how much satisfaction she expresses.

Did you get that, women? All it takes to make you happy is a penis. I wonder if Mr. Lopez knows you can avail yourself of a wide variety of detachable penises, in varying degrees of softness/hardness, colour, and size? Some of those bad boys even have convenient lotion or lube inside. Others have happy time batteries. Oh my! Personally, I don’t want a partner who is obsessed with only one side of the sexual aspect of the relationship.

You need to get healthy, with a decent body mass and strength. You need to be financially stable. If you join a gym, don’t join one with gay men in it. Be around masculine men and pick up their mannerisms and humor. Do not listen to women who say they want sensitive men or an equal share of power in the household; women want leadership, strength, and guidance from men. You have to become a rock of fortitude, a source of security–for men, that is the love we give. And you have to be in good enough shape to make her body feel unbelievable pleasures she might have never imagined.

Just how does one avoid a gym with even one gay person in it? How would you know? I’m pretty sure going around and asking people if they’re some flavour of queer would get you promptly kicked out. Oh, and security is nice, but I prefer my partner to actually like and love me.

The manosphere may shock you (I mean sites like Roosh’s Return of Kings) with its misogyny and vulgarity. But you need to hear the thoughts of straight guys.

Those are not the thoughts of straight dudes, Mr. Lopez. Those are the thoughts of toxic assholes, who are not the least bit interested in finding a wife; they’re into the dark side of that whoredom business, using, abusing, and tossing. It’s all about notches. As for the thoughts of straight guys, well here’s the thing: you’re talking about a fucktonne of individuals, Mr. Lopez, and most of them are not represented by the toxic manosphere. You seem to buying into this notion that a manly man has to be a toxic, misogynistic asshole.  Straight dudes are not a  hive mind, or any other type of collective.

It will also educate you on how straight men deal with setbacks and frustration. You need to increase your masculinity and self-confidence before you start dating girls. In addition to spending your time online in these kinds of environments, you want to do activities that place you in contact with straight men, and do not confide in other guys everything you are dealing with. Part of being a man is not having to talk about everything in your head, and just listening to what other people do. If you want to be in a relationship with a woman, you need to become a man — the kind of person who can be stalwart, unflappable, strong, and reliable, someone with no problems or drama. Being around straight men will gradually help you get there.

Ah, the school of stiff upper lip and penis! You don’t need anymore than that, straight men!

In crass terms, when you become a woman’s sexual partner (husband), the sex life of the marriage will largely depend on your sexual performance. You will need strong abdominal muscles, gluteal muscles, arms, and legs. You want your woman to feel like a powerful animal has her in his power, who instead of crushing her is using his strength to lift her out of the doldrums of this world into a dreamworld of ecstasy and limitless wonder. For her, sex is a vacation like riding the jet skis in Jamaica. You are the stallion she will ride into glory. But to be that stallion, you need to be muscular, have high testosterone, and be fit.

I, uh, I oh gods…falls over laughing. I think Mr. Lopez may have been reading a tonne of bad bodice rippers. A good sex life is one in which all the performances count. If this is just about you, might as well toss the wife a nice detachable penis, and go back to masturbating.

Okay, that’s it for me. I can’t take anymore. I’m going to go clean instead. Yikes. You can read all two pages of compleat shit here.

Tennessee Republicans: War on Women.

Rep. Bill Dunn (AP/Getty/Photo Montage by Salon).

Rep. Bill Dunn (AP/Getty/Photo Montage by Salon).

Tennessee rethugs have come up with a new way to shame and oppress women, forcibly reminding all women that their only function in life is to be a silent vessel for babies.

Last week, the Republican-controlled Tennessee state Senate passed a bill to erect the “Tennessee Monument to Unborn Children, In Memory of the Victims of Abortion: Babies, Women, and Men” on the capitol grounds, near memorials to victims of slavery and the Holocaust. A similar bill has passed the state house, and it’s likely that the state’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, will sign this legislation into law.

[…]

“Both of these monuments that are already here recognize that atrocities occurred because human beings were treated as less than human,” state Rep. Bill Dunn (R) said in March. “In both cases, the vulnerable and defenseless were subjected to the will of the powerful.”

“The taking of the life of a baby in the womb is related to this brand of inhumanity,” Dunn added.

[…]

It’s critical to understand that the intended “memorial” does not memorialize any actual people. Babies are not harmed by abortion, because babies only exist after a pregnancy is completed. Men are not victimized by abortion, because men do not have any rights over women’s bodies that can be violated. And women are not victims of abortion either, since it’s a process they choose for themselves and one that research suggests is generally the right decision for those who make it.

Tennessee Republicans are doing more than insulting women. They’re minimizing the seriousness of slavery and the Holocaust by suggesting that the millions of real victims of these atrocities are no more important than the imaginary victims of abortion.

The timing of this memorial to fake victims is noteworthy. This is all happening during an ongoing war over memorials to the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan, which Tennessee progressives have been trying to take down and Tennessee Republicans are trying to preserve.

There isn’t the least bit of subtlety in this latest move to stomp women back into their “proper place”. It’s disgusting and beyond wrong, and this is what conservatives, especially christian conservatives have come to, a complete caricature of lunatics running the asylum. In the year 2018, women are still viewed and treated as property, public and private, as well as mental simpletons who couldn’t possibly make decisions for themselves. This is the viewpoint of the regressive lunkheads in Tennessee, who will use any means to make sure women know they are property, and that it’s best left to men to decide what’s best for any given woman.

Amanda Marcotte at Salon has the full story.

Cheddar Gorgeous: Let’s Get Visible!

Trump in Drag, credit: Cheddar Gorgeous / Facebook.

Trump in Drag, credit: Cheddar Gorgeous / Facebook.

Oh, I would give so much to be a part of this, it sounds absolutely fabulous and it has the added bonus that it will make the Tiny Tyrant squirm all over.

Queen Elizabeth won’t the only queen greeting Donald Trump when he visits the U.K. in July.

A thousand people have signed onto a Facebook invitation for a drag-queen protest to greet the president in London on July 13. Another nearly 7,000 people are interested in attending.

Manchester drag performer Cheddar Gorgeous and four other performers have issued the call to all drag kings, queens, queers and our allies.

“Due to the appalling way the Trump administration has regarded the rights and welfare of the LGBTQI communities in the U.S., the idea of a Trump visit to the U.K. is unacceptable,” the invitation says.

“Let’s get visible, stand with our sisters, brothers and others in America.”

You can read much more at LGBTQ Nation, and The Guardian. Cheddar Gorgeous on Twitter.  I wish all the attendees the very best, and I hope there are going to a ton of photos.

The Book of Exposition: The Secrets of Oriental Sexuology.

15th Century erotica! Oh my. This looks to be very interesting, and I do plan on reading it. Unfortunately I can’t do that right away, the day before chemo is always a busy one.

A decade or so after the famed Orientalist Richard Burton translated Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi’s The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight (1886), an anonymous translator became the first to critically assess and introduce for Anglophone audiences another of the Middle East’s more controversial and enigmatic texts — Kitab al-Izah Fi’ilm al-Nikah b-it-Tamam w-al-Kamal, or The Book of Exposition — a collection of fifteenth-century erotica. Despite there being much dispute over the authorship of the work, from both Western and Middle Eastern scholars over the centuries, The Book of Exposition is nowadays credited to a fifteenth-century Egyptian polymath called Jalal ad’Din al-Suyuti (1445-1505). Although perhaps best known for his co-authorship of Tafsir al-Jalalayn (Tafsir of the Two Jalals), a classical Sunni exegesis of the Quran, al-Suyuti was also a prolific erotologist, writing at least twenty-three treatises on various aspects of the sexual arts.

The two dozen stories he presents in The Book of Exposition are an exploration of promiscuity and sexual taboos under the societal constraints of the Arab-Islamic world. In “The Strange Transformation that Befell a Certain Believer’s Prickle” a man is granted a “Night of Power” in which he is given three wishes to be fulfilled by Allah.

[…]

In his opening essay and commentary, An English Bohemian sets out to dispel Victorian attitudes to sexuality through the idolisation of the Oriental — setting up “Oriental Sexuology” as a mystical alternative for aspiring libertines/hedonists. He doesn’t just limit himself to the Orient in his examination of sexuality. He offers an insight into the sexual customs of other lands he claims to have travelled and researched extensively as a former practitioner of medicine: from Loango to the Aztecs, Paraguay to Samoa, Europe to Arabia. Despite his intentions, we perhaps end up learning more about Western attitudes to sex than the those of the non-European cultures he examines. His assertions, in their elevation of Orient over the Occident, appear to be motivated more by a desire to rebel against the prevailing establishment of his own culture than offering a nuanced picture of a foreign culture’s attitudes to sex.

You can read more at The Public Domain Review (the book is also available there), or go straight to the book here.

Sexual Normalcy?

Stonewall.uk.

Bryan Fischer is just about orgasmic over the ouster of the House Chaplain. It seems most people think it was over a prayer by Patrick Conroy, that the tax bill be fair, so Ryan said he was too political.  Anyroad, Mr. Fischer is just so damn excited:

“Here is a good news item for the day,” Fischer declared. “He is an out gay man, he’s married to a man—quote, end quote—so it was a shameful move to the put this guy in charge of the chaplaincy of the House in the first place.”

“This is a great win,” Fischer continued. “He’s pro-gay, he’s a homosexual guy that’s married to a homosexual guy. Big win, because Paul Ryan is not going to replace him with somebody who is going to have that kind of a left-leaning tilt. This is good news for the agenda of morality, especially sexual normalcy in the United States.”

There’s no such thing as sexual normalcy, Mr. Fischer. Missionary “for the baybees” Only is not official in any, it’s boring as fuck, and not everyone is interested in breeding. Mr. Fischer is providing yet another grand example of christian stupidity and inability to fact check anything. Oh no, much better to start spewing lies. I would have though that even someone like Mr. Fischer would know about the celibacy issue in the catholic church. I have no idea whatsoever of Patrick Conroy’s sexual orientation, but if he’s managed to stay celibate all these years, what in the fuck does it matter? He’s certainly not married to anyone. That’s kind of a no-no in catholicism. It took me about 4, 5 minutes to check stuff out, and it turns out the Patrick Conroy is pro-gay. I guess that’s not bad enough, no, better make up a bunch of shit instead. Fucking christians. I imagine they are in such a froth because Patrick Conroy came out and said sex is much more than breeding, oh no!

New Civil Rights Movements has a good article up about this mess. Bryan Fischer’s screeth is at RWW.

Abstinence Only. Again.

Attribution: PittNews/CC.

Attribution: PittNews/CC.

Several years ago, David Wiley, a professor of health education at Texas State University, was discussing human papillomavirus in one of his classes. The virus, known as HPV, is the most common sexually-transmitted disease. Often it is harmless and infected individuals aren’t even aware they have it. But it can also cause cancer, including of the cervix.

Wiley was discussing all of this with his students — the different types of HPV, the connection between HPV and cervical cancer, and its prevalence; “you know, just an intro, lower-level course,” he recently recalled — when a male student raised his hand with an earnest question: What was his risk of contracting cervical cancer?

“And I don’t know what’s sadder,” Wiley told The Intercept, “that he asked that question or that really nobody in the classroom even laughed because they didn’t know either.”

[…]

The federal government began funding so-called Abstinence-Only Until Marriage programs in 1981 as a way to encourage “chastity” and “self-discipline.” Since then, the feds have poured more than $2 billion into this strategy — commonly known as “ab-only” — without any proven positive effects, like delaying sexual activity or avoiding unintended pregnancy. In recent years, that funding had been in decline, in part because research — and practical experiences like Wiley’s — shows that the programs do not work. But in an ironic twist, they’re now making a comeback. Trump, an alleged serial adulterer who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and has been accused of such behavior close to two dozen times, has asked that abstinence funding be increased. And in the budget deal he signed last month, he got his wish, enough to bring total spending on abstinence up to $100 million for 2018.

[…]

Under Obama, funding for ab-only programs decreased as new emphasis was placed on using science to develop evidence-based sexuality and reproductive education strategies. But the Trump administration is trying to reverse course. Along with the return to Bush-era funding levels to push the ab-only message, Trump has appointed anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and pro-ab-only advocates to positions within the Department of Health and Human Services and has yanked funding for a successful evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention strategy.

[…]

Among the biggest proponents of ab-only programs — and their rebranding — is Valerie Huber, a Trump appointee to HHS. Huber started her career promoting ab-only programs in her son’s school before moving on to manage the ab-only program at the Ohio Department of Health. She became the president of the National Abstinence Education Association in 2007. (The advocacy organization has also rebranded itself. It’s now known as Ascend.) Huber acknowledges that the term “sexual-risk avoidance” was taken from public health, but insists it was appropriately chosen. “I bristle at the terminology ‘abstinence only,’ because our programs are so holistic,” she told Focus on the Family’s magazine “Citizen,” and address “a whole battery of different topics that surround a young person’s decision whether to have sex or not.”

This is, of course, exceedingly bad news. If you’re a parent who prefers their child to be prepared and safe, best to tackle comprehensive sex-ed at home, or an outside of school class. This will affect some states much more than others, so it’s important to find out just what the sex-ed in your child’s school is like. Ab-only also cuts out all queer students, and teaches girls that being assaulted or raped is their fault, emphasising dress and behaviour.

The Intercept has an in-depth article about this mess, recommended reading.  As the Tiny Tyrant has a vested interest in giving the lunatic evangelicals whatever they want, and they want a whole lot, you might want to have a click over to Religious Dispatches to read about Project Blitz. That’s enough to scare anyone silly.

Girls! Icky, Evil Girls!

Goodness me, the whole world is unraveling, everything is going to go to hell because girls. Not terribly surprising when it comes to christian thinking, females of any type are always the evil problem to blame.

The American Family Association released a video in which Tim Wildmon and Ed Vitaglino, the AFA’s president and executive vice president, respectively, railed against the news that thousands of girls have joined the Boy Scouts after the organization began admitting them earlier this year.

I went and read the small article about this, and yes, 3,000 girls have joined up. There was a mention of a brother and sister who excitedly joined up, they want to be the first siblings to achieve eagle scout. I don’t think much of boy scouts, but that’s kind of nice, for siblings to be able to be together in such a venture. I’m certainly not seeing the horrible evil which Tim & Ed have conjured up. Perhaps they’ll explain…

“This is, I think, a part of the ongoing war against the Judeo-Christian worldview, the way God has established mankind, male and female,” Vitaglino said, asserting that “the secular progressive … materialistic worldview based in evolution” is waging a “war against God and His divine order.”

Uh, nope. That’s not helping to clarify at all. All girls aren’t going to stop being girls because they joined a scouting organization. All boys aren’t going to stop being boys because they’re now in a co-ed scouting organization. I don’t get at all how this could possibly go against old Jehovah. I have no idea what evolution has to do with anything. It’s not like the scouts were a creationist thing. Let’s see, shall we?

It is a common belief that the BSA does prohibit members who are atheist and agnostic based on its “duty to God” principle and that members (adult and youth) agree with the Declaration of Religious Principle in the bylaws. However, the BSA has had Buddhist troops since 1920 and many Buddhists are atheists or agnostics. The BSA also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2016 which specifically gives ultimate authority over a participant’s spiritual welfare to the individual Unitarian Universalist congregation. The MOU also specifically includes within Unitarian Universalist chartered troops Humanism as an acceptable form of spirituality as well as Earth-centered religions. [Wikipedia.]

Doesn’t look to me like it’s any sort of made-up war against your pathetic god, gentlemen. Of course, if there’s willful ignorance to be had, you’ll always find it in christians.

“So, you think this is basically satanic?” Wildmon asked.

“This is Romans 1,” Vitaglino responded. “When any individual or community or nation, any culture, ignores God or refuses to honor Him and give Him the glory He deserves, then the Bible makes clear in Romans 1 that they are then given over to a deepening darkness and depravity and, unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing happen in America.”

Oh FFS, give the satanic panic a fucking rest already. How in the fuckety fuck is an organization going co-ed ignoring a god or refusing honour and glory? I imagine all the christian kids in the boy scouts do all that idiotic shit, and it’s really beyond the pale to consider this as depraved in any way. If anything, this might really help boys and young men to truly understand that girls and young women are people, not objects, and people with ideas and abilities of their own. If this helps in even the smallest of ways to reduce sexism, it will be a very good thing indeed. And christians really need to stop being so bloody hysterical over every little thing.

RWW has the story and the video.

Dear Jim Bakker, Go Fuck Yourself.

Jim Bakker, a fan of the fanatical Jan Porter and her ‘heartbeat’ bill, has somehow come to the conclusion that there were two scientists who would have cured cancer, but they were aborted by evil wenches who had the unthinkable, autonomy. Naturally, Jehovah was the one who decided to “send” these two scientists, rather than doing something straightforward, like simply eliminating all cancers, which would be rather amazing, as it would require our cells to behave differently across our various lifetimes. Or Jehovah could have simply dropped a bit of super-duper brilliance on any of the current scientists researching cancer. Lots of choice there, to say the least.

Jim Bakker claimed that God has sent two scientists to earth who would have found the cure for cancer, but they were both aborted before that ever happened.

Bakker was interviewing extremist Religious Right activist Janet Porter and former Rep. Tom DeLay about their efforts to get Congress to pass Porter’s “Heartbeat Bill,” a radical piece of legislation that Porter brags will outlaw abortion “before the mother even knows she’s pregnant” and will be “the foot in the door” to eventually completely outlawing abortion. Bakker declared that Porter’s bill is “the most important thing going on in the world right now.”

Janet Porter is a dangerous fanatic, whose life desire is to stomp on women, ensure they will never have bodily autonomy, and she has no problem with women dying, she considers that suitable punishment for any women who dares to think her life is her own, and that she has the right to make her own medical decisions in privacy. If we actually had a government, rather than a regime, she might not be so worrying, but considering the regime currently in power, there’s a great deal to dread.

“This program could be an important cog to stop abortion in this country,” he added. “The thing we have done in America, we have killed our babies. We have killed the future of America. I told you the other day about a story, someone said they asked God, ‘Why haven’t we had a cure for cancer?’ And He said back, ‘I gave you two scientists that had the cure and both of them were aborted.’”

Oh FFS, the effing helicopter story. This is the stupid christian’s answer to anything and everything. I have seen and read so many fucking versions of that idiocy over the years, I’d like to cheerfully strangle the idiot who started it. Most christians think that’s just brilliant, which tells you a lot about most christians. As for a “cure for cancer”, there’s no such thing, and it’s not likely there ever will be. That’s because cancer is not one disease, it’s hundreds of diseases. Even within a category of a specific cancer, there are different types of that specific cancer. Cancers are born of cell mutations, and there have to be a number of different mutations before anything turns into cancer. Cell mutations often happen which don’t turn into cancer. Some cancers are easier to treat than others, and have a high remission rate. Research into cancer is constant, and it’s a never-ending race against time. A great deal of progress has been made, and a great many people are able to live their lives out, rather than die an untimely death.

For there to be ‘a cure’ for all cancers, that would qualify as a miracle, because no one treatment is effective against all cancers, that’s why current cancer treatments are targeted. So, Jehovah’s “two scientists” wouldn’t have been able to do shit where cancer is concerned. Once again, the sheer weakness and ineffectiveness of the christian god is what stands out. What’s the fucking point of being a god, if you go to the trouble to imbue a couple of blastocysts with miracle performance, but you couldn’t choose people who not only truly wanted a child, but had the necessary circumstances to have that child, and see that it gets a good education to boot? Or you know, wiggle a godly pinky finger and take care of the cancer business yourself?

To a christian, it doesn’t matter what the fuck happens in any given situation, their nasty, pointless god always gets the credit, especially when credit belongs to the people who make a life and death difference to someone.

As someone struggling with cancer treatment, this fucking attitude is infuriating, to say the least. A great many people over the years have helped to make brilliant leaps in treatment, and if I make it through treatment and come out clean on the other end, any gratitude I may have will belong to them, not the ugly ass god of christians. It is very christian to decide to use something like cancer to try to force the regressive oppression of women though, because cancer is still the big fucking scary, and too many christians are stupid and gullible enough to buy such awful dreck as some sort of skillful reasoning.

RWW has the story.

The Inquisition Tentacles Are Spreading.

I’ve written about Ralph Drollinger before. He’s one scary lunatic christian, and he wields way too much influence in the current regime. He’s crowing again, over all the “progress” he’s making. It’s as well to remember that Drollinger’s idea of progress is to bring back the inquisition or something like.

Ralph Drollinger, who runs fundamentalist Bible studies for dozens of members of Congress and President Trump’s Cabinet every week, said in a fundraising letter this month that his group “has been blessed by God with extraordinary growth beyond our wildest imaginings in foreign nations across the globe and most notably in former Soviet Bloc countries.”

[…]

We noted last fall that Drollinger is aggressively expanding his operations both at the local government level in the U.S. and in national capitals around the world. His April 4 letter includes some details about the latter:

In the last few months discipleship Bible studies have been established to Parliamentarians in Romania; Ukraine; Fiji; Papua New Guinea; and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. A ministry is about to begin in Guatemala, and before fall, we expect work to be completed for ministries in the Central and South American nations of Peru; Ecuador; Brazil; Mexico; Uruguay; and Paraguay, as well as in the European city Riga, Latvia.

Work is current an ongoing with partners to establish discipleship Bible studies in Berlin and Bonne [sic]. We are enthusiastically pursuing an opportunity to plant a ministry in the European Union Parliament, a body of 600 Parliamentarians from 26 Western and Eastern European nations who meet two weeks every month in Brussels, Belgium and one week every month in Strasbourg, France.

We thought the Lord did not want us in the Middle East, but to our great surprise discussions are currently underway to establish a ministry in a Muslim majority nation in the Middle East.

[…]

Although Drollinger is quick to complain about news coverage he believes is unfair, his letter says a story published in a German newspaper helped attract new friends. And Capitol Ministries has been gushing about a recent BBC story that the group says “reached more than 1 million readers world-wide.”

I have no idea why people might find Drollinger favourable in any light, but even if you are one of the lucky people who lives in a happily secular nation, this should be worrying. Drollinger is naturally courting regressive governments, but there are always regressive asses in any government, and they are likely to listen to Drollinger. I fail to see the charm, and it’s beyond disturbing that Drollinger is not simply being dismissed. Just to give you an idea of what Drollinger wants to institute, as far as government is concerned:

Drollinger’s April 13 Bible study says it is a “disservice to the country” for public servants to “craft policy that is not somehow rooted in Scripture.” Here are some of the other theological and political positions Drollinger teaches public officials:

Drollinger likes to tell reporters that he doesn’t instruct public officials how to vote, but he makes it clear in his written Bible studies that, for example, Christian public servants are required to support the death penalty and oppose marriage equality.

Drollinger also has very specific views on the role of women: “there is a prohibition of female leadership in marriage, and female leadership in the church.” One of his Bible studies explains what he calls the “unambiguous” difference in responsibilities the Bible gives men and women, saying women’s “primary functions” include homemaking, home management, mothering, teaching younger women, displaying hospitality and dressing modestly.

There’s much more, RWW has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

Brian Brown, head of NOM (National Organization of Marriage), has been opining over how much he can really, truly feel like Jesus, because all those horrible people who are okay with same sex marriage. Something of a pity I haven’t noticed Mr. Brown hanging from a crucifix lately. Here’s just a bit of his latest screed, and probably the bit which annoys me most:

I can’t help but feel the parallels between what happened during Christ’s time on earth and some of our own experiences in recent times, including in the struggle to preserve, protect and promote marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

We’ve seen marriage be considered invincible one day, and then in a blink of an eye seen it redefined and defiled. We’ve seen the principle of traditional marriage be betrayed by people who swore to voters they would protect it. We’ve seen some people abandon the fight, whether out of fear or seeing many who remained vigilant punished and persecuted. And we’ve seen constitutionally-guaranteed rights such as the right to religious liberty be superseded by invented concepts that not only are not rights, they also are not right.

It can be disheartening at times, but we at NOM have not lost faith. You see, we’ve read the book and we know who wins in the end. We also know that the truth of marriage is universal and timeless, written on the human heart by our Creator at the beginning of time. Marriage cannot be changed, and the truth of marriage cannot be redefined or eradicated.

Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. That’s what the thing is, always has been and always will be. It is a profound good, and the most important human relationship ever created. It’s the basis of families, and the foundation for raising children.

I know that true marriage will rise again. I think it will happen fairly soon, because it’s impossible to maintain the lie of same-sex ‘marriage’ forever. But whether it takes two years or two decades, NOM is determined to fight every day for the truth of marriage and for the good that it provides for families and children.

BlahblahblahBiblicalMarriageblahblahblahTrueMarriageblahblahbleagh. Oh, the “truth” of marriage! These fucking idiots constantly claim to have read “the book”. I actually have read the damn book, and the whole “one man one woman” crap is not apparent in the Old Testament. It doesn’t have a firm hold on the new one, either, although it was getting there. If there was a god named Jehovah, and it did have firm ideas about marriage, then those ideas should have made the OT law, right? And in the NT, Jesus declared he was there to uphold the (OT) law. So…none of that happened.

What did happen is the same thing you see over and over throughout human history, societal mores change over generations. And over the generations of those who made up the bad stories which comprise the bible, societal shifts towards marriage appeared. No magic required, just people. The bible is also full of rape, incest, and vicious executions of (female) prostitutes. Ol’ Jehovah doesn’t seem to get overly disturbed by such, most of it being its idea in the first place. Jesus didn’t have much to say about that either, except in a couple specific cases. Brian Brown is engaging in cherry picking, bad picking at that, all because he has a bad case of the ickies.

It’s abundantly clear that marriage can be changed, it has been changed, and it changed and changed again within “the book” too. Naturally, the nonsense Brown pushes has absolutely nothing to do with just how marriage is perceived and done all over the world. All he cares about is where he lives, which is Amerikka, and as far as he’s concerned, Amerikka should be run according to at least one version of the bible. Unfortunately for him, the so-called truth of marriage can’t be found in there either. It’s whatever we make it to be.

You can read the full story at RWW.

A ‘Separation Of LGBT And State’.

Scott Lively, a man who thinks executing queer folk is a great idea is running for governor of Massachusetts. I most sincerely hope the people of Massachusetts bury this evil asshole in a blizzard of no votes at all.

Lively asserted that “there is no human right based in sodomy” and promised that if he becomes governor, he will ensure that the rights of religious individuals will always triumph over the rights of LGBTQ people.

“The two things that I would do in Massachusetts,” Lively said, “number one is what I call the First Amendment supremacy clause … It just simply says that whenever there is a conflict between [sexual orientation nondiscrimination] regulations and the First Amendment, the First Amendment has to prevail. It has to prevail; you cannot have newly invented laws and policies superseding the most fundamental right of Americans.”

Oh, how I wish these hateful, bigoted asshole christians would get the fuck over the whole sodomy thing. Men who happen to be gay are not the be all end all of LGBTQ, but you’d never know it going by Lively and those like him. Naturally, it’s all about the mighty, terrifying, all powerful penis! A teensy bit of education could go a long way here – all gay men don’t indulge in anal sex, and plenty of hetero people do indulge.

Of course you can have newly invented laws and policies, you flaming dipshit. They happen all the damn time. For all your waving about of the word amendment, you seem to be remarkably unaware of what it means. Oh, the irony!

“The second [policy] is what I call the separation of LGBT and state,” he continued. “To the extent that religion is restricted in government, so should the LGBT political movement because it is basically the counter to it. They’re opposite political forces and movements competing for influence in society and government should get its thumb off the scale when it comes to that and let’s get back to like we had it in the ’40s and ’50s.”

So much for the constitution love. Interesting how that goes straight out the window when it comes to separation of church and state. You don’t get to institute separations to cater to your unhinged hatred, Mr. Lively. It doesn’t work that way. As for the 1940s and 1950s, no, let’s not go back there. I wouldn’t mind if you went back there, Mr. Lively, then we’d be well shot of you. Can someone get on that time machine already? Please?

The full story with video is at RWW.

Fiends of Darkness With Dastardly Phrases!

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

C-Fam is all busy “fighting the fiends of darkness with their dastardly phrases”, at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, of course, because where else?

Last year, the Trump administrated invited a representative from Austin Ruse’s C-Fam—which works with some of the world’s most repressive regimes to resist reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality at the UN—to join the official U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. This year, C-Fam isn’t in the official delegation, but Ruse is fundraising off his group’s advocacy against the inclusion of “dastardly phrases” such as “sexual orientation” and “reproductive health” in commission documents.

Ruse wrote in a fundraising email yesterday (emphases his):

The bad news is that “sexual orientation”, “gender identity”, “reproductive health”, and “comprehensive sexuality education” are all in the CSW documents we have been negotiating at the UN since last Monday.

The good news is that each of these dastardly phrases have been bracketed and are on the verge of being deleted altogether.

We have been working on this literally for months and we are on the verge of a great victory against the fiends of darkness.

As you know,

Sexual orientation and gender identity is code for odious sexual behavior and gender lunacy,

Reproductive health is code for abortion,

Comprehensive sexuality education is a blue-print for kids to lose their lives and their souls.

These wicked ideas are being pushed by hard-leftists at the UN and by diplomats from Europe.

But, they did not count on the pro-life and pro-family coalition!

We have five more days of negotiations before we know whether we have routed the enemy. …

Odious sexual behaviour? Okay, how about we talk about the massive cheating and porn addiction problem in conservative christians? Gender lunacy? Okay, how about we have a little chat about the damaging, rigid stereotypes imposed on children of conservative christians?

Reproductive health is code for reproductive health, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging doucheweasel. The ability to terminate a pregnancy successfully is a part of that, whether or not birth is the termination point. Let’s not forget about something else you absolutely loathe: contraception. Contraception goes a long way to keeping a whole lot of people safe and sane, and yes, that includes men. It’s worth mentioning a fact you do your best to ignore: certain contraceptives are often prescribed for specific reproductive health problems, and that is very important indeed to those who suffer such health problems. Pain is not fun.

A blue-print for kids to lose their lives? No, that’s not what comprehensive sex ed does at all. Comprehensive sex ed saves lives by making sure kids engage in sexual activity when they are ready, not before, and that they do it safely. Sex ed also teaches consent, which is vital for all kids to know and understand, which can and does prevent rape, something you asshole christians don’t have much of a problem with. Sex ed also provides answers and security to those kids who are thinking they are all alone in their orientation, and sex ed teaches kids to be accepting to others, yet another thing you asshole christians don’t like, you’re much more at home with intolerance and hate.

Unfortunately, there’s more of this hateful fucking garbage, and you can read it all at RWW.