Arizona SB 1062 dissected

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Let’s take a closer look at the bill currently sitting on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s desk, awaiting her signature. It is SB 1062 “AMENDING SECTIONS 41-1493 AND 41-1493.01, ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; RELATING TO THE FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION.” Full text available here (pdf) for now. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, take my analysis with a big grain of salt.)

First of all, this is amending an existing law, not creating a new one. Arizona already has a law to protect religious freedom. This amendment extends its reach to ridiculous and unenforceable proportions.

What are some of the key changes? (Additions to existing law in bold and caps).

In Section 1:

19 5. “Person” includes a religious assembly or institution ANY
20 INDIVIDUAL, ASSOCIATION, PARTNERSHIP, CORPORATION, CHURCH, RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY
21 OR INSTITUTION OR OTHER BUSINESS ORGANIZATION.

Cue Mitt Romney: “Corporations are people, my friend!” Apparently in Arizona, corporations may also have religious beliefs. This ought to be a warning sign that things are starting to go off the rails in Arizona when any business entity is given “person” status in relation to religious practices and beliefs.
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Arizona, What the Fuck?

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While my attention was elsewhere the Arizona legislature passed an anti-gay discrimination law similar to the nonsense that was considered in Kansas.

What the fuck?!

The Arizona legislature gave final approval to legislation that allows business owners asserting their religious beliefs to refuse service to gays, drawing backlash from Democrats who called the proposal “state-sanctioned discrimination” and an embarrassment.

The 33-27 vote by the House Thursday evening sends the legislation to Republican Governor Jan Brewer and puts Arizona back at the forefront of a polarizing piece of legislation four years after the state enacted an immigration crackdown that caused a national furor.

from the Guardian

Of course, the GOP supporters claim this is about preventing discrimination!

“This bill is not about allowing discrimination,” Yarbrough said. “This bill is about preventing discrimination against people who are clearly living out their faith.”

So if someone’s “faith” tells them to kill infidels, we should probably protect that too, right? My faith tells me to punch those fucking jackasses in the nuts. I’m so over this bullshit.

If Jan Brewer signs this, she and all those who voted for it should be impeached for failing to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Kansas Update

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It would appear some Kansas Republicans are not complete hypocritical assholes. An update to my previous post on the “Turn Away the Gay” law working its way through the KS legislature:

I am pleased to report that the Republican-led Kansas Senate decided this would not fly. Senate President Susan Wagle said on Thursday that a majority of the state senators in her party would not vote for the bill. They support “traditional marriage,” Wagle noted, “however, my members also don’t condone discrimination.” Thank you for that line in the sand. It should be obvious, but somehow that was lost on the Kansas House.

From Slate

Thanks to the GOP Senators, the bill is likely to just fade away, without hearings or a vote. Good riddance to horrible, atrocious rubbish!

Kansas, What the Fuck?

josh2 Comments

Work has been kicking my ass (and still is) so I don’t have time to get into this, but I wanted to get a WTF post out there, in case people aware of this bullshit.

The Kansas state legislature is on the verge of approving—and Kansas’s Republican governor has pledged to sign—a bill that legalizes discrimination against gay couples. Businesses, individuals, government employees—anyone will be able to discriminate against gay couples once the law is signed. Under the law firefighters could refuse to put out a fire if the house was owned by a gay couple.

What in all the fucks are they thinking?

The piece this quote is taken from is definitely worth a read, and a share.

I just… I can’t even right now.

What Dreams May Come

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Happy New Year! It’s been some time since I’ve blogged, hasn’t it? I need to get my act together.

Yesterday I was at the grocery store, and got a glimpse of giant tubs of cookies & cream ice cream. They have been a gallon, or perhaps even larger. (Growing up, a gallon was the standard size of ice cream purchased in our house. Hey, we were in Wisconsin and most dairy came by the gallon. Also, it was more economical that way… I’m sure. These days we generally purchase ice cream in much smaller quantities, so a gallon seems monstrously huge.) I thought, “Oh [the bf] would love that!” And I kept walking.

That night I was having some weird dreams. I am not sure how this one started, but I remember being in my grandma’s house, with my former hairdresser and her friend/coworker. I had to go to the bathroom*. As is often the case with having to pee in a dream, it don’t go well…and I had to pee in real life, when I eventually woke up. So I went to the bathroom, but the bathroom was partially exposed, to the interior and exterior of the home. The toilet was blocked from view from the inside, but not from the outside. And there were too young kids walking up the snow-covered driveway, who would have gotten a show had I done my business in the toilet. What to do?

As it turns out, there was alternative to the toilet…a big hill? mound? glob?…of cookies and cream ice cream accessible from the bathroom. It was outside, I guess. And in this glob of ice cream, there was a hole dug for doing one’s business. Sort of an ice cream latrine. I could go there, squat down and take care of things without being seen by the kids below. So of course I did.

But this was, after all, a big pile of delicious cookies & cream ice cream! So I had to taste it. Not the stuff I was peeing (or pooing? my memory is vague here) into of course. That would be disgusting! Yet I ate some, of course I did!

I don’t really recall much after that, but I did wake up having to pee. Isn’t it weird how some random thing seen in passing can turn itself into a central–and bizarre–part of our dreams?

*As I was typing this, I suddenly recalled another dream I used to have, involving different grandparents’ house. In this one, their bathroom was partially open; there was a shelf in one of the walls that opened into the living room. What is it with grandparents’ bathrooms being exposed?

#SFBATKID

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I post a lot of rants, because there’s a lot of negative crap to rant about.

But hey, it’s not all bad. There are still a lot of great people out there. And once in awhile they do something really incredible that warms the cockles of my cynical heart.

This is one of those times!

#SFBATKID to the resuce!

Crooks beware! Batkid is fighting crime Friday in the mean streets of San Francisco.

With the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the city, 5-year-old Miles Scott, aka #SFBatKid, will rescue a woman from cable car tracks and capture the evil Riddler as he robs a downtown bank.

A flash mob will then summon the leukemia patient for another caper — the diabolical kidnapping of the San Francisco Giants mascot — Lou Seal — by the Penguin.

#SFBATKID to the rescue

Follow the antics here: #SFBATKID

“The Obamacare Bait And Switch”: America’s Beloved Health Insurance Industry Demonstrates Why We Needed Reform All Along

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Haven’t really had time to dig into Obamacare in the blog yet, but this re-blog can serve as a starting point.

raemd95's avatarmykeystrokes.com

So here’s my advice: If you’re somebody who’s smoking hot about the Big Lie of the Affordable Care Act — you know, how President Obama told everybody that if they liked their current health insurance policy they could keep it — do yourself a favor. Avoid the county fair midway.

Because if you go, you’re apt to encounter a quick-handed scoundrel running a shell game, and that boy will take your money. Doubtless Obama should have said almosteverybody could keep their current plan, or that 95 percent could, but he apparently found that too, um, subtle for the campaign trail.

So now old Mitt “47-percent” Romney gets to call him a liar.

But while your attention’s fixed on the president’s “mendacity,” and “paternalism,” to quote one characteristically overwrought scribe, America’s beloved health insurance industry is demonstrating exactly why we needed reform all along. Certain companies are taking advantage of…

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