• David Barton says that “decent people” should find homosexuality “absolutely reprehensible and disgusting.” I think decent people should find lying con-men like David Barton absolutely reprehensible and disgusting. Tomato, tomahto, I guess.
• Why, yes, the Family Research Council does, in fact, lie about everything.
• We need a quorum system for political primaries. Turnout for the Senate primaries in Massachusetts looks like it was around 10 percent. Yeah, I know, people who don’t vote don’t get to complain about the outcome, but is it really true, in any sense, that after an election with 10 percent turnout we can say “the people have spoken”?
• Jason Alexander is a mensch.
• Pregnancy discrimination: Want to keep your job, lady? Then get an abortion. Interesting that pro-choice feminists want legal protections for pregnant workers, but “pro-life” activists defend the right of corporations to create economic incentives for abortion.
• Would you be more or less likely to vote for Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she was a Satanic baby-killer who killed babies for Satan?
• Austerity increases debt and deficits. Who could have predicted? (Besides every non-hack economist since 1950.)
• Instant Karma comes to get “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis.
• Are they coming for your birth control? Yes, they are coming for your birth control.
• Speaking of hostility toward birth control … Hobby Lobby — the crafting supply retail chain that says Jesus would only offer health benefits to male employees — has some odd policies regarding shoplifting. Some very odd policies.
• Purity culture is rape culture. Purity culture is also slave culture:
In the Irish Republic, an estimated 10,000 girls were locked up in laundries run by the Catholic Church between 1922 and 1996, according to an inquiry report published in February. The report acknowledged that in addition to Ireland, laundries existed in Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States. While the majority were Catholic-operated, Protestant institutions also existed.
• Daniel Burke’s Religion News Service article on “the stressful life of preacher’s kids” might have been more insightful if he hadn’t accidentally transposed his main examples. Yes, Jay Bakker’s childhood was traumatic and difficult while Franklin Graham’s was nurturing and idyllic. But Jay Bakker is not an example of a PK who turned out bad, and Franklin Graham is really not an example of a PK who grew into a mature, decent adult.
• Religious tribalism is an enemy of love, but it can be harnessed for good by a shrewd panhandler.
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