These are just sad, sad people:
A proposed policy change that protects West Virginia’s gay and lesbian students from school harassment has drawn criticism from some conservative groups.
Groups like the Family Policy Council of West Virginia have lambasted the policy for threatening religious freedom and free speech, while civil rights groups say the rule will finally give LGBT students much-needed help.
Jeremy Dys, president of the Family Policy Council, told State Board of Education members Wednesday that anti-bullying laws that target homosexuality can take schools down a slippery slope.
But the president of the state school board said Dys doesn’t understand the policy.
“If a student makes a comment in opposition to homosexuality and what Scripture teaches about homosexuality, they could be in violation of the proposed bullying policy,” said Dys. “Bullying policies need to make sure they apply categorically across the board, but in reality, we have an infringement upon religious liberty.”
These freaks think they sound like good Christians, just wanting to preach the Lord’s work, but to everyone outside their bubble, they look just like the Fred Phelps hate parade. I mean, really- you’re worried about the state infringing upon your “right” to tell teenage kids that “God Hates Fags?”
Fucking sociopaths.
Holden Pattern
The real victims of racism, sexism, religious bigotry and homophobia are always straight white fundamentalist men. And they’re victimized a second time if you even mention racism, sexism, religious bigotry or homophobia as a problem.
willard
oh, so is this like sharia law in WV?
referring to Christians stoning suspected GLBT
Holden Pattern
@willard: There’s not much difference between our religious totalitarians and “their” religious totalitarians.
Fun fact: the wingnut Christian fundies here actually make common cause with the wingnut Muslim fundies over there in international forums to prevent international law and policy from recognizing the rights of children, women and gay people that contradict the demands of the fundie patriarchal worldview. So they “hate” each other, but they basically want the same thing — everyone subjugated to their respective totalizing worldviews, which have a remarkable amount of points in common.
General Stuck
Same kin do shit as in Michigan wingnuts passing an anti bullying bill with a big loophole for “moral exemptions”, ie “gawd hates the fags” so it’s okay to bully gay kids.
But there is the pungent aroma of GOP over reach in the air, on this current run of wingnuttery being forced down the throats of citizens, even a large majority in MS rejecting personifying a fetus. Where even Pro life groups said that was going to far. The elections of 2011, ought to be a cautionary tale to wingnuts, but of course it won’t be, as they are on jeebus overdrive or bust. Which of course is good news to John Mccain.
Mark S.
Wrong Again Cole is Being Wrong Again about Being Wrong. Unemployment is down 0.1% $3,000.
BGinCHI
I refer you all to the greatest expression of this anti-gay logic:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock,10861/
Indeed.
Villago Delenda Est
This this this.
There’s only a branding difference, based on different languages having different words for the invisible sky buddy, the actual product is pretty much the same.
jrg
It’s tradition to bully gay kids. They’re doing it out of God’s love… Honest. Kind of like flying the confederate battle flag is about tradition… The fact that the image did not exist prior to secession from the union in order to preserve the institution of slavery doesn’t mean anything.
Jeebus lurves yooo! Whee! Personal responsibility! Whee! Heritage not hate Whee!
namekarB
Leviticus 18:22 clearly states homosexuality to be an abomination … End of debate.
However, Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are from neighboring nations.
I cannot find any Canadian or Mexican slaves on ebay. Where should I look?
Brian S
So what if I quote a non-Bible holy book which says something about Christians being baby-fuckers who need to be wiped off the planet. Do you suppose they’d be cool with that?
Hunter Gathers
I’m sure that we are all mistaken about this whole ordeal, and are too blinded by hatred of red-blooded Amurikin conservatives to see this as the jobs plan that it is.
jl
Fine with me. I think reactionary Xtianists are heretics headed straight to the old school fiery Christian hell they so ardently believe in. I want the right to hector and bully them every time I run into one of them, because it is for their own good and I just love (agape style, mind you) their precious souls so damn much.
Villago Delenda Est
@namekarB:
You’re looking for hockey playing slaves or mariachi playing slaves?
Hunter Gathers
@namekarB:
Rick Perry’s hunting lodge.
BGinCHI
@namekarB: Dallas CraigsList.
Or Scottsdale.
SensesFail
This is *clearly* just another attack from the godless secularists on the oh-so-very-oppressed, god-fearing theists.
/wingnut
kindness
The reichtwingnutz (and I’m including the fundamentalist nazis) live in a closed loop world. Their beliefs are only reinforced by Fox & the crazy right web sites. Those same media groups reinforce the (false & crazy) notion that it is the religious right who’se rights are being stripped.
Maybe ancient Rome wasn’t wrong. These fanatics represent a significant danger both to gays and liberals alike. I’m not going to advocate burning at the stake as even I see that as too barbaric. Maybe something more civilized. Guillotine perhaps?
@Mark S.: shut the fuck up troll.
Winston Smith
Support the separation of church and hate.
deep cap
And then there’s Arizona where Prince Harry was warned by the town mayor:
khead
The WV BOE President defends the policy in a letter to the Beckley paper…
BGinCHI
What if we, the commentariat at BJ, picked one week a year where we fanned out and commented only on right wing sites. A week of undercover information/disinformation.
Then we report back.
Kind of like Brad Pitt’s crew in “Inglourious Basterds.”
Mark S.
@namekarB:
Deuteronomy 25 says that if my brother dies childless, I must impregnate his wife or she can take my shoe. Furthermore,
The only thing I can guess is that this must have happened to Moses once because that’s pretty damn specific.
How can anyone take this ridiculous book seriously?
Mark S.
@kindness:
O-kay!
Winston Smith
@namekarB:
It’s not all that clear. In one place, there’s a death sentence, and in another, the transgressor is merely “ritually unclean” in the same degree as if he had eaten shrimp.
If anyone thinks that one verse “ends the debate,” they obviously haven’t encountered the volumes of rabbinical commentary on the subject.
BGinCHI
@Mark S.: Plus the talking snake.
Also, do Christians get that their Messiah is not the Messiah of that Older Testament to which they are so literally attached?
Villago Delenda Est
@deep cap:
Because, as we all know, the British Royal Family is not composed of “good Christian people”.
HRH the Defender of the Faith will now have words with you in your cell in the Tower, asswipe “your honor”.
Mark S.
@BGinCHI:
Talking snakes are real. You just have to do a lot of shrooms to get them to do it.
FormerSwingVoter
Here’s the argument I want to see one person, whether its a politician or a school official, make:
“I understand the argument. Some people think that abusing children is okay as long as you have a reason. Those people are terrible human beings. First of all, any argument that is a justification of child abuse – even from other children – automatically has no merit. Second of all, any argument that boils down to ‘Jesus wants me to mistreat people’ is simply wrong from a theological standpoint. This is an argument that has absolutely no merit or value whatsoever – much like the people making it.”
BGinCHI
@Mark S.: Penciling it in for the weekend.
artem1s
@BGinCHI:
i will subject myself to that torture if, and only if, i get to carve swastikas in their foreheads.also.too.
doubletall
Unemployment claims fell to the lowest level in 7 months, beating analysts expectations.
Of course Gloom Porn Addict Cole will have NOTHING to say about it.
kindness
@Mark S.: I over-reacted. Sorry. Let me get another coffee & come back more sane.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Holden Pattern:
Someone should write a book about that.
Though if someone did, everyone would say it was “going too far” so maybe not.
cathyx
@Mark S.: You’re a one trick pony.
Michael D.
@Winston Smith:
You’re right here, I think. But I will go one better for you.
1. The word “abomination” doesn’t appear in the original texts. The word that DOES appear is “tobeh.” It means “ritually impure.”
2. More importantly, when the Bible talks about a “man lying with a man” it is more than likely talking about a property relationship. As we all know, back then, women were the property of their husbands. And if a man was to ever lie with a man and treat him as property, that would be forbidden and would be “impure.”
I would say it is FAR more likely that this is the correct translation than is some prohibition on ass-fucking.
Ron Beasley
Too many Christians – not enough lions.
scav
Freedom of Speech or Religion, remember, does not extend so wildly far as to mutter Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah or (gasp!) any equivalent Muslim holiday in December instead of Merry Christmas. I mean, let’s not be silly.
David Hunt
@Holden Pattern:
Several years back, some wingnut hack (I think it was Ramesh Ponnuru) actually made this point. He was explicitly admitting that, on social issues, Conservatives were much closer to the Islamic Fundamentalist that made up various terrorist groups than they were to Liberals in the U.S. He made the “point” that if we changed our society to be more like they and Conservatives wanted social issues to be governed as, the terrorist would hate us less. Mind you, he didn’t quite phrase it like that. His argument would have stood up to only most cursory examination by a full-on wingnut, but he wasn’t really hiding his desire for the U.S. to be a full-on Theocracy.
trollhattan
@Hunter Gathers:
I was gonna say “Craigs List’ but I like yours better.
The good news is these folks are exactly who we thought they were. No congitive dissonance to muddy the waters, just a clear mandate that they be defeated at all times and all cost. Given power, we know exactly how they will abuse it.
Bill E Pilgrim
@deep cap:
Surprised he used the non-censored version, usually around those parts for that song they bleep in the word “twistin” instead.
Woodrowfan
that sounds more Craig’s List than eBay.
Zifnab
Sure, it looked like I was tying the kid to the back of a truck and dragging him to his death on a gravel road. But I was just following the edicts of Leviticus, so I don’t see what your problem is.
Mary Jane
@Villago Delenda Est: @Mark S.: My day isn’t gonna get any better than it is right now. I can quit the internet.
Gex
What really chaps my hide is that for the most part we are talking about middle school kids that are being bullied for being, or perceived as being, gay. Most kids that age have not had a homosexual experience yet. So where’s the love the sin, hate the sinner? They keep claiming there’s nothing wrong with being gay so long as you don’t act on it. But yet they want to be able to abuse and bully people who are doing just that.
I hate these people with a fiery passion. If you need a special exemption from harassment/bullying laws to “express your faith” you are doing it wrong.
cleek
i always imagine that people who say things like this are secretly jerking off behind the podium. i also imagine them looking like South Park characters.
Cat Lady
Jeremy Dys seems like a likely candidate to be found with two wetsuits and a dildo.
Villago Delenda Est
@doubletall:
The problem of course being that claims might have fallen because many have been unemployed so long that they can no longer file claims.
So, please, let’s go back and do some more detailed analysis of this soundbite, shall we?
BGinCHI
@artem1s: The judges will accept this. Get your rhetorical baseball bat out of the closet.
Bill E Pilgrim
@BGinCHI:
Only one hitch there, Sully doesn’t allow comments :/
Mark S.
@kindness:
No prob!
@cathyx:
Say it ain’t so!
WereBear
@Bill E Pilgrim: Jiminy Christmas!
Right wing conspiracy hack or what?
Chyron HR
Wrong Way Cole is Wrong as usual about gay bullying. I clearly burn with unrequited love for Wrong Way Cole, but have I been beaten up for it? Wrong!
Downpuppy
@Villago Delenda Est: That would be 2 weeks – they only count initial claims. 390,000 is a sucky number, but there’s no way to make it suckier than the 420,000 we were getting a few months ago.
The important thing now is the net change in employment. We’re stuck in neutral 4 years into this mess & if we ever do start to recover will run splat! into an oil crisis.
Mark S.
@Chyron HR:
Wrong Again Chyron is a Wrong Again One Trick Pony.
BGinCHI
@Mark S.: Doom Pr0n Wolverines!
Persia
@David Hunt: I think it was Dinesh D’Souza, actually. “I don’t agree completely with these guys, but at least they’re pounding their bible really hard, and I like that!”
Certified Mutant Enemy
@WereBear:
Try this link: http://bit.ly/sGip2p
Villago Delenda Est
@Downpuppy:
Ah, so we’re not losing as many employed people as we were only a short time ago.
OK. I guess that’s a positive.
Just not a very exciting or dramatic one.
Comrade Dread
The tragedy here is that it seems like these groups are treating this like a zero-sum issue. It’s not.
There’s a ton of difference between two people talking about, disagreeing, and respectfully discussing sexuality and religion and someone screaming at the top of their lungs at another person who just wants to get through his or her day without feeling like a target, and rather than dig in against any action, they could work with their opponents to craft a law that protects the rights of students to civilly discuss any topic and still offers protection and counseling to all when things move beyond civility into harassment.
Moonbatman
Wingnut PA AG is swiftboating Jerry Sandusky because he is gay.
They persecute this fine upstanding man when the 3 rapists from Duke walk free.
Free Class warrior Steven Hayes
Winston Smith
@Michael D.: Excellent points. The problem is, of course, that knowing anything beyond a one-sentence quote is harrrrd.
Judas Escargot
@Holden Pattern:
One war. Two fronts.
Legalize
No. They are rancid sociopaths, who also happen to dictate policy at a grossly disproportionate level. And we are dangerously close to allowing them to be our demise.
gelfling545
@BGinCHI:In a word, no; and even pastors who know better still preach AS IF this were the case.
toujoursdan
@namekarB:
Ummm no. This is sloppy. Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 say that anal sex between two men is an abomination – no more and no less.
Lesbians aren’t men and don’t have anal sex. Gay males can do many other things together other than have male sex.
It’s perfectly possible to have homosexual relations without breaking the Levitical prohibition (which only applies to Torah-observant Jews anyway.)
opie jeanne
A friend, a good, nice decent man who is a friend of mine posted something on FB today that brought me up short. He told me he participated last year. I am stunned.
Have any of you run across this before? Is this a growing trend?
http://criout.com/arc-school-south-point-hi/
Quote: “Our vision is to train an army of end time prophetic, mercy missionaries, mobilized in the spirit of night and day prayer, releasing great demonstrations of power, reaching the harvest in crisis and rebuilding cities on the Kingdom of God.”
ornery
The Gospels do not say anything against homosexuals … being anti-gay is not ‘scriptural’ for a Christian.
The fundies are counting on us not knowing that.
Paul in KY
@Michael D.: Some scholars have taken it to prohibit post-battle raping-of-the-enemy stuff (which seemed to be quite a sport back then).
Paul in KY
@opie jeanne: I thought when the end times came, the faithful would just be running around saying ‘Ha, you weren’t raptured, and you either, and you’ until they figured out they were still here as well.
Is this camp for when that occurs?
Mark S.
@toujoursdan:
Even God knows that lesbians are awesome.
matryoshka
@opie jeanne: That’s appalling, but it is related to those damn Duggars and their “quiverful” of God’s little arrows. End-timers are an industry! Did you see the price tag for Apocalypse Camp? That alone should keep many mouth-breathers away.
If they really want to know how to “survive,” I invite them to shed their iPods and Jesus jerseys and live on the streets of Chicago for a winter. Hawaii is hardly a hostile environment!
Nethead Jay
@opie jeanne: Uh-oh. I think you’re right to be alarmed. I’m part of a network that tries to document and warn anout the dangers of Dominionism. To me this sounds suspiciously like a stealth dominionist organisation, something that’s not unknown out on the Religious Right. And unfortunately it is a movement that’s been flying somewhat undr the radar of many people, including our failed media, which is why we in the network try to keep tabs on such activity. I’m going to send that link to one of our researchers and see what she can dig up. In the meantime, be careful with your friend.
ruemara
@opie jeanne: This sounds creepy and I see Nethead Jay has also highlighted the Dominionism aspect of this. This is why we should clean house in our military. I have few doubts that if they could cause an “end times event” they would, just so they could reshape the world in their image. And that’s an image I don’t want to see.
The Moar You Know
@opie jeanne: Ye gods. Some fundie read Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and figured if it was good for the moneymen, it would be even better for the warrior squadrons of Jesus.
Your “friend” has been putting on a bit of an act for folks, it appears.
AA+ Bonds
Look, the Devil told me my kids have to call non white people racial slurs so you cannot pass this law that says they cannot do that in school
AA+ Bonds
What they are actually trying to do is get this business defined away from civil rights in the decision, because this crew is everything dragging America down.
Our economy is shit right now thanks to Wall Street, and these people want to make sure it’s shit in 2020 when no one wants to move here from the First World anymore for any reason because we don’t allow fucking and pot smoking
AA+ Bonds
Better story answers question
opie jeanne
@matryoshka: I saw the pricetag and gasped. It doesn’t include airfare. They let you build survival sheds and figure out how to eat what’s out there, and it costs that much.
He told me he did the one in Virginia last year, that the end times was part of it but that the emphasis was on assisting people in need of shelter and water, and on comforting them; knowing him he would not be praying with them unless given permission. In fact, when I mentioned to him that that part had startled me he said he was going to go back and take a closer look at the current ads on the site.
He was between contracts at the time but another one came up just as he finished the training last year so he did not proceed to a disaster site.
This is not a guy who will push his religion on anyone. He is a fundamentalist Christian but he lives his beliefs very gently. 6 years ago when I was very sick and very scared because death was a possibility (I didn’t die, YAY!), he asked if he could pray for me. I had known him for several years online by then, and since then I have met him and know him pretty well. We do not vote alike but he is someone that you can have a rational conversation with regarding politics and/or religion, and he shies away from hateful people who claim to be Christians. He’s also one of the funniest people I know.
I worry that he’s been had, and I worry more about programs like this.
opie jeanne
@The Moar You Know: My friend has been doing what now? You know who I was talking about and know this how?
Maybe I didn’t make it clear, but he isn’t running this thing. He attended one last year in Virginia, where he lives.
opie jeanne
@Nethead Jay: Thanks, I will await your findings on this. It’s probably the Dominionist scent that I was disturbed by, and as reumara said, it sounds positively creepy.
I live in Seattle, he lives in Virginia so our contact is limited to email and Facebook. Really, I worry more for him than about him doing something dire, worry that he’s being led down a path that he shouldn’t travel, not to mention all that money for camping in the woods and being “trained”.
opie jeanne
@Nethead Jay: Thanks, I will await your findings on this. It’s probably the Dominionist scent that I was disturbed by, and as reumara said, it sounds positively creepy.
I live in Seattle, he lives in Virginia so our contact is limited to email and Facebook. Really, I worry more for him than about him doing something dire, worry that he’s being led down a path that he shouldn’t travel, not to mention all that money for camping in the woods and being “trained”.
opie jeanne
@ruemara: Funny you should mention the military. My friend and his wife are both retired military, in their fifties. We kid him because his wife outranks him. I’ve never met her but I think she’s the driving force in this stuff. He used to believe science until he joined her church.
opie jeanne
@Paul in KY: Yup, and then they’ll all come and pray with us heathens, only my friend will politely ask if we’d like that. He’s not like the vast majority of fundies.
opie jeanne
@matryoshka: He’s only got two kids, so he’s not one of the quiverfull idjits.
And in the literature that I looked at briefly it says not to worry about the pricetag but to ask yourself if you believe God wants you to attend. I’m not sure if they’re offering scholarships to people who can’t afford it (highly doubt that) or if they’re just saying the truly dedicated will scrape up the money.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mark S.:
Just don’t go to the ATM after eating them.
PeedroPaula
@BGinCHI:
That explains it all! LOL
PeedroPaula
@namekarB:
Perfect argument!
Paul in KY
@opie jeanne: He sounds like he’s not as bad as most of them.