This dog, lol. He is the greatest.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
This dog, lol. He is the greatest.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Finish This Sentence
[Content Note: Injury.]
The most klutzy/funny way I have ever injured myself is...
...a couple of days ago, I was standing with my left hand on my hip and the tips of my fingers tucked into the waistband of my jeans. Suddenly a sneeze snuck up on me, and, in the manner of sneaky sneezes, it was a powerful one. I lurched forward as I sneezed, and my arm, still held in place by my tucked fingers, bent in a way that was just not natural at all, lol, pulling or twisting something in my elbow.
It's been aching for days, and last night Iain referred to it as my "sneezing injury," which made me laugh foreverrrrrrrrrrr.
I would like to say that's definitely the klutziest way I've ever injured myself, but it probably isn't. It's just the most recent dipshitty thing I've done to myself!
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; terrorism; genocide; rape] Fucking hell: "Jihadists from the Islamic State group may have committed genocide and war crimes against the minority Yazidi community in Iraq, the UN says. In a new report, it says IS had 'the intent...to destroy the Yazidi as a group.' ...Among the atrocities it says were perpetrated against the Yazidi community by IS were: the 'brutal and targeted' killing of hundreds of men and boys in Nineveh province, northwest of Baghdad, in August 2014; the rape of girls as young as six; the abduction of women 'as spoils of war'; the forced separation of families, with boys as young as eight taken to be trained as IS fighters. The reports adds: 'In some instances, villages were entirely emptied of their Yazidi population.'" This is what the United States "spreading freedom" to Iraq looks like. We created the chaos from which this grotesquery emerged.
[CN: Rape apologia] This professor gets an A+: "When Jeremiah True wouldn't stop talking about his controversial opinions on sexual assault in his required freshman humanities course, his professor banned him from the discussion segment of the class for the remainder of the semester. The 19-year-old told BuzzFeed News that his professor, Pancho Savery, warned him repeatedly that his views made his classmates uncomfortable before he told him in a March 14 email that he was no longer welcome to participate in the 'conference' section of his Humanities 110 lecture-seminar class. 'Please know that this was a difficult decision for me to make and one that I have never made before; nevertheless, in light of the serious stress you have caused your classmates, I feel that I have no other choice,' Savery wrote in the email, obtained by BuzzFeed News." YES.
[CN: Police brutality; racism; images of injury at link] Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has called for an investigation after 20-year-old University of Virginia student Martese Johnson, who is black, was arrested outside a pub late Tuesday/early Wednesday and beaten by police who asserted that Johnson "was very agitated and belligerent." However, in an increasingly familiar tale, Bryan Beaubrun, a fellow UVA student who photographed the incident "said police acted with unnecessary force. 'He didn't need to be tackled. He wasn't being aggressive at all,' Mr Beaubrun told the Associated Press." Governor McAuliffe "is concerned by the reports of this incident and has asked the secretary of public safety to initiate an independent Virginia State Police investigation into the use of force." Meanwhile, Johnson addressed a crowd of protesters last night, urging calm as tension rose: "We're all part of one community and we deserve to respect each other, especially at times like this." That so shouldn't be his obligation, in this moment.
People in Europe are worried about the biggest solar eclipse in fifteen years: "On Friday morning, March 20, a solar eclipse will sweep across Europe. This rare aligning of the sun, moon, and Earth will cause the standard delays and hazards as onlookers get distracted by the unusual sky and the darkness it casts. But this time around, there is a new cause for concern: solar power. The eclipse, in which the moon comes between the sun and the Earth, will be most pronounced in Northern Europe, and the bulk of the apprehension is centered on Europe's solar powerhouse: Germany. At the size of Montana and nearly the same latitude, Germany is an unlikely solar leader, but a concerted national effort to go renewable has put it at the forefront of solar power development. Its 1.4 million solar energy systems account for around a quarter of the solar capacity installed on Earth and solar provides about seven percent of the country's power. During 75 minutes in the mid-morning—when the sun's power is normally accelerating—Germany will instead rapidly lose solar generation."
[CN: Racism] This is a terrific illustration by Ronald Wimberly about racism in corporate comics. That last line is amazing.
[CN: Ciscentrism] Dr. Cheryl Chastine: "Cisgender Women Aren't the Only People Who Seek Abortions, and Activists' Language Should Reflect That." Terrific piece.
Oh god lololol: "Rep. Aaron Schock, who resigned from Congress yesterday over allegations that he'd improperly spent taxpayer money, has at least one person in [his] corner. ...'Two years from now he'll be successful, if he's not in jail,' [Schock's father] Dr. Richard Schock told a reporter from Chicago's ABC7 outside his home in Peoria, Illinois."
And finally! Here is an amazing story about a mama dog who buried her puppies to save them from a forest fire—and they were all rescued safely! Yayayayayay!
It's Called Feminism
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; heterocentrism; classism.]
Conservative columnist Ross Douthat used his New York Times column this past Sunday to explore the causes of the "the social crisis among America's poor and working class—the collapse of the two-parent family, the weakening of communal ties." He wonders whether this alleged crisis is "best understood as a problem of economics or of culture," and notes:
[T]he basic point is this: In a substantially poorer American past with a much thinner safety net, lower-income Americans found a way to cultivate monogamy, fidelity, sobriety and thrift to an extent that they have not in our richer, higher-spending present.He followed that up with a blog post titled "Men, Money and the Marriage Crisis," because of course:
So however much money matters, something else is clearly going on.
The first counterargument is about men: It concedes that there is a modest upward post-'60s trend in household income, rather than a steep decline, but it argues that focusing on the general trend ignores a collapse in earnings for low-skilled men, which — since it takes two to tango, and marry — suffices to explain why it's become harder for working class males to successfully fill the roles of husband and father … especially since, with women entering the workforce, they aren't as economically dependent on men as they once were and don't need to settle for a guy whose wages keep on falling.Note the juxtaposition in these two paragraphs: Women "aren't as economically dependent on men as they once were," and lower-income men look "less 'marriagable' in strictly economic terms."
As I said in the column, a modest version of this argument makes sense to me. Less-educated men haven't seen the same gains as their female peers in recent decades, male-dominated sectors of the economy have declined relative to the female-friendly sectors, and so some lower-income men clearly do look relatively less appealing as partners, less "marriagable" in strictly economic terms than they would have in 1960.
The most basic scrutiny makes these two back-to-back observations look utterly absurd. If women—and let us be honest that the hand-wringing about "the social crisis," especially around marriage, is about straight, white, cis women, except when it's about pathologizing black women—are more financially independent, then men's economic fortunes have less relevance is terms of their "marriagability."
This is a true thing that I see playing out in my own life and the lives of women all around me. If a woman can provide for herself, and doesn't need a man to provide for her, then a man's earning potential becomes vastly less important in terms of evaluating a partner.
Which makes lower-income men more desirable, not less so.
That is, providing those men are offering other things that are valuable to potential partners.
Again, this is a dynamic I see with many of my friends (women of all races, but economic statuses at least working poor or above), but I will speak only to my own experience: When I met Iain, I made significantly more money than he did, and just generally had my professional shit together more than he did—which is for a few reasons, including the fact that I'm two years older.
But his income was of little concern to me, because I made enough money to look after myself and sustain a household. I didn't need a partner to take care of me, because I could take care of myself.
Which means that I could prioritize other things in a partner. I didn't have to compromise on kindness, ethics, intelligence, humor, looks, loyalty, lifestyle, sexual compatibility, or any other quality I value in big or small ways.
What happens when women who want to partner with men have opportunities to provide for themselves is that men can't rely on their earning potential to be enough to be "marriagable." They have to be decent human beings.
If I have the choice between being alone, and being married to some misogyfuck who treats women like shit, that isn't a tough choice.
(All of which is to say nothing about the fact that a lot of this "marriage crisis" bullshit is centered around an increasingly antiquated idea that "marriage" is the only legitimate family structure. It isn't. And there are plenty of different-sex couples living together and parenting together—and looking a hell of a lot like conservatives' much-vaunted "traditional" families—who just don't feel inclined to be legally married.)
Iain and I joke that the only thing for which I need him is to reach things on high shelves, and the only thing for which he needs me is to edge the baseboards when we paint a room. The punchline is not that we need each other for other things; the punchline is that I own a stepladder and he can lean over.
We don't need each other to survive. And that is a good thing. Unless you're a conservative man with retrofuck ideas about needing to contribute nothing to a relationship except a paycheck, in exchange for sex, hot meals, and maid service.
So, yeah, the "social crisis" is, at least among people who are privileged enough to earn a living wage in our garbage economy, in part a "cultural problem." That cultural problem is called feminism, and men who want to be marriagable to women who can take care of ourselves might want to check it out.
Douthat says that economically independent women who want to partner with a man "don't need to settle for a guy whose wages keep on falling." I guess. But, more importantly, we don't need to settle for a guy who's got nothing to offer us besides his wages.
The Worst Idea
[Content Note: Body policing; misogyny; heterocentrism; objectification; evo psych; fat hatred.]
Yesterday, the Telegraph published a gross piece of linkbait [DoNotLink used] titled "'Schoolboys should tell girls their idea of a perfect woman,' says expert." It begins thus:
Teachers should encourage boys to tell girls their idea of a perfect woman in attempt to quell body image issues, a renowned child health expert has said ahead of a teachers conference on Wednesday.There ain't enough fuck you in the entire world for this garbage.
To fight a "neurosis" amongst school girls on body fat, teachers should get boys to tell girls what they find attractive, including other qualities beyond pure looks, said Aric Sigman, author of "The Body Wars: why body dissatisfaction is at epidemic proportions."
He said it was important that teachers picked boys from an older year group because girls look up to them and they are not direct peers so it would be easier to talk about body image issues.
"It would be helpful for them to explain that what they find attractive is not just physical qualities but also qualities like caring, the sound of a girl's voice and her body language."
...More importantly, Dr Sigman said, boys should tell girls "that there are women who appear model-perfect visually but are just not sexy and there are girls who do not seem model material but are very attractive."
Dr Sigman also said the subject of female body dissatisfaction has been exclusively dominated by women so far and that it was time for men fight political correctness and get involved.
David Perry offers a good response to the article, in which he notes that the good doctor's idea "reinforces the patriarchal notion that what girls should be concerned about is to what extent they are or are not attractive to boys. Attractiveness remains the key arbiter of personal worth. Instead, the way to fight body image issues is to de-legitimize the male gaze as the arbiter of what is and is not 'good.'"
Absolutely. And this, with its admonition that men must take charge and insert themselves into body acceptance work, does the precise opposite of de-legitimizing the male gaze. Instead, it seeks to reify the male gaze as the most important arbiter of female body acceptability.
And this heterocentrist, misogynist, objectifying proposal presumes, once again, that there is a universal—or at most a very limited spectrum—of appropriate, attractive, sexy female body types among men.
This is not true, despite the strong cultural disincentives against male attraction to fat female bodies, the harsh judgment and penalties faced by men with fat female partners, and the pathologization of men who attracted to fat women.
Iain and I are currently fascinated by a show airing on FYI called "Marriage at First Sight," in which single (straight) people participate in a social experiment in which they're matched by relationship experts in an arranged marriage. (This show deserves a whole post of its own, at some point.) A new season just started, and lots of potential participants were interviewed, many of whom were accompanied by family members and/or friends, enlisted to project the appropriate amount of scandalized horror at the very prospect.
One thin white man, who was ultimately not picked as one of the to-be spouses, was interviewed with his very thin white mother sitting beside him. He was asked what sort of body type he preferred, and he responded by saying he liked hourglass and pear shapes. "Pear shape?!" his mother exclaimed, horrified. "Do you know what that means?" He replied, looking suddenly apologetic and embarrassed, that he did. "You don't want a pear-shape," his mother instructed him. "A nice slim girl would be perfect for you."
Even the hint that he might be attracted to fat women immediately resulted in auditing of his preferences and shaming.
So, what is the place for a young man with that sort of preference in the good doctor's proposed program, which is explicitly designed to tell girls that they are allowed to have "some fat," but obviously not too much eww gross yuck. What is the place for a fat girl who is found attractive by men whose preferences exist outside of the limited spectrum of acceptability being defined?
Again, attraction should never, ever, be used as the model of a human being's worth in the first place. But in addition to that fuckery, this program also more deeply entrenches the pernicious idea that there is essentially a universal human spectrum of attraction, which underwrites the pathologization of deviant bodies and transgressive attraction to those bodies.
That ain't helping anybody. Even the mere proposal should be treated with utter contempt.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Merkohl: "What inside joke do you have with friends that still makes you laugh, and how did it come to be?"
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
Trans Teen Jazz Jennings Gets Her Own TV Show
[Content Note: Transphobia; self-harm.]
Jazz Jennings at the 24th Annual GLAAD Media Awards on April 20, 2013.
Derrick Clifton at Mic:
14-year-old trans activist Jazz Jennings has been tapped by TLC for an upcoming reality series titled All That Jazz. Jennings, a young author and star of the documentary I Am Jazz: A Family in Transition, will be followed by cameras once again as she navigates high school and faces the joys and tribulations of young adulthood.Obviously, TLC has, ahh, a mixed record on its reality programming. There is a lot of exploitative stuff mixed in with some genuinely good programming about people from marginalized populations. I hope that All That Jazz (which is THE BEST title, by the way) falls on the better end of the TLC spectrum.
As an opportunity to increase public understanding of trans youth, the show comes at an important time. According to the 2011 report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 78% of trans or gender nonconforming youth reported feeling harassed at school, which correlates with higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness. And with news of trans teen suicides making headlines in early 2015, the visibility created by the show could also help more trans youth feel accepted.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, All That Jazz will also feature other members of Jenning's family, including her parents, who have been both supportive of her and vocal about the difficulties she sometimes encounters.
...All That Jazz is an opportunity for the American public to get a non-sensationalized account of what it means to be trans.
It's an opportunity to get one more voice in the mix: a trans person telling her story on her own terms.
In any case, Jazz is courageous as hell to put herself out there—and I don't mean that just because she's trans. Anyone who's willing to put their lives on display for entertainment, for education, for advocacy is a brave soul indeed.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by chirping birds.
Recommended Reading:
Fannie: [Content Note: White Supremacy] Whites Riot on North Side of Chicago (Again)
CaitieCat: [CN: Hostility to consent] Pranks and Rape Culture
El: [CN: Disablism] Taking the Social Model of Disability Online
Jessica: [CN: Worker endangerment/exploitation] McDonald's Employees Allege Unsafe Working Conditions in at Least 19 Cities
Trudy: [CN: Racism; hostility to boundaries] An Example of How I Am "Arrogant" If Want to Speak to Another Black Woman
stavvers: [CN: Sexual assault; self-harm; disablism] I Believe Eleanor de Freitas
John: [CN: Homophobia] Iowa Senate Okays Ban on Gay Conversion Therapy
Adria: [CN: Misogyny; video] Sponsorship Isn't Enough: Why Tech Companies Are Failing to Attract Female Engineers
Jay: [CN: Racism; video] If My Defense of Racism Was a Robin Thicke Song, Would I Get Sued for It?
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda: The zelliest of all the bellies.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Quote of the Day
"I've made my decision—I'm out. I'm out of the Republican Party. I am not a Republican; I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I'm out. I highly recommend—run from the Republican Party. They are not good. They ran and they said they were doing all of these great things and they were going to stand against Obamacare and illegal immigration—they set us up. They set us up. Enough is enough. They're torpedoing the Constitution and they're doing it knowingly. They're taking on people like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz and they are torpedoing them. Knowingly. So I'm done with them. Four years ago, I was with them. Four years ago, I said work from the inside: Let's change it. Let's get new guys in there. It's too late."—Glenn Beck, on his radio show, pitifully caterwauling about how the Republican Party isn't conservative enough.
I play the world's tiniest violin
for poor, poor Glenn Beck.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Mike & The Mechanics: "The Living Years"
True Fact: When I was a child, settled in for an hour or so of hotttt music videos, and this video would come on, I would get so annoyed, because I hated it so much, lol.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Terrorism; death] "Nineteen people, including 17 foreign tourists, have been killed after gunmen targeted a museum in the Tunisian capital, the Prime Minister says. ...The attack happened at the Bardo Museum, which is next to the parliament building in central Tunis. ...Earlier, interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told journalists that the attack involved 'two or more terrorists armed with Kalashnikovs.' A museum employee told Reuters the two attackers 'opened fire on the tourists as they were getting off the buses before fleeing into the museum.' French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he condemned the 'terrorist attack in the strongest terms... We are very alert about how the situation is evolving,' he added." Fucking hell.
[CN: Hazing] Here we go again: "The University of Houston president suspended the Sigma Chi fraternity at the school following allegations of hazing that jeopardized students' health and safety. University President Renu Khator said in a statement Tuesday that she's 'shocked, dismayed, and deeply disappointed' by the allegations. The statement provides no details of what is alleged to have happened, but Khator says the university has suspended five students. She says if the allegations prove to be true, the five 'will be subject to immediate disciplinary action, up to and including expulsion.' Khator describes hazing as 'a criminal act' and a violation of university policy, for which consent is not a defense." I really hope the students who were hazed are okay, and getting whatever help and support they need.
[CN: Homophobia; Christian Supremacy] In news from the Conservative Legislation Lab: "An Indiana House committee today approved controversial religious freedom legislation that could protect business owners who don't want to provide services for same-sex weddings. Despite better organized opposition to the measure, the House Judiciary Committee voted 9-4 to send the measure to the full House for consideration." Previously: My thoughts on this garbage.
[CN: War] Whoooooooooooooops: "The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials." Terrific.
[CN: Misogynist terrorism] Actress Ashley Judd is taking on misogynist harassers: "Judd has said she will inform police about Twitter users who sexually harass her, and press charges against them. [She] told the US show Today: 'The amount of gender violence I experience is absolutely extraordinary, and a significant part of my day today will be spent filing police reports at home about gender violence that's directed at me on social media.' 'That many people?' asked the Today interviewer Craig Melvin. 'That many people, that explicit, that overt,' replied Judd." Good luck to her. Maybe since she's a famous straight white cis woman, police will actually give a fuck.
Solar Storm! "A geomagnetic storm is currently lashing the Earth's atmosphere, creating the potential for brilliant auroras over the top and bottom of the planet, including large sections of Northern Europe, and even dipping as far south into the United States as Tennessee, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The cause of the increase in auroral activity is a pair of coronal mass ejections from the sun that started heading our way on Sunday and arrived early Monday evening, resulting in what the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colorado described as a level G4 geomagnetic storm, the most intense seen in the current solar cycle. A G4 storm is considered severe and has the potential to disrupt some communications infrastructure and parts of the power grid, but is generally not considered dangerous to people on the surface of the Earth." You're safe for NOW, Earthlings!
Something something Donald Trump. No more Apprentice. Exploratory committee. Farrrrrrt.
Gwyneth Paltrow is "incredibly close to the common woman." LOLOLOL. Good grief.
And finally! OMG LOL this baby bulldog crawling into hir tote. RIDICULOUS!!! ♥
Listening to Women About Red Flags, Part 2
[Content Note: Misogyny; rape culture.]
Yesterday, I wrote a Helpful Hints for Men piece about listening to women when they identify harmful men. In response, Peter Green tweeted at me (which I am sharing with his permission): "Thanks, very helpful. Will there be a sequel, what to do after you've listened to and believed her?"
So here it is.
The thing about being socialized in a patriarchy is that men are entrained to fix things and to not ask for help. Insert a history of hacky comedians' jokes about how men won't stop for directions. The reason those jokes exist is not, however, because of something innate to (cis) men, but because of patriarchal socialization.
And being socialized to fix things and to not ask for help means that lots of men (not all men, and not only men) are inclined to respond to a woman telling them about red flags by trying to "fix" the situation and to determine for themselves what that "fix" is, rather than asking for direction from the woman who has come to them for support.
So, here's what to do, and what not to do.
Don't approach the situation with the presumption that anything needs to be fixed. Or, perhaps, realize that sometimes the "fix" being sought is simply to be heard and believed.
Don't imagine yourself in the role of savior. Imagine yourself behaving as ally.
Don't be a white knight. Be an accomplice in challenging a culture of abuse.
Don't view your role as protector. View your role as supporter.
Being an effective ally, an effective accomplice, an effective supporter is utterly contingent upon understanding the needs of the person to whom you want to act as ally, accomplice, supporter.
Guessing, or simply imposing your will about what you think should happen over hers, is a terrible idea—because if all she wants is support, then meddling in some other way might actually make her feel unsupported.
It could also make her less safe.
Just as many women have learned through a lifetime of experience to identify subtle signals of potential harm, we have also learned how to intuitively assess, as much as any person is ever able, which courses of action might escalate a situation with a potentially harmful man, even when they are the very things we are told we should be doing.
And it's important to recognize that if you act in a way that escalates the situation, the blowback won't be on you; it will land on her.
Acting in the way that makes her feel safest, even if you want to do more or do things differently, is crucial, because your privilege will (likely) insulate you from retributive measures from the harmful man being identified.
Listen to her, and then listen to her more.
Ultimately, maybe listening is all she wants, in a particular situation. Maybe, in another situation, she'd like you to back her up in a report to HR. Maybe she just wants you to never leave her alone with this guy during game night; maybe she wants you to stop inviting him to game night altogether.
The best thing to do is straightforwardly ask: "What can I do to best support you?" Let her tell you. And then do that.
This Fu@#ing Guy
[Content Note: Racism.]
STFU, Dick Cheney:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said that President Barack Obama was "playing the race card" to excuse criticism of his record as president.Cheney also went on a tear about Ferguson, and the President's response to Ferguson.
"I think they're playing the race card, in my view. Certainly we haven't given up—nor should we give up—the right to criticize an administration and public officials. To say that we criticize, or that I criticize, Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it's obviously not true," Cheney said in a wide-ranging interview with Playboy magazine released on Tuesday. "My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance—or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn't got anything to do with race."
...Cheney also called Obama "the worst president in his lifetime," even when stacked up against other liberal presidents. "I look at Barack Obama and I see the worst president in my lifetime, without question—and that's saying something. I used to have significant criticism of Jimmy Carter, but compared to Barack Obama and the damage he is doing to the nation—it's a tragedy, a real tragedy, and we are going to pay a hell of a price just trying to dig out from under his presidency," he said.
I am utterly without words to describe the profundity of my contempt for this guy. He is the absolute worst. And it's not just what he's saying that's reprehensible; it's the fact that he's saying it at all. It is not entirely unprecedented for a former vice-president to criticize a new administration, but it's very unusual and incredibly unstatesmanlike.
I would say that Cheney feels okay criticizing President Obama in this way, in a way other former executives have not criticized other presidents, because President Obama is black, but, gee, I wouldn't want Cheney to accuse me of playing the race card.
Just kidding. You're a racist fuck, Cheney.
The US Presbyterian Church Approves Same-Sex Marriages in an Overwhelming Vote
[Content Note: Homophobia; Christian Supremacy. Video may autoplay at link.]
Good news!
The largest Presbyterian denomination in the nation, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Tuesday approved a marriage resolution on that amends its constitution to accept same-sex marriages.I don't generally give much of a shit about changes to religious doctrine, since I'm atheist—but I'm excited for lesbian, bi, and gay members of the Presbyterian Church, for whom this is a radical shift in an institution very important to them, and I'm always happy when another Christian church moves toward marriage equality, because, as long as this country continues to be a nightmarescape of Christian Supremacy, I want as many Christians as possible undermining conservative dominionists' claims on a One True Christianity used to legislate oppression.
A voice vote held in New Jersey had 86 regional bodies approving the new resolution and 41 opposed (one presbytery had a tie vote), reports The New York Times. The church, which claims 1.8 million members and is based in Kentucky, has been moving to the left in the past few years; it cleared the way for partnered gay and lesbian pastors, elders, and deacons four years ago.
The latest change in policy also means Presbyterian ministers who previously performed same-sex marriages will not be prosecuted for ecclesiastical crimes by the church.
The new policy is a measured change. Conservative ministers will not be forced to perform same-sex marriages, while the new constitution will not be altered that drastically. The church previously considered marriage as between "a man and a woman," while the new language considers marriage as a union of "two people, traditionally a man and a woman."
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Bellspice: "I know it's been done before, but I'm a big fan of: How did you find Shakesville?"
