1. Zip up. Say thank you. Move forward.
When someone tells you that your fly is down; when someone calls you out on your privilege, they are doing you a kindness. No one wants the embarrassment of walking around all day with their fly open. No one should want the embarrassment of wandering through life alienating their friends and colleagues through unexamined privilege. Calling this stuff out is hard. It is emotionally draining and it is a constant uphill battle for those of less privilege. A simple thank you is the very least you can do.
2. Here’s the history of marriage equality from 1973 through 2013, in one .gif (via JMG):
3. “When [CNN host Piers] Morgan asked if the pastor thought he would ever change his mind, [Rick] Warren was close to certain it would not happen.” I’m close to certain it will. Maybe 10 years from now, maybe 20, but he’ll eventually concede the theological argument he lost a long time ago. That is, after all, “A Matter of Integrity.”
4. “Rogue Abortion Provider Lacked Medical Malpractice Insurance, New Jersey AG Says.” Sharona Coutts reports for RH Reality Check, “The claim is the latest in a slew of allegations leveled against Dr. Steven C. Brigham, whose checkered history of harming patients and flouting laws has led several states to suspend or revoke his medical license.”
Pro-choice advocates don’t like medical frauds who harm women, which is why RH Reality Check, like many pro-choice sites, has been sounding the alarm on Brigham for a long time (here’s a longer background piece from back in July).
Some day, months or perhaps even years from now, anti-abortion advocates will wake up to Brigham’s shady history. And then, since it’s news to them, they’ll act like they’re breaking this story and they’ll claim that people like Coutts — people they’ve refused to listen to for years — have been scandalously silent and that this should have been front page news all along. Lather, rinse, repeat.
5. Joseph Laycock looks at the attempt by the merry pranksters of the Satanic Temple to contribute “an homage to the historic/literary Satan” to accompany Oklahoma’s capital display of a Ten Commandments monument. Laycock says the gesture is “clever” but unlikely to win in court. But he also notes that winning in court isn’t the only aim here: “The goal of announcing a Satanic monument is not to promote Satanism but to demonstrate why government endorsements of religion are undesirable,” Laycock writes. “It also sheds light on the very real privileges that Christianity is afforded from our nominally secular government.”
Yep. American Christianity, examine your zipper.
6. The New England Journal of Medicine editorial, “Contraception at Risk“:
In working with women to prevent unwanted pregnancy, physicians need the full panel of FDA-approved contraceptive methods. If that panel is limited by a woman’s inability to pay — if the method deemed optimal for her is unavailable because her health insurance does not cover it — then the religious freedom of her employer will have interfered with the provision of high-quality medical care to her. In this context, the welfare of the patient must trump the religious convictions of her employer. After all, it is the woman, not her employer, whose health is at risk.
… If the full panel of FDA-approved contraceptive services is made available to American women, the public health of the country will benefit. If a woman’s religious beliefs compel her to decline such services, she has the right to do so. But to deny coverage for these vital public health services to women who want them but cannot afford them outside their employer-sponsored insurance would be a personal and public health tragedy.
7. “It would take a miracle / To get me out to a shopping mall …”
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