Daily Archives: February 4, 2012

One Town’s War on Gay Teens | Politics News | Rolling Stone

On of the more jarring things I have learned upon moving to Minnesota is that there are pockets of this state that are virulently conservative. And no, not in the fiscal “I hate paying taxes” kind of way.

I mean in the let’s use the Bible to jusify hating anyone who doesn’t look or act like us kind of way. You know, things you expect in the Deep South. Or Orange County.

Scumbags like this are represented by Michele Bachmann. No, I am not kidding. The kind of folks who keep her in office and on some religious crusade to bully children who might even think they are not conventionally straight. Enough to the point that they attempt suicide over the harsh words, bullying, beatings, and the willingness for adults to purposely look the other way as their neighbor’s kids are abused.

Thankfully, and oh so slowly, these rotten people and their culture of fear are making national news.

This needs talked about. This needs to be stopped.

And, honestly, decent Christians need to call out these folks. This is exactly the face of religion that turn off so many from listening to what is otherwise a good message.

5 Important Lessons from the Komen/Planned Parenthood Fiasco (Don’t Mess With Women’s Health) | Activism | AlterNet

What I have learned this week – or at least have had reinforced aren’t on this list.

What I know is this: progressives can ignore a LOT of things in the hopes of keeping folks allied and working on the same goal. The Komen folks are sue-happy monsters who are led by some pretty staunch conservatives and can’t run their operation lean enough to be seen as a “good” charitable organization by nearly any measure.

But they were working on curing breast cancer, bringing awareness, and building a community. Which, of course, they have spent this week taking a steaming dump on.

And this leads to my other observation. When awoken to betrayal, progressives can teach religious zealots a thing or two about righteous indignation. By studiously ignoring some truly bad business practices, they woke up wondering how Komen got to be such horrible people. Well, they already WERE horrible people, they’d just been given a pass for too long.

And thus, when never getting their hand slapped the first dozen plus times for sneaking into the cookie jar, they, and everyone who wasn’t paying attention, were shocked at the reaction when they overreached the first time.

The lesson? Pay attention to the actions of people even when they are saying nice things to you. Eddie Haskell was probably stealing the Cleavers’ blind when they weren’t looking. You *knew* he was a snake. Why did they let him into the house in the first place?