Evolution: not a religion

SAB

So sayeth the court.

A federal court rejected the argument from a Christian group in Kansas which said that evolution was religious “indoctrination” and should not be taught in schools.

[…]

In a statement, Americans United for Separation of Church and State said that COPE feared that scientific facts would cause “Kansas schoolchildren will be subtly manipulated into rejecting their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

“It’s a nonsensical argument, which is why courts have unanimously rejected it,” Americans United said. “COPE, it seems, isn’t interested in promoting facts; it’s interested in forcing public schools to conduct far-right religious and political indoctrination.”

Full Story Here.

LGBT Roundup

A lot of news today.

Survivor Contestant Places Rainbow-Painted Outhouse Atop North Carolina’s Tallest Mountain:

Neal Gottlieb's Facebook

Neal Gottlieb’s Facebook

“Yes, at least for a little while, North Carolina’s highest point is an outhouse; a fitting symbol for a state that has sullied itself with shitty, repressive legislation,” Neal Gottlieb pens in a letter to the Governor of North Carolina.

…Protesting North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill”, HB2, Neil Gottlieb placed a rainbow outhouse on the summit of Mount Mitchell, the state’s tallest mountain. Gottlieb, a contestant on this season’s Survivor: Kaoh Rong, shared the photos and a letter penned to NC Governor Pat McCrory.

On Facebook Gottlieb wrote,  “I proudly placed a rainbow-painted outhouse displaying a trans pride flag at the summit of North Carolina’s tallest mountain this morning in protest of the state’s repressive HB2 legislation. It was a brilliant site. The follow letter was nailed to the front of the outhouse and calls out the governor for the crap has become known as the ‘bathroom bill.'”

Gottlieb then posted his letter:

Read More Here.

Target Defies North Carolina Bathroom Law:

The company says it will welcome trans people to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms that correspond with their gender identity.

The company says it will welcome trans people to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Target is taking a stand against North Carolina’s transphobic bathroom bill, saying its customers and employees can use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

The company announced the policy on its corporate website today, saying, “Inclusivity is a core belief at Target. It’s something we celebrate.”

The department store chain even proclaimed its support for the Equality Act that is proposed in Congress.

“We believe that everyone — every team member, every guest, and every community —deserves to be protected from discrimination, and treated equally,” the company said in its statement. “Consistent with this belief, Target supports the federal Equality Act, which provides protections to LGBT individuals, and opposes action that enables discrimination.”

Full Story Here.

[Read more…]

Much Ado Over…

Women on 20s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced on April 20 that Andrew Jackson will be replaced by Harriet Tubman on the $20 Federal Reserve Note.

Women on 20s
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced on April 20 that Andrew Jackson will be replaced by Harriet Tubman on the $20 Federal Reserve Note.

Indigenous people have an interest here, to say the least. Before I get to that, the mere fact that a woman might end up on a piece of paper is apparently cause for outrage. Add to that fact it will be a black woman, and oh my, there goes the internet again, all blowed up, and you see things like this:

Bigots

hey all I know is she stole property. Jackson gave Indians a new home. Tubman was a criminal.

Jackson gave NDNs a new home? There are times the stupid is utterly infuriating. I know that most people don’t know anything at all about Indigenous peoples in uStates, but this is beyond the pale. You’re on the ‘net, you know. Take five minutes out and fucking learn something. As for Tubman being a criminal? Point me to one past uStates president that hasn’t been one. Oh, but they were white, so it was okay. Ms. Tubman saved lives. Jackson was a murderer. A bit of a difference there. But for those preaching #whitegenocide, this heralds the beginning of the end. I would have preferred Chief Wilma Mankiller to be on the $20, but I’m very happy with the choice of Ms. Tubman, assuming this actually happens.

Women on 20s organized to get a woman on U.S. paper money to celebrate the centennial in 2020 of the 19th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to women. They picked Jackson as their target in furtherance of another goal in their mission statement: “Removal of symbols of hate, intolerance and inequality…”

I learned something at that point that was highly gratifying. I know Cherokees who put 20s in their wallet in a manner that avoids looking at Jackson’s face. I know Cherokees who identify as Republicans because Jackson was a Democrat and are highly offended at Democrats having annual “Jefferson-Jackson dinners.” What I did not know is that Indians generally despise Jackson almost as much as Cherokees do.

Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Bill John Baker, released a statement reacting to the decision to replace Jackson with Tubman:

Andrew Jackson defied a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and forced the removal of our Cherokee ancestors from homelands we’d occupied in the Southeast for millennia. His actions as president resulted in a genocide of Native Americans and the death of about a quarter of our people. It remains the darkest period in the Cherokee Nation’s history. Jackson’s legacy was never one to be celebrated, and his image on our currency is a constant reminder of his crimes against Natives…

The Cherokee Nation applauds the work… to replace his image with the image of Harriet Tubman, whose legacy represents values everyone can be proud of.

Harriet Tubman to Replace Indian Killer and Slave Dealer Andrew Jackson on $20 Bill.

Back to Jackson.

Courtesy Whitehouse.gov Andrew Jackson took office in 1829 with one goal set firmly in his mind: Indians must be moved “beyond the great river Mississippi.”

Courtesy Whitehouse.gov
Andrew Jackson took office in 1829 with one goal set firmly in his mind: Indians must be moved “beyond the great river Mississippi.”

[Read more…]

First Nations community grappling with suicide crisis: ‘We’re crying out for help’

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

After 11 people tried to take their own lives on Saturday evening, exhausted leaders declared a state of emergency. On Monday, as officials scrambled to send crisis counsellors to the community, 20 people – including a nine-year-old – were taken to hospital after they were overheard making a suicide pact.

“We’re crying out for help,” said Attawapiskat chief Bruce Shisheesh. “Just about every night there is a suicide attempt.”

[…]

There is no single reason for the toll. In Attawapiskat, Shisheesh pointed to overcrowded houses riddled with mould, drug abuse and the lack of a recreation centre that could give youth something to do. But mostly, he said, these children have fallen victim to the deeply rooted systemic issues facing Canada’s First Nations.

Chief among those is the lingering impact of the country’s residential school system, where for decades, more than 150,000 Aboriginal children were carted off in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society.

“You can’t attempt cultural genocide for 140 years, for seven generations – the last of these schools closing their doors in 1996 – and not expect some very real fallout from that,” author Joseph Boyden wrote this week in Maclean’s. “Attawapiskat is a brutal example.”

Rife with abuse, the schools aimed to “kill the Indian in the child”, as documented by a recent truth commission. Thousands of children died at these schools – the absence of dietary standards in the schools left many undernourished and vulnerable to diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis – with hundreds of them hastily buried in unmarked graves next to the institutions. In nearly a third of the deaths, the government and schools did not even record the names of the students who had died.

The legacy of these schools sits silently under the surface of much of First Nations life in Canada, often combining with deplorable living conditions to produce deadly results. Last month, after six suicides in some three months and more than 140 attempts in a two-week span, another remote community – the Pimicikamak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba – also declared a state of emergency.

[Read more…]

15.

James Buchanan took office in 1857, and viewed Indians as collateral damage. Whitehouse.gov

James Buchanan took office in 1857, and viewed Indians as collateral damage. Whitehouse.gov

Uniform federal Indian policy was almost nonexistent when James Buchanan took office in 1857.

The country was on the brink of the Civil War, and the federal government had abandoned any pretense of Indian policy, leaving the “Indian system” to the mercy of dishonest and greedy Indian agents who largely earned their positions as rewards for political service. Corruption penetrated the federal government, funneling illegally obtained money to officials at many levels.

As the South threatened to secede from the Union, the only cohesive Indian policy Buchanan entertained was the belief that they needed to be quarantined on reservations, said Jean Baker, a history professor at Goucher College and author of the 2004 biography, “James Buchanan.”

In April 1858, the Yankton Sioux ceded 11 million acres in southeastern South Dakota. Chief Struck-by-the-Ree, whose name appears on the treaty, warned his people that they had little choice but to abandon their land. (Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum)

In April 1858, the Yankton Sioux ceded 11 million acres in southeastern South Dakota. Chief Struck-by-the-Ree, whose name appears on the treaty, warned his people that they had little choice but to abandon their land. (Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum)

Buchanan oversaw 11 treaties with Indian nations, acquiring millions of acres of land in New York, the Dakotas and Kansas, and sending Indians to live on reservations. In April 1858, the Yankton Sioux ceded 11 million acres in southeastern South Dakota. Chief Struck-by-the-Ree, whose name appears on the treaty, warned his people that they had little choice but to abandon their land.

“The white men are coming in like maggots,” he said. “It is useless to resist them. They are many more than we are. We could not hope to stop them. Many of our brave warriors would be killed, our women and children left in sorrow, and still we would not stop them. We must accept it, get the best terms we can get and try to adopt their ways.”

Full article here.

Standing On Sacred Ground

Eight Cultures, One Fight.

Around the world, indigenous people stand up for their traditional sacred lands in defense of cultural survival, human rights and the environment.

Watch them stand against industrial mega-projects, consumer culture, resource extraction, competing religions, tourists and climate change.

[…]

As part of a four-part documentary series on indigenous struggles over sacred sites that was over seven years in the making, Standing on Sacred Ground, will be broadcast on PBS’s First Nations Experience channel (FNX) as well as other stations to include KQED through April and May, nationally on WorldChannel and the San Francisco Bay Area station KCSM beginning Sunday, April 17 through Friday, April 22 (Earth Day.) … The project airs over the course of four episodes and includes stories on the indigenous shamans of the Altai Republic of Russia, a northern California tribe, the Papua New Guinea people, the First Nations near the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, the Gamo Highland peoples of Ethiopia to the indigenous communities near the Andes of Peru, as well as Aboriginal Australians and Native Hawaiians.

Standing On Sacred Ground Home. Broadcast Schedule. ICTMN article.

Oceti Sakowin and Chante tin’sa kinanzi Po

The protest against the Dakota access pipeline continues.

 

The spirit riders at Standing Rock show support for keeping the Missouri River waters clean.

The spirit riders at Standing Rock show support for keeping the Missouri River waters clean.

In the coming weeks or maybe even days, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will issue a decision as to whether or not they will allow the Dakota Access Pipeline, also known as the Bakken Pipeline, to be constructed.

Until then, citizens and allies of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation) will continue to protest the pipeline, urging stakeholders to recognize the devastation that would ensue should the pipeline be built.

“The DAPL poses a threat to our people, cultural and historically significant areas,” said Paula Antonie, Chair of Shielding the People and a Rosebud Sioux tribal citizen. “We will stand by our Hunkpapa relatives in defending against any major environmental, public health and safety hazards within our treaty territory.”

The proposed pipeline would stretch for thousands miles across four states beginning in western North Dakota and ending in Indiana. It would cross the Missouri River mere feet away from the northern border of the Standing Rock Reservation, threatening to contaminate and destroy the waters.

Full Story Here.

Bigotry & Backlash Roundup

Clockwise from upper left: Walter Robb; Tony West; Chip Bergh; Alex Dimitrief; Andrew Liveris; Brian Tippens; Steve Joyce

Clockwise from upper left: Walter Robb; Tony West; Chip Bergh; Alex Dimitrief; Andrew Liveris; Brian Tippens; Steve Joyce

Business Backlash Descends on Mississippi.

Major tech, hospitality, and automotive companies are speaking out about Mississippi’s new anti-LGBT law, which Gov. Phil Bryant signed Tuesday.

At press time, leaders of eight major corporations have signed on to a letter drafted by the Human Rights Campaign urging the state’s Republican leadership to repeal the law.

“Put simply, HB 1523 is not a bill that reflects the values of our companies,” reads the letter, noting that the business community has overwhelmingly rejected such discrimination, finding that a welcoming environment attracts the best and brightest employees. “We are disappointed to see the legislature and governor’s office pass discriminatory legislation… This is not a direction in which states move when they are seeking to provide successful, thriving hubs for business and economic development.”

In addition to impacting the ability of Mississippi companies to attract high-value workers, the new law “will also diminish the state’s draw as a destination for tourism, new businesses, and economic activity,” the letter states. “Discrimination is wrong, and we believe it has no place in Mississippi or anywhere in our country. As companies that pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming to all, we strongly urge you to repeal this bill.”

 

Tenn. Resurrects ‘Bathroom Bill’ Targeting Trans Students.

After effectively shelving a bill targeting transgender students last month, a Tennessee committee today advanced legislation that would bar transgender students statewide from using the restrooms or locker rooms that correspond with their identity.

[…]

The Tennessean newspaper reports that the committee’s willingness to reconsider HB 2414 after effectively scuttling it just a month before “came after Family Action Counsel of Tennessee sent emails to members of the community questioning their integrity.”

The Family Action Council of Tennessee bills itself as a conservative nonprofit “dedicated to protecting marriage and family, life, and religious liberty,” according to its website. The group’s mission, as stated on the site, “is to equip Tennesseans and their elected officials to effectively promote and defend a culture that values the traditional family, for the sake of the common good.”

“Our belief is that healthy families and communities come about when basic values from the Bible are embraced and upheld,” FACT’s “About Us” page explains.

At Least Four States Ban Official Travel to Mississippi.

Following the signing of the nation’s newest anti-LGBT law, signed Tuesday by Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, governors acted fast to ban official travel to the Magnolia State.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order on Wednesday banning all non-essential state travel to Mississippi, requiring all “agencies, departments, boards and commissions to immediately review all requests for state funded or state sponsored travel to the state of Mississippi, and bar any such publicly funded travel that is not essential to the enforcement of state law or public health and safety.”

[…]

While New York was the largest and most influential state to bar travel to Mississippi, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington state took similar action, with Seattle’s out mayor, Ed Murray, also enacting a separate ban for his city’s employees.

Mississippi Could Lose Federal Funding for Passing Anti-LGBT Bill.

It was reported last week that North Carolina may lose federal funds for schools, highways, and education after passing an anti-LGBT law, and the Southern state might not be alone.

Mississippi could be the next state to face federal cuts, after passing an aggressive anti-LGBT law last week that allows businesses, individuals, and religiously-affiliated organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers, and others who offend an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.”

On Tuesday, Josh Earnest, the White House Press Secretary called the Mississippi law “outright mean-spirited.” The president and his administration have “long been on the side of justice and equality,” Earnest told The Washington Blade. When asked about “religious liberty” bills that have passed recently in North Carolina and Mississippi, he said, “some of the laws that we’ve seen passed that target LGBT Americans are not consistent with those values of fairness and equality.”

Mississippi Goddam

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant

Miss. Gov. Signs Sweeping Anti-LGBT ‘Religious Liberty’ Law

 

Mississippi now boasts the nation’s most aggressive anti-LGBT law, after Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1523 into law this morning.

The first-of-its-kind law will take effect in July, and allow businesses, individuals, and religiously affiliated organizations to deny service to LGBT people, single mothers, and others who somehow offend an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” It also directly targets transgender residents, effectively claiming that one’s sex assigned at birth is immutable, and will be the only gender recognized by the state.

The Republican governor announced that he had signed the bill in a tweet on Tuesday morning. It was accompanied by a statement contending that he signed HB 1523 “into law to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

“This bill merely reinforces the rights which currently exist to the exercise of religious freedom,” the governor’s statement continued. “This bill does not limit any constitutionally protected rights or actions of any citizen of this state under federal or state laws.”

[…]

“Gov. Phil Bryant’s decision to sign HB 1523 into law is unconscionable,” said Jody E. Owens, managing attorney in Mississippi at the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center in a statement. “This newly enacted law — like the draconian anti-LGBT laws in other states — uses the guise of ‘religious freedom’ to justify discrimination, mistreatment and bigotry. It’s the same sort of rationale used by white supremacists in earlier eras to justify slavery and Jim Crow. The estimated 60,000 LGBT people in Mississippi deserve better. We need to stand up for the rights of all people.”

I don’t know what can be said here. I don’t know how to express the grief I feel. I don’t understand how people can be so filled with hatred and fear, yet think they are good people.

https://youtu.be/fVQjGGJVSXc

UPDATE: ‘#1 in bigotry’: Twitter unleashes its wrath.

Punishing Planned Parenthood

Supporters of Planned Parenthood (EPG_EuroPhotoGraphics / Shutterstock.com)

Supporters of Planned Parenthood (EPG_EuroPhotoGraphics / Shutterstock.com)

Missouri, again. Anyone surprised? I am so sick of these sanctimonious idiots insisting on sticking their nose into every uterus on the planet, looking to punish women people for having the nerve to think they are full, autonomous human beings. Sanctity of life my arse.

Senators in Missouri are moving to hold the president of a St Louis-area Planned Parenthood affiliate in contempt of court – under threat of jail time – for refusing to submit private medical documents.

The move comes after the state general assembly’s committee on the sanctity of life subpoenaed documents from Mary Kogut, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, in an investigation into her organization.

[…]

A lawyer responded on behalf of Planned Parenthood that the committee did not have the authority to subpoena these documents, and that handing them over would violate federal privacy law.

Despite these legal objections, the Missouri senate will begin a hearing Tuesday to introduce a bill determining whether Kogut should be found in contempt.

Kogut now faces a potential indictment on contempt charges. If charged, she faces up to 10 days of jail time as well as a fine of $300 for, as the subpoena itself states, is the right of the general assembly to “punish”.

Full Story Here.

OH FFS

A brief round up of the amazingly stupid and awful…

Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)

Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)

Mississippi governor Phil Bryant recently proclaimed April to be Confederate Heritage Month , adding an official flourish to a longstanding tradition in his state and several others. April, he wrote in the proclamation, is “the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle”.

Bryant’s proclamation does not mention the central cause of the struggle – slavery – but instead announces the month as a chance to “gain insight from our mistakes and successes” and to “earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us”. It also sets aside 25 April as “Confederate Memorial Day”.

Full Story Here.

Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock

Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock

The Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, said she backs moves towards a total ban on abortion, in a sign the nationalist government may be set to turn its attention to the nuclear family.

A campaign against abortion is due to be launched this Sunday in the country’s Roman Catholic churches. Priests have been asked to read out a letter from the bishops’ conference calling for Poland’s existing, limited abortion rights to be scrapped.

[Read more…]

The importance of pets

Naeila El Shatir considers her cat Sherry to be part of the family. (CBC)

Naeila El Shatir considers her cat Sherry to be part of the family. (CBC)

Thanks to Tim Gueguen for the heads up. Naeila El Shatir, a Syrian refugee, was very happy to be going to Canada, but she also had a great need to ensure another refugee made it with her, her cat Sherry.

“This cat suffered as we suffered in the war. He was always afraid,” she explained. “He spent a very difficult time with us. He always looked at me to ask, ‘When will all of this end?'”

[…]

For El Shatir, who counseled refugee children with psychosocial issues, taking care of Sherry became a form of therapy and a way of honouring her sister’s memory.

In February, El Shatir and her elderly mother were accepted as government-sponsored refugees in Canada, but pets were not allowed.

“There is no chance,” El Shatir said. “There is a big list of what you can bring and can’t bring. I can’t bring cats or plants.”

El Shatir was torn over whether to leave Sherry behind. In the end, she entrusted Sherry with her brother who promised to complete the extensive medical screening and paper work required to ship a cat to Canada.

[…]

“I thank Canada, its people, its government for giving the Syrian people a chance to restart our lives again. To have a chance to live in a normal way and a safe way. Also for giving my cat another chance to live.”

There seems to be a prevailing sense that any refugee should be damn glad to be out of a bad situation, who cares if they are treated like human beings floating about. It’s good to see there are people who do understand how difficult it is for refugees, and something like a beloved pet can make all the difference to a person, especially one who has been subjected to ongoing trauma. You Canadians are serious nice.

Washington D.C.: travel ban to NC

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser

Washington D.C. Bans Employees From Traveling to North Carolina

The mayor of Washington, D.C., has banned all nonessential employee travel to North Carolina after the state passed an anti-LGBT law that bars transgender people from accessing public facilities like bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity and eliminates all existing LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in the state.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted out the executive order banning travel for government employees, saying, “We stand with the LGBTQ community and against discrimination.”

[…]

D.C. joins Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago,Vermont, and Washington State in barring employees from traveling to North Carolina.

When Indiana passed a so-called religious freedom bill last year, a similar backlash had entire states clamping down on travel. The governors of Connecticut, New York, and Washington all issued orders banning nonessential travel to Indiana until that law was amended.

[…]

The consequences to North Carolina, its economics, and its reputation as an inclusive state are piling up. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit. The entertainment company Lionsgate has relocated a television series. The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, is asking North Carolina businesses to move to the Windy City in order to avoid controversy.

Full story here. It’s good to see people pouring on the pressure. Sooner or later, the message that hate is not to be legislated must hit home, and hard.