Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Homophobia] Well, late Friday night (in typical news-hole fashion), a stay was granted, thus calling a halt to legal same-sex marriage in Indiana. Which is super upsetting, especially since it's just cruelty for cruelty's sake: The state will never win the appeal. I am, however, really happy with this local coverage of the stay, which gives no time to bigots and plenty of time to people questioning their decency. (Take note, national media! It is possible to write a story without shitty "both sides" journalism.) The couple pictured at the link is my oft-mentioned oldest friend Anthony and his husband Mark, whom I also adore. I am angry they were obliged to by bigotry to participate in this story, but I am so proud of them for being insistently visible.
[CN: Terrorism; violence; death] Boko Haram continues to wreak violent havoc in northern Nigeria, killing dozens of people in attacks on three villages. My god. I don't even have words.
[CN: Violence; guns] Welp: "A panel of mental health experts has concluded that Oscar Pistorius was not suffering from a mental illness when he killed [Reeva Steenkamp, the woman he was dating] in his home last year, the chief prosecutor at the athlete's murder trial said." His trial resumes today.
[CN: Violence; threats; murder] Everyone needs to read this New York Times piece about the Blackwater mercenaries: "Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor's operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater's top manager there issued a threat: 'that he could kill' the government's chief investigator and 'no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,' according to department reports." Holy shit.
[CN: Privacy violations; emotional manipulation; disablist language] NPR's Linda Holmes has a great piece on Facebook's decision to allow "researchers both inside and outside the company to manipulate users' news feeds to hide good news or bad news to see whether it affected the emotions of those users themselves."
RIP Meshach Taylor. I imagine a lot of us held a special place for him in our hearts for his role as Anthony Bouvier in the sitcom Designing Women.
And finally! This little boy used his birthday to raise money to save dogs. Adorbz. Kids today! Get ON my lawn!
In the News
In Other SCOTUS News
[Content Note: Workers' rights.]
The US Supreme Court handed down another decision this morning, in the case of Harris v. Quinn, and dealt a serious blow to public sector unions.
The plaintiffs in this case, and their anti-union attorneys, argued that non-union members cannot be required to reimburse unions that bargain on their behalf for the costs it incurred during that bargaining. Without those reimbursements, the financial viability of the unions is in jeopardy.Yeah.
Alito's opinion in Harris v. Quinn recognizes a category of "partial public employees" who cannot be required to contribute funds to the collective bargaining that they benefit from. This case involved Medicaid home health workers who are paid by the state but who work directly for individual patients. Nevertheless, the case hints that the Court will deal additional blows to public sector unions in the future. Alito labels a seminal Supreme Court opinion allowing unions to collect reimbursements from nonmembers "questionable on several grounds."
Harris is a First Amendment decision. As Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out at the oral arguments in Harris, and as Emily Bazelon expands upon over at Slate, Harris is the latest effort by conservatives to use "the First Amendment as their weapon" in order to implement their preferred policies through the judiciary. The purpose of the First Amendment, is to ensure a robust debate where no ideas are suppressed, so that the American electorate is best equipped to make choices at the polls.
...Harris, however, turns this principle on its head... The purpose of the First Amendment, according to the plaintiffs in Harris, is not to foster democracy, it is to render democracy irrelevant. This is a radical rethinking of our Constitution. And it was just embraced by five justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Joel Rogers has more on the case here, and why it's so important.
SCOTUS Rules on Hobby Lobby
[Content Note: Hostility to agency; Christian Supremacy; corporate personhood.]
The decision is coming down shortly, and I will update this post as it happens. In the meantime, here is some background reading:
Nina Martin: A Reading List on the Hobby Lobby Cases.
Imani Gandy: Will the Supreme Court Ignore the Evidence? Facts vs. Beliefs in the Hobby Lobby Case.
Tara Culp-Ressler: If Hobby Lobby Wins, It Will Be Even Worse for Birth Control Access Than You Think.
This is the case where the Supreme Court will decide whether a corporation is entitled to religious liberty by way of corporate personhood and thus can be exempted from providing employees with healthcare coverage that includes contraception, as was mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
More soon...
UPDATE: And we have the ruling. Welp.
The worst outcome.
UPDATE 2: The Hobby Lobby ruling is fully a continuation of SCOTUS' ruling in Citizens United. Corporations are people.
The latest in corporate personhood: Now corporations have religious freedom in addition to free speech.
Corporations are people, and women (and others who need access to contraception) are not. Freedom of religion, but not freedom from.
UPDATE 3: SCOTUSblog: "The Obama Administration is almost certain to provide contraception coverage to women covered by today's decision." That is, the decision includes the recommendation that the federal government pay for contraception.
Imani Gandy observes: "Considering conservatives were complaining about govt handing out free [birth control], fact that govt may now hand out free BC is funny."
UPDATE 4: There is just no other way to read this decision except that cis men are the human norm, and cis women, trans & intersex men are deviations. Our healthcare is "special" healthcare. This is a deeply othering ruling.
UPDATE 5: SCOTUS has also effectively ruled it's reasonable to expect women et. al. to inquire with potential employers about corp's religious beliefs.
And how long before corporate personhood means it's illegal for applicants to ask about a company's religious beliefs?
SCOTUS has put women and others needing contraception in an untenable position. Who's gonna get hired asking if contraception is covered?
Talk about an undue burden.
UPDATE 6: The Bait-and-Switch Behind Today's Hobby Lobby Decision:
For many years, the Supreme Court struck a careful balance between protecting religious liberty and maintaining the rule of law in a pluralistic society. Religious people enjoy a robust right to practice their own faith and to act according to the dictates of their own conscience, but they could not wield religious liberty claims as a sword to cut away the legal rights of others. This was especially true in the business context. As the Supreme Court held in United States v. Lee, "[w]hen followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity."UPDATE 7: What the Hobby Lobby Decision Means for Your Health Care: "Fortunately, women who want affordable contraception aren't entirely out of luck. The vast majority of women with private insurance are already working at companies that comply with Obamacare's birth control mandate. And even the people working at closely held corporations owned by people who oppose birth control may have options. The Obama administration will likely ensure they have another avenue to get the coverage they need."
With Monday's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, however, this careful balance has been upended. Employers who object to birth control on religious grounds may now refuse to comply with federal rules requiring them to include contraceptive care in their health plans. The rights of the employer now trump the rights of the employee.
...The upshot of Alito's opinion is that, for the first time in American history, people with religious objections to the law will be able to ignore many laws with impunity unless the government's decision to enforce the law overcomes a very high legal bar that few laws survive.
The biggest concern about this ruling is, of course, the precedent it will set. We won't know the true extent of its awfulness for years, and subsequent cases, to come.
In a little glimmer of possible good news: "There's been some speculation that Hobby Lobby employees may be able file a Civil Rights Act Title VII complaint, on the grounds that the company is treating female employees differently than male employees by refusing to cover gender-specific health services."
I'm angry that they are obliged to even consider that, but I'm glad they are. Though I would understand completely if they eventually determine it's not worth the risk to their employment, and potentially their personal safety, to pursue a case.
UPDATE 8: Here are some highlights from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Hobby Lobby dissent. The full dissent is available here, beginning on Page 60.
UPDATE 9: Irin Carmon: "The Hobby Lobby decision isn't narrow."
The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is being called narrow by some analysts, but that's true only in that Hobby Lobby got everything it wanted and nothing more. In her blistering dissent Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg correctly called it "a decision of startling breadth."UPDATE 10: Faulty Hobby Lobby ruling by Supreme Court opens door to unintended consequences: "By finding that companies are 'persons' under a 1993 religious-freedom law, the ruling is likely to invite a string of pernicious consequences in which employees' rights become secondary. The impact will go far beyond contraceptives and the three companies involved."
The question before the Court was twofold: Do corporations enjoy the same protections for religious liberty as individuals do? And if so, does providing contraceptive coverage in an employee health plan – as required under the Affordable Care Act – violate that liberty?
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all of the Republican-appointed justices, answered "yes" to both questions.
Um.
For (literally) years, there have been periodic stories in the media about how the US is fixing to lift the ban on haggis, which is Scotland's national dish. Today, NBC is running another such piece, as Britain's environment secretary is scheduled to meet today with US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to discuss lifting the ban on haggis' key ingredients, which have been banned since 1989 owing to "mad cow disease."
And this is the way the story is pitched on their front page:
What the absolute fuck?
There are a bunch of things that bother me about that headline, not least of which is that it's a story about how haggis could be a key export to the US for Scotland, and here's our media calling it "disgusting."
But also? It's just bad reporting, in the sense that haggis isn't any more "disgusting-sounding" in the way it's made than sausage (cooked in casing) or in its ingredients than meatloaf (meat plus grain). Here's a chance to actually demystify haggis, and instead NBC is calling it disgusting right on the front page.
I get that haggis isn't for everyone, even all meat-eaters. (Personally, I quite like it—it's basically just like a spicy crumbled meatloaf.) But no food is for everyone.
And, clearly, there's a difference between an individual person thinking haggis is "disgusting" and one of the US' major news outlets calling it "disgusting" right on its front page, on the day a Scottish secretary is visiting the US to advocate on its behalf.
It's a small thing, but this isn't the sort of US greeting anyone should get.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Last night on Jeopardy, the final answer was a tough one: "In 1891, this European said, 'Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your Congresses.'"
None of the three contestants knew the answer (Alfred Nobel), but this guy definitely gave the best answer:
Perfect.
Via Josh, whose headline rightly notes: "If You're Going to Lose on Jeopardy, Lose with Style Like This Guy Did."
This Old Chestnut
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
Something something slippery slope something something blah blah fart:
A Wisconsin Republican congressional hopeful warned Tuesday that a federal court ruling striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage could lead to the legalization of marriage between siblings.Ooh, what is really going on here, Karen?! Is it, by any chance, a slow cultural awakening to the fact that saying "marriage is defined as a union between one man and one woman" is bullshit, not just because it's unconstitutionally restrictive but also because marriage is defined in as many different ways as there are marriages, and long has been, even when it was a privilege only enjoyed by different-sex couples?
Karen Mueller, an Eau Claire attorney whose practice has focused on opposing abortion and defending those "discriminated against and harassed in the workplace, the school, college and/or the public square because of their faith"...denounced the ruling and warned that it would create a slippery slope.
According to the Tomah Journal, Mueller said that the ruling might set a precedent that any two people can marry: "We've got, for instance, two sisters, and these two sisters want to get married. They love each other. They are committed to each other. They want to spend the rest of their life together." Lawyers, Mueller explained, would be able to argue "'We can just do away with that state law the same way we did away with sodomy laws,'" noting that "once you do away with that, you reveal what is really going on here."
I know it's a radical idea, but I don't think it would be a terrible thing if two sisters were allowed to enter into a legal contract that gave them access to all the same rights that a marriage would. Like being on each other's healthcare plans, or filing joint taxes if it's beneficial.
And I don't even care if that's called a marriage, because, unlike the people who caterwaul about the changing definition of marriage, I am aware of and willing to acknowledge the reality that every relationship called a marriage does not look the same or serve the same purpose.
Not all marriages include procreation. Not all marriages include sex. Not all marriages even include love. Or monogamy. Or any one of a number of things of which we're all meant to believe every marriage is definitely inclusive.
Some marriages are already essentially business contracts. And I see no reason why that should be okay (or objectionable) when it's between two non-related people of different sexes, and somehow different when it's between two or more people who aren't that.
The only reason the word "marriage" indicates a special sort of relationship is because it's a legal right denied to some people.
What makes any one relationship really, genuinely special is the people inside of it believing it's special. That's it.
I suspect, depending on your position regarding undeserved privilege, you will either find that idea incredibly disappointing or incredibly cool.
To extend marriage equality to two people of the same sex is not to say their relationship is special. It is to say their relationship is equal.
Which is rather more important, in terms of the law.
And I daresay that if we all can be grown-ups and admit that there are already lots of legal marriages which are nothing more than a splendid legal contract to make people's lives a little bit easier, and agree that that's okay, then we should all be able to get on board with letting sisters "get married."
Especially as long as we're still keen to deny some basic human rights, like healthcare, to everyone—while still making marriage a key means of accessing it.
I realize that alarmist rhetoric like Karen Mueller's is supposed to bait me into agreeing that a line needs to be drawn somewhere, and lest I disappoint, I'll draw a line. Right at the edge of consent.
Other than that, I'm pretty much on board with giving everyone access to the rights I enjoy.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sunshine.
Recommended Reading:
Jasiri: [Content Note: Racist violence; police brutality] Denzel Curnell: Another Unarmed Black Teenager Killed by Police
Andrea: [CN: Rape culture; description of sexual assault; coercion; rape apologia] Campus Sexual Assault: I Am the One in the One in Five
The Feminist Wire Editors: [CN: Authoritarianism] In Solidarity with Egyptian Feminists
Jim: [CN: Homophobia] Chicago's Gay Community Shames Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Bruce Rauner
Victoria: [CN: Misogyny; racism; fat bias] Esther Honig's "Before and After" Series Shows Both the Dangers of Impossible Beauty Standards and Bad Photoshop
Prison Culture: [CN: Misogynoir; carcerality; violence] Reproductive Justice & The Criminalization of Black Women: Some Remarks
Reminder: No Selves to Defend, the proceeds for which go to Marissa Alexander's defense fund, is available for purchase here.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, my little limpet.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; displacement. VIDEO.] Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by violence in Mosul. This, after last week's UN report that there are 51.2 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people worldwide.
[CN: War; drones; violence] A bipartisan panel at the Stimson Center, a global-security think tank, has issued a report warning that the Obama administration's drone program "threatens to undermine international law norms and create overwhelming 'blowback' in foreign nations where U.S. drones are used for targeted killing. And the report sharply disapproved of the government's excessive secrecy over legal standards and data regarding casualties, including of civilian bystanders, caused by American drone strikes abroad."
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney says "the Obama administration is cutting defense to spend money on food stamps." And that's meant to be a criticism, lol.
[CN: Transphobia] Brynn Tannehill absolutely tears apart a conservative list of lies about transgender people. Right on.
[CN: Hostility to sex education and safer sex] India's new health minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, opposes sex education in school and condom use in marriages. In fact, he doesn't just oppose sex ed in schools; he believes it should be banned.
[CN: Misogyny] Whoooooooooooops: Justin Lookadoo, a Christian motivational speaker who makes a living telling teenagers that "dateable girls know how to shut up," had to miss a scheduled presentation at a middle school in Evansville, IN, "designed to reinforce the importance of high moral values and character for teens," after he was charged with public intoxication.
Olympian Alysia Montano ran the 800m at the U.S. Championships yesterday while 34 weeks into her pregnancy. Amazing. "She received a standing ovation at Sacramento State's Hornet Stadium." Blub.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Flock of Seagulls: "I Ran"
This week's TMNS have been brought to you by the year 1982.
Mr. President?
[Content Note: Hostility to consent and safety; war on abortion access.]
Yesterday, the US Supreme Court made a detestable unanimous ruling in McCullen v. Coakley, deciding that buffer zones around abortion clinics violate protestors' free speech rights.
There is absolutely no question that this ruling will further undermine abortion access, which state legislatures have been endeavoring to erode in every conceivable fashion.
It also seems to violate the Supreme Court's own undue burden standard, unless the nine justices honestly believe it is not an undue burden for an abortion-seeking person to have to run a gauntlet of harassment and threats emanating from members of a domestic terrorist campaign in order to access a legal healthcare procedure.
So I have been waiting to hear what our ostensibly pro-choice president has to say about this reprehensible ruling.
Surely he has something to say on behalf of "our mothers, wives, and daughters," and their right to bodily autonomy, safety, and choice.
But if there has been a statement from the White House, I have not been able to find it.
Nothing has been posted by the White House's Council on Women and Girls.
I want President Barack Obama to address this decision. I want him to address, firmly and routinely and without apology, the all-out assault on our autonomy and agency, about which he has yet to dedicate a single address, while hundreds of new anti-choice restrictions are passed in state legislatures.
I am angry that this campaign of violence against women and others is allowed to go unchecked. I am angry that fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them. I am angry that women are not trusted to make the best decisions for our lives and our bodies. I am angry that I am just supposed to accept as reasonable men (and women) who sit in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent, though it is a crime for a person to use physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.
I am angry that my body is not mine, that my mind is not mine. That legislators can claim to know what is best for my body and can claim to know my mind better than I do. That is dehumanizing, infantilizing, a theft of my dignity.
I am angry that North Alabama's only abortion clinic is being forced to close its doors today.
And I'm angry that I don't have the power to do anything meaningful about it, so I am angry that my president is not speaking up, that he's not using his bully pulpit to be an ally to women.
President Obama affirming his support of same-sex marriage was huge. He has the capacity to start conversations and change minds. I want his support and allyship. I want him to leverage his talents, which I admire, and his position, which is unique, to be on our side.
President Obama told us he is pro-choice. I believe him.
Mr. President: Where are you?
Matt Lauer Is Still a F#@king Dirtbag
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
Matt Lauer, longtime host of the Today show, is a fucking dirtbag. His interview of Anne Hathaway, while she was promoting Les Mis, cemented his position in the Dirtbag Hall of Fame. But he's still GOING FOR IT like it's not a lifetime appointment, reminding us all of how he earned his spot.
Today Show host Matt Lauer on Thursday asked General Motors CEO Mary Barra if she felt she could run a company and be a good mother during an interview about the company's controversial recalls.So, first Matt Lauer suggests that the only or primary reason that Barra was hired as CEO of a massive corporation is to blunt public criticisms (because no one ever criticizes women), and then suggests that it's possible she cannot be both a successful CEO and a successful parent.
"I want to tread lightly here," Lauer said before launching into a question about why Barra got the CEO job, noting that she is extremely qualified.
"But some people are speculating that you also got this job because, as a woman and as a mom, because people within General Motors knew this company was in for a very tough time, and as a woman and a mom you could present a softer image and softer face for this company as it goes through this horrible episode. Does it make sense or does it make you bristle?" he asked.
"Well, it's absolutely not true," Barra responded. "I believe I was selected for this job based on my qualifications. We dealt with this issue — when the senior leadership of this company knew about this issue, we dealt with this issue."
Lauer then asked Barra about her children, noting that her kids have said they will hold her "accountable for one job and that is being a mom."
"Given the pressures of this job at General Motors, can you do both well?" he asked.
"You know, I think I can. I have a great team, we're on the right path," Barra replied. "I have a wonderful family, a supportive husband and I'm pretty proud of the way my kids are supporting me in this."
Lauer on Thursday afternoon defended his question to Barra about balancing her at work and with her family. He said...that if a male CEO had discussed his struggle with work-family balance, Lauer would have followed up with him on it.
...Lauer interviewed Ford CEO Alan Mulally in 2009, and did not ask him how his job running the company would impact his role as a father to his five children.
Which is something about which men are never asked, despite Lauer's specious claim to the contrary.
A man would also never be asked a question like: "Hey, this company that hired you has some PR troubles at the moment. Do you think that you were hired because you're a man, and as a man, the company knew you'd present a tough image for the company? Does it make sense that you were hired specifically because you're a man and can fulfill male stereotypes of strength in a way a woman could not, or does that suggestion make you bristle?"
It would never happen.
Even the thought of a male CEO being asked a question like that, being obliged to address the idea that he was only or primarily hired because he was a man, is absurd.
Despite the fact that lots of male CEOs probably have been hired in part because they're men. White straight cis men, to be precise.
Lauer's question about Barra's ability to balance work and parenthood have been getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so, but, for me, it's the other part I find even more contemptible.
There is no way that Lauer would ever even dare to claim he'd ask a male CEO sitting in front of him to account for and justify his hiring on the basis of his gender. There is no way that Lauer would ever look at a male CEO and say, "Sure, your credentials are excellent, but why do you think it is that they hired a man?"
Weddings Continue in Indiana
While our Republican Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who is the almighty worst, anxiously awaits to hear whether the court will grant him a stay on the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in Indiana, MARRIAGES ARE GO.
Virtually every county in the state is now issuing same-sex marriage licenses and performing weddings. Right now, as I write this, I keep stopping to exchange texts with a friend who's waiting outside the county courthouse. It's an incredible day! It has been an incredible week!
Because people are people, there has been some (although a lot less than I expected) hand-wringing in local media and on social media about the decision. Still, in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and fourteen, there are people who are asking, with apparent seriousness: "What about the children?"
Well, some of the children are pretty goddamn happy that their parents are finally allowed to get married.
Aiden Murphy, 11, smiles as his mothers Kimberly Trojan, left, and Jackie Cornell wait in a large crowd for their marriage license inside the City County Building, Wednesday, June 25, 2014. [Brent Drinkut/The Star]I'm pretty happy their parents are allowed to get married, too.
Question of the Day
If someone were to make the wacky sitcom version of your life, what actor should play you?
Melissa McCarthy, obvs.
[Originally suggested by Aphra_Behn in April 2012.]
