• “I do not construe homosexual rights as human rights,” says New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith. Is there any way to, um, construe that sentence other than as an indication that Smith does not regard “homosexuals” as human? Is there any way to interpret Smith’s statement as anything other than an effort to literally and explicitly dehumanize LGBT people?
It seems we’re forced to construe that Rep. Smith doesn’t know his Constitution from his backside.
• Yesterday was February 2. Ramarley Graham was unarmed when killed by police on February 2, 2012.
• Kate Schell is planning to contribute to the growing body of work critiquing white Christian modesty culture. Before adding her own voice to the mix, though, Schell first offers a long list of links to some of the terrific things that others have written. Lots of good stuff there.
• Scot McKnight offers a helpful little riff on the self-congratulatory “courage” of conservative culture warriors — in this case, patriarchal pastors who “courageously” proclaim what their patriarchal constituencies demand they say:
Courage is determined by one’s social group. It takes no courage at Northern Seminary to affirm women in ministry while it might take more than a little courage in some TGC churches or conferences to stand publicly for women as senior pastors and pulpit preachers. To say it again, it takes no courage in TGC settings to stand against women in ministry while it would take some courage to stand up in a class at Northern and oppose women pastors.
Thus, for the folks in this video to posture themselves as courageous is to say they are in a safe tribe that will support their views. … The claim of courage is little more than patting one another on the back.
• BooMan is right about “Rand Paul is right about this.” It is not just hypocritical, but cruel for “politicians who smoked pot as teenagers or college students” to turn around years later and “support incarceration for others who smoke pot.” If you don’t think you personally deserved to have your life derailed and your future curtailed, then you can’t really believe that others should have that happen to them for doing the same thing.
Sen. Aqua Buddha may be a Randian ideologue whose antipathy to government leaves him incapable of governing, but he’s right about that.
• Know your “pro-life” history: “Ireland’s gruesome era of symphysiotomy.” [Be warned — this includes vivid descriptions of a truly horrifying pseudo-medical procedure.]* There was no good medical reason to take a hacksaw to a pregnant woman’s pelvis, but for decades in Ireland, it was considered the “pro-life,” Christian thing to do. Aberration or apotheosis? Terry Firma has more.
• “I don’t claim that this is a perfect system,” Ben Myers says, but he still makes an appealing case for “productive procrastination.” Plus it’s fun to realize that Myers wrote this fine post while he was probably supposed to be working on something else.
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* Updated to add the content warning on the symphysiotomy story as suggested. Like so many stories involving the Catholic church’s treatment of Irish women, that one is an R-rated horror movie.
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