Wow that’s broad. Incredibly broad.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p…— Raffi Melkonian (@rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 11:04 AM
===
Mister, we could use a man like Ronald Reagan agaaain…
the percentage of white children in school was around 80% in 1980. today it is right around 45%, give or take.
as the supreme court attempts to uphold that this is a white man’s republic it is going to smash headlong into reality, and the results are going to be catastrophic.— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 10:49 AM
===
Worth pointing out that only one of the Republican appointees attended public schools, and I’m guessing none of their kids have.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 1:15 PM
===
It also creates bureaucratic problems for schools. Where do kids go when teachers explain that slavery is bad but Phundie Phylis’s snowflakes leave the class? Who watches them? And how will Phundie Phylis know when her kids should be pulled? Do teachers need to send out daily instruction plans? /2
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 1:04 PM
===
Another impact will be parents "excusing" students from assignments that all of a sudden conflict with their "I just made it up" religion.
— cooptimo.bsky.social (@cooptimo.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 1:08 PM
—
looking forward to some parents suing to demand segregated schools because integration violates their religious beliefs
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) June 27, 2025 at 11:16 AM
===
it's important to understand that they want to threaten the very essence of public education. the conservative plan – the plot to enslave america – requires them to destroy public education and replace it with private academies for the rich, religious instruction and prison-like schools for the rest
===
There is, in general right now, a move on the larger right to change the goal of higher education from an academic enterprise (in all its fashions: taking the best students, pushing knowledge forward, etc.) and change back into a means of enforcing differences of class between groups.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 4:05 PM
—
Like, what they're doing makes perfect sense if their goal is to remove the actual educational purpose of higher ed, and instead transform it into part of the cultural apparatus to enforce an aristocratic white class.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 4:06 PM
—
One thing that seems clear is that this case was so poorly decided and not thought out that it's likely going to force this SCOTUS to calvinball and somehow say that Christianity is protected but no other religions are. Which I expect! But they've really dug a hole for themselves.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 27, 2025 at 6:42 PM
kindness
Come next Democratic trifecta, we’re going to need a bigger Supreme Court.
Baud
Yeah, the injunction decision overshadowed the religion decision. It’s really Christian sharia law.
lowtechcyclist
If Christianity is such a good thing for its adherents, what I want to know is why they need to turn the whole world into their ‘safe space’ where they won’t be exposed to contrary notions?
Speaking as one, I would expect that the presence of the Lord in one’s life would make one less of a snowflake or hothouse flower, less in need of protection from the Big Bad World. If you say it’s the opposite, that being a Christian means you need this extra layer of protection, then why the fuck would anyone want to be a Christian??
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The American Taliban win another round. :(
RaflW
@Baud: I suppose the Court will find ways to tailor and trim this to keep it only fitting conservative Christian views, but if the ruling is as broad as Mr. Melkonian says up top, shouldn’t religious liberals (UUs, UCCs, lefty Lutherans, etc), Jews, Muslims, Janes, Buddhists, Sikhs, Breatharians and Satanists all be readying a bevvy of lawsuits?
“You got peanut butter on MY version of religious chocolate. How dare you!” Clog up the fucking courts. Make it a giant bugaboo. Like, UUs have a deep theological record of not just tolerance but embracing of LGBTQ people. Find the tiniest infraction against those values and sue, sue, sue.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
They’re version of Christianity calls on them to become Caesar.
Steve LaBonne
People absolutely should force them to be honest about this “protection” applying only to white conservative “Christianity”. If I had a school-age child again I would be looking for opportunities to protest that, say, the usual lies about US history undermine the UU values I’m trying to teach my child. Or a lesson about families that DOESN’T mention that they can have two daddies or two mommies.
sab
Five of the nine justices went to private parochial schools. They have no stake whatever in public schools.
ETA:Sotomayor did also.
Kagan, Brown, Alito went to public schools. Everyone else on the court went to parochial schools.
Gvg
Which justice went to public school?
I now have another question I want Congress to ask candidates for the Supreme Court to ask. Since we need more diversity on the court, I am going to say that a practical middle class up bringing that includes public school at least some of the time is going to be needed now. I hadn’t realized that even the liberal side was so private school that they didn’t know this can’t work.
in Florida you automatically fail if you miss a certain low number of days of school. The valedictorian of my high school was in danger of this fail because of I think chicken pox so she dragged herself to school. The teacher panicked, parked her in a corner and ran to the front office to get a written exception and sent her home. They evidently didn’t believe dr’s notes and phone calls, but had to face the spots themselves. This was over 50 years ago and the rules are even stricter now. Stupidly so. They also no longer fund any summer school, which is wasteful IMO as kids can struggle in one subject and need special attention, instead of repeating a whole year in all subjects and learning to be bored and hate school.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: That’s pretty much the tell, isn’t it? Deep down they know that nobody will stay within their circle of abuse without thorough brainwashing, and that consequently they will continue to lose a lot of their kids.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Their version of Christianity is a cult, not a religion. It requires early brainwashing and rigid enforcement.
Suzanne
I would expect that this is going to have weird downstream effects. Real estate values in good public school districts are already premium. I already don’t want my kids to go to school with Republicans’ kids. Wouldn’t be surprised to see red areas become even less desirable.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: I know. I try not to be embarrassed to be a Christian, but these people make it really hard.
Not that proud
I think this decision was fairly minor. The law at issue prohibited the schools from informing parents when they would be reading LGBTQ books. When I was in elementary school in the mid 1980s, we already had kids who opted out of sex ed. In high school in the 1990s, we had kids who opted out of biology lessons on evolution. It was like one or two kids per class. It’s fairly manageable for the school. They go sit in the hallway for 30 minutes.
There were a fair number of decisions this term that were basically inevitable, but were played up as major. This is one of them. Porn age verification was another. Banning transition medication for minors is another.
sab
@Suzanne: My husband in his first marriage (the one with kids) insisted on living in the city because he didn’t want his kids going to school with suburban white flight kids. Having met their cousins who did mostly go to suburban schools, I think he made the right choice.
Steve LaBonne
@Not that proud: You just keep on easing down the road to Gilead. The rest of us aren’t going to willingly go there with you.
Not that proud
@lowtechcyclist:
The plaintiffs in this case are Muslim.
Professor Bigfoot
They’ve been working to destroy public education one way or another since Brown V. Board.
That is, as usual, they’d prefer to burn it all down than ever share.
Not that proud
@Steve LaBonne:
It’s all good. I think I could change your mind about this, but whatever. All I’m doing is making a slightly different prediction about the future.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: And when that fails it fails spectacularly. The past president of my congregation is a young female-presenting nonbinary person married to a woman. They grew up in a fundie family and went to Liberty University! They made a point of reading every book on the “warning do not read these books” list that students were given.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Drain those swimming pools!
different-church-lady
SCOTUS doesn’t Calvinball because it has to; SCOTUS Calvinballs because it wants to.
sab
@Not that proud: Banning transition medication for minors isn’t minor, and shouldn’t be viewed as inevitable because the exact same medication has been given to cancer treatment kids for more than a generation.
TONYG
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that, in each town, property taxes are increased to pay for these idiotic logistics (teachers sending notices to parents every afternoon outlining the next day’s classroom content — plus separate supervised rooms to warehouse the kids who have been excused from classes). But how will this really work? In a rational world, teachers would test and grade the kids on the content presented in the classes — and kids who have been excused from being exposed to that content will get bad, maybe failing grades. In reality, though, the idiot parents would bitch and moan about that. So, what will happen is that all classes — physics, math whatever — will be carefully vetted to remove ANYTHING AT ALL that could possibly be offensive to anyone. The result will be a nation that is even more poorly educated than it is now. And the states of the former Confederacy (and other “red” states) will be the most poorly educated of them all. That is the real goal behind his nonsense.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: It is in fact a guarantee of increasing the suicide rate among trans kids. But that’s clearly just a minor detail to some people.
Suzanne
@sab: My kids go to city public schools. Some of the suburban districts might be better, but these are fine.
White flight is largely over in my generation, as well as my kids’.
The overall settlement shift in the country is people relocating to the Sun Belt.
nary
I want to see this decision implemented the same way that things like “work requirements” (i.e., job loss penalties) are implemented for Medicaid. Bury any request in paperwork and red tape. You want your kid to sit out this class? Great; come pick them up and make sure they’re back in time for the next class. You can pay for a private aide to sit with your student–here’s the cost of that, because we must approve that person. Make sure there are plenty of forms to fill out, too.
Fking auto incorrect changed my nym.
sab
@Steve LaBonne: Ali Velshi’s MSNBC weekend show has a regular banned book segment that has introduced me to a lot of wonderful books I hadn’t bothered to read before.
TONYG
@Not that proud: Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess that you lived in a “blue” state. In East Shit-Hole Alabama, the percentage of kid opting out might be 80% or 90%. Making dumb states even dumber.
Harrison Wesley
Won’t this lead to a big push for vouchers?
sab
@Suzanne: I agree. I think I am almost a generation older than you. My stepkids and their cousins are all around forty years old.
Another Scott
Made me look…
LincolnCottage.org:
The idea that simply being exposed to teachings that you don’t like is a automatically a “very real threat” is dangerous nonsense that needs to be fought with all our might. If we don’t fight against it, the monsters will win by default.
The monsters got the advantages of a good education (and apply it in bad ways). Denying those advantages to everyone else is pretty much the textbook definition of elitist and exclusionary and unAmercian.
Grr…
In the early 1970s, I changed schools in middle school just before a very basic intro sex ed class (segregated by gender). All the kids were given a permission slip to get signed before hand, but the timing was wrong and I didn’t have a signed slip. The teachers huddled a bit and decided that I could take the class without making any production of it – I just sat in my normal seat like everyone else. (My parent would have signed.) My recollection is that nobody was excluded – it was regarded as kind of a joke that we needed our parents permission (“Ooh! Forbidden Knowledge!!11”).
(Professed) Religion doesn’t trump all in society. It’s way past time to throw that doctrine out.
Best wishes,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne: Don’t be absurd: for some people it’s the whole point.
different-church-lady
@TONYG: What worries me is dumb is now a superpower.
jonas
Of course it does. Why do you think they ruled that way? It’s like with public swimming pools in the South (and many other cities). As soon as you have to share them with *those* people, then no-one gets them. Or you have to join a fancy private school/country club.
I’m sure 2025 or 26 will be the year we see some state rep in OK, TX or AL introduce a bill to just end all public instruction and give everyone a voucher good only at religiously-run schools. (Of course it will be a super measly bullshit voucher that covers nothing, so only upper middle-class white families can afford any schooling at all.) If they haven’t already and I’ve just missed it…
TONYG
@Steve LaBonne: Not the same thing, but … When I was a young teenager I went through a phase for a couple of years of taking my (Catholic) religion seriously. Reading the Bible, reading about Catholic theology and actually thinking. about it. (Thinking? That was my problem.). As a result, by the time I was 17 I had abandoned all religion. I haven’t looked back since.
Steve LaBonne
@Harrison Wesley: It has already led to states like Ohio draining into massive voucher programs a big chunk of the money that should be going to public schools, putting the latter under severe financial stress. (And yet I almost think it’s worth it to get racist / fundie parents away from the public schools. Well not really but you can see what I mean.)
narya
I want to see this decision implemented the same way that things like “work requirements” (i.e., job loss penalties) are implemented for Medicaid. Bury any request in paperwork and red tape. You want your kid to sit out this class? Great; come pick them up and make sure they’re back in time for the next class. You can pay for a private aide to sit with your student–here’s the cost of that, because we must approve that person. Make sure there are plenty of forms to fill out, too.
Steve LaBonne
@TONYG: It’s notorious that the number one way conservative seminary students lose their faith is serious study of the Bible. Which is why the ones run by denominations like the SBC heavily police what their faculty teach.
TONYG
@different-church-lady: That’s right. Ever since the election of Reagan almost 45 years ago, stupidity and ignorance have been treated as proof that a person is a Real American. Trump is just the latest and most extreme manifestation of that.
sab
And now some idiots in Ohio are trying to get a measure on the ballot to make propety taxes unconstitutional. We are also switching to a single income tax bracket.
Property taxes fund our schools, our libraries, children’s services, disability service, public parks, mental health and drug/ alcohol treatment…
The state used to help out on a lot of that, but it cannot afford to any more, because of state tax cuts.
Apparently the only government functions these guys want is police and fire.
Steve LaBonne
@narya: A district that tries that will be in court all the time at ruinous expense.
TONYG
@narya: Yes; I’d like to see that. AND MAKE SURE THAT THE KIDS ARE TESTED AND GRADED ON THE CONTENT OF EVERY GODDAMN MINUTE OF CLASS TIME THAT THEIR IDIOT PARENTS HAVE FORCED THEM TO MISS.
Lobo
Malicious compliance: Schools have two tracks, the wonder bread track, which has nothing offensive to anyone and the whole grain track, actual education. Let the wonder bread kids stare at their virtual lessons all day in safety, while the rest learn.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: In a world where the political climate would allow property taxes to be replaced by progressive local income taxes that would be a good thing. Of course we don’t live in anything remotely resembling that world.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
That would certainly save them the trouble of having to evangelize.
But again, if their religion is so great, why does it need government assistance?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
p.a.
Can’t speak to other monotheist religions but don’t large swaths of Xtianity (which I struggle to really consider monotheist) consider the very existence of other thought a threat? A deadly temptation to the believers. Then put xtianists in charge of education and…
TONYG
@Steve LaBonne: Yes. The Old Testament, in particular, is absolutely insane. The God of the Old Testament is a really crazy, cruel asshole who should have switched to decaf. One thing that might be noteworthy is that during my long-ago Catholic church-going days the priests almost never talked about the Old Testament. Just a lot of talk about that hippie Jesus guy and his (benign) miracles. The Evangelicals, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with the Old Testament. I have a very low opinion of the Catholic Church, but the Evangelicals seem to have taken it to another level.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
different-church-lady
@TONYG:
NOMMMMMMMM-MINATED!
Lobo
Malicious compliance: Schools offer two tracks, the wonder bread track, that contains no offensive material at all and the whole grain track, the education track. The wonder bread track allows the kids to stare at the screens immersed in their virtual lessons where they are not challenged at all.
Spanky
@TONYG: Apparently, none of the Christianists have heard of the New Covenant.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Oh, I know that. But I also know what they say, what they claim about themselves and the power of God in their lives. I’ve spent decades of my life being at least evangelical-adjacent, so to speak.
TONYG
@Steve LaBonne: The property tax “system” is deliberately awful. In my own state (New Jersey) it’s a way of prevent people in wealthy suburbs from paying for schools that Those Other People’s Kids go to in Newark and Paterson and Camden.
Geminid
@TONYG: From what I can tell, the part of the New Testament that a lot of Evangelicals fixate on most is the Book of Revelations. That, and Paul’s various cranky Letters.
bbleh
@lowtechcyclist: @sab: @Steve LaBonne: The inevitable backlash by kids in all but the most isolated and homogeneous communities is gonna be borderline hilarious.
What better way to get late primary / secondary school kids to want something — especially something as tame as reading a book — than to make a BIG point of saying it is Forbidden?
This is just gonna accelerate the division of the country into a few backward islands in a sea of increasing modernization.
“You can fence yourselves in, but you can’t fence the world out.”
Glidwrith
@lowtechcyclist: Because their version of Christianity is white male supremacy. Religion as a fig leaf for their hate and true education reveals their bigotry.
TONYG
@Lobo: That could work. And then the high school diplomas for kids who took the dumb track could get a special sticker. What will probably happen in reality is this: In a handful of wealthy, “liberal” towns the school systems will actively resist this bullshit — not really for idealistic reasons but so that Jimmy and Becky will continue to have a good chance of getting into Harvard. (Admissions office already know the relative value of diplomas at different high schools.). Most towns, however, will take the path of least resistance and just dumb everything down.). And differences in education and wealth will increase accordingly. Another feature, not a bug, of this nonsense.
TONYG
@Spanky: I’m pretty sure that most of the Christianists have never even heard of Christ! Just that angry guy smiting people.
Elizabelle
@Lobo: I like your idea of malicious compliance. Let the teachers teach those students whose parents value an actual education.
The wonder bread types can stare at screens. (To their detriment.)
TONYG
@Geminid: That’s right. Bitching and moaning — and finally Jesus coming back to kick ass.
Lobo
@TONYG:
One can hope.
lowtechcyclist
@nary:
I have nary_a clue of what your usual nym is. ;-)
Glidwrith
@sab: There’s a county in Oregon that basically did that. Josephine, I think. Result was they have no services, not even police or fire department and they have to rely on adjacent counties for help.
Suzanne
@Lobo:
Much of the right-wing Christian cohort are already pissed that they have no influence in academia. LMAO.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I don’t know. Why does God need a starship?
Another Scott
@TONYG: Made me look.
Genesis 3:
Lots of things are going on there.
Talking serpents asking leading questions to make you think. Thinking is bad!!
What the talking serpent said was actually right. They didn’t die – God lied to them (but that’s Ok because reasons). They did gain knowledge and become more like God, rather than being so childlike. Being an independent adult is bad!!
Woman is weak. Easily tricked by talking serpents when they think for themselves and she messed up Adam’s easy life (and would be punished for it). Woman is bad!
All powerful God that made the universe and everything is bad at playing hide and seek!
:-/
Seriously, it’s obviously a bunch of stories and not a factual representation of some ancient events. It’s not a universal instruction manual of how society should work for all time. And there’s lots of tools of oppression there. Unsurprisingly, as the books were written in times when reading and writing were controlled by those that wanted to hold onto power, as with those RWNJs today…
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TONYG
@bbleh: That’s right. The people that come up with this nonsense have either never met a kid or (more likely) never talk to their own kids. Not to mention the fact that … Close to 100% of teenagers have access to a smart phone. That means that any such teens have easy, immediate, confidential access to any variety of porn that they want. Reading a book in class is nothing compared to that. The idiot parents seem to think that the year is 1955, not 2025. If they want their kids to grow up a certain way, then the parents need to get off their asses and do the hard work of (trying to) raise their kids.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: Preferably the fake ones.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: We’re returning to a time when the white kids got good schools and the rest got whatever their parents and communities could gin up.
Steve LaBonne
@p.a.: True since the very beginning of Christianity. And very much out of step with normal attitudes toward religion in the Roman world.
TONYG
@Another Scott: Just crazy stories, written more than 2,000 years ago. The Old Testament (like other books of mythology) is actually pretty interesting. But it has about as much to do with modern notions of right or wrong as do other ancient texts of mythology.
Baud
@p.a.:
Reminds me of social media.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Never stopped being that way in the South. Below the Mason-Dixon line you can bet your bottom dollar that any private “Christian” school started life as a seg academy and pretty much still is one.
Suburban Mom
US housing prices tend to be tied to the perceived quality of local public schools. In the middle and upper-middle class suburbs, families will over-extend themselves to pay for a house in a good district. I’m surprised there isn’t more screaming more about this.
lowtechcyclist
@TONYG:
Or at least the parts of it that affirm their tribal beliefs that they want their religion to ratify.
For instance, there’s a whole bunch of OT verses that say the foreigner in your land should be treated the same as everyone else there, and the Lord loves them and you must love them too: don’t forget that you were once aliens in Egypt.
But do you see them in the streets protesting against this Administration’s plans for mass deportation? That would be a big nope.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Oh they have, but it’s just “I’ve committed my life to Christ so no matter what happens, I’m going to heaven” and then they go back to being assholes to all the people they’re prejudiced against.
different-church-lady
@Professor Bigfoot: Going back? Pft, we’ve been there for years.
different-church-lady
@TONYG: 2000 year old crazy stories after they’ve gone through a whole mess of lost-in-translation, that is.
Steve LaBonne
@Suburban Mom: The right has been employing salami tactics for quite a while and too many people still haven’t grasped what the endgame is.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
???
Not sure what I’m missing here.
p.a.
Relates to the movement to castrate universities: if whole school systems are decertified by accreditation groups and SAT/ACT or whatever else is current (I’m old so out of the loop) and by colleges (under the table of course) the ruling could be DOA, unless the parents ALL want to send little Bobby & Jill to I-Memorized-the-Bible University.
Tim C
Hey! That’s me! (cooptimo on bluesky!)
So, one thing to mention is that there is also, in education, a huge tension between the “Our kids should be talented and know stuff” conservatives and the “Education is all a scam and they just need to know the bible” conservatives. The six theocrats of SCOTUS simply can’t square the circle on this. Likewise, it’s a lot like the “Kitty Litter in the Bathrooms” myth. Likewise, I teach at a just-on-the-edge of a blue city district, I describe my district as Half San Francisco and half Arkansas.
The right-wing kids are, in general, with exceptions, far more likely to be culturally bound to devalue education, hide in the bathroom, and to cheat. Likewise, the pressure on teachers to pass kids who don’t do anything is one of the huge scandals in education already. The real unknown is how many home “schooled” kids end up back in class for a short time before they flee again to the screens at home.
TONYG
@Another Scott: This might not have any significance, but I’ve long thought that it was interesting that (at least in English translations) God in the Bible is usually referred to as The Lord. A lord, of course, is a man who controls the lives and deaths of lesser humans (slaves, serfs and peasants). A human lord can lie, steal and kill with impunity. The same is true of The Lord in the Bible. So it’s not a surprise that the people who want The Lord to be in charge of the world also want a human lord (Trump now; other men in other eras) to be in charge. They really are stuck in the Bronze Age.
TONYG
@lowtechcyclist: Obligatory “We Built This City” reference, perhaps.
Mr. Bemused Senior
If you are referring to planet Earth the question answers itself.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
youtu.be/WYW_lPlekiQ?feature=shared
trollhattan
President Grant remains my go-to on federal $ for religious education. But what did he know?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
You’ve shared the reference, but I’m still perplexed.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud: hmm, one of the few I haven’t seen. Thanks.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Beings who need starships aren’t God.
Beings who need the power of the state to support them aren’t God.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Beings aren’t God.
Baud
Alaska senators bringing home the whale bacon.
New Deal democrat
@sab:
Ironically, yesterday’s decision undercuts the entire rationale for Pierce vs. Society of Sisters, the 100+ year old case that allowed parochial schools to be attended in lieu of public schools, because the teaching in public schools (allegedly) conflicted with Catholic doctrine.
But if religious freedom mandates that parents must be allowed to let their public school children to opt out of anything they think conflicts with their religious dogma, what’s the point?
Or, more cynically, I’ve been wondering how this Court could nuke the right to privacy without overruling Pierce. Yesterday’s decision gives them the legalistic framework to do so, since now it could fit under the non-establishment clause instead.
Gin & Tonic
@TONYG: Kind of tangential, and not going to link to Twitter because the crowd here doesn’t like it, but some dude from Chicago who posts from time to time as “@Pontifex” just put up a couple of very nice tweets, in Ukrainian, supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians. Partly “I share your pain for the prisoners and victims of this pointless war.”
I like this guy better than his predecessor.
Mr. Bemused Senior
It’s in the job description.
Professor Bigfoot
@Glidwrith: God over Man, Man over Woman, White over Black, Christian over Jew or Muslim or Hindu or (God forbid!) an atheist.
White Christian male supremacy over all others.
The others “have no rights a white man must observe.”
Spanky
@Glidwrith:
Moochers!
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m glad the first American pope has been a better American and a better Pope than most Americans and Popes.
Elizabelle
Here’s youtube channel for live coverage of Melissa and Mark Hortman funeral, which has just begun.
It may be a good resource for learning more about their lives and careers too.
Former Pres Biden and MVP Kamala Harris are in attendance.
Beautiful music, and I should know this piece. It’s famous …
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Glad to hear Harris is there too. Makes sense given Walz.
Elizabelle
To stay with topic of this thread: the Hortman murder is what happens when you divide and frighten and polarize people so much. They send messages to their wife that “Dad went to war last night,” when they shot two couples in their own homes, plus one goofy sweet Golden Retriever who flunked out of service dog training.
Killer was a prepper and a weird religious fanatic. He had been frightened and terrorized his whole life by false messages, which he could not see past.
Rightwing owns this. Which is why the story disappeared from the MSM for weeks. Meanwhile, the images of Felon47 and his damaged ear; you could not get away from those.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Pope Leo may be less constrained by his times than the late Pope Francis was.
And yes, Leo is a breath of fresh air.
Mr. Bemused Senior
The MSM is not our ally.
[I know, “duh!” Still, it bears repeating.]
Elizabelle
@Baud: I truly don’t want to see the Senators load that BBB up with so much local pork that it passes, however narrowly, and destroys the rest of us.
Hope it goes down in flames. Whale boat captains can benefit from a subsequent bill.
Baud
Baud
@Elizabelle:
It’s going to pass.
Elizabelle
Love it. The presiding priest welcomed President Biden and VP Harris. No “former.”
New Deal democrat
A current summarization of Constitutional law:
Supreme Court, 1857: “[Blacks] ha[ve] no rights which the white man [i]s bound to respect”
Supreme Court, 2025: “the American born children of illegal immigrants have no rights that society is bound to respect.”
Trump: “It is hereby ordered that all Black people may be lynched.”
“It is hereby ordered that all Brown people may be deported without any notice or hearing.”
“It is hereby ordered that all gay people may be imprisoned.”
Supreme Court: “Tut tut, whatever shall we do about all these nationwide injunctions staying Executive acts?”
Supreme Court, Democratic President: “The major questions doctrine means that the President may not undertake any action, even if it specifically allowed by the text of a law, unless the current Congress specifically re-authorizes that act.”
Supreme Court, GOP President: “The unitary executive doctrine means that the President may undertake any action, even if it is specifically forbidden by the text of a law, unless the current Congress specifically renews that prohibition.”
trollhattan
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Once they rounded up fat white middle-age guy in field the possibility of swarthy possibly foreign-born criminal suspect drained away. IOW no story.
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot:
Billionaires: we want cheap labor so we can get richer.
Also billionaires: we want a nation of consumers with enough money to buy all the goods and services we provide.
Also billionaires: we don’t want to pay for the taxes necessary to build a solid infrastructure (including public education)) that will enable goal two.
Christian Nationalists: ooh, ooh, can we play this game too? We’d love to f*ck up public education.
End result: first an erosion, then a series of cascading economic failures leading to complete collapse making the Great Depression seem like a mild recession and the evaporation of all wealth.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: more like an added bonus, actually.
Downpuppy
There’s one possible outcome that could be at least a little amusing:
P: I don’t approve this homosexual material based on my religion.
T: And what religion is that?
P: Christian.
T: That’s a large & diverse group. Can you be more specific?
P: Ummm…Methodist?
T: Thanks. Now I can look this up and be sure to help you. Hmmm – Methodists perform gay weddings..
Matt
My take: indoctrinating children into the manipulative and perverted nonsense that is modern fundamentalist “Christianity” is child abuse, point-blank.
We can solve those parents’ concern and save their kids from abuse in one simple step: take the kids away.
Churches should be regulated and taxed the same way as every other adult-oriented enterprise that specializes in selling lies to suckers, from gambling to go-go-dancing.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: He is fantastic.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: James T. Kirk in one of the Star Trek movies when the rogue probe V’ger was posing as a god and asking for the Enterprise
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist: i am of the opinion that the majority of American Christians and the overwhelming majority of Evangelical christians are just people who got dunked in a magic bathtub as children because their parents pressured them into it. And then, having been dunked in the magic bathtub, they were better than everyone else and could be absolutely hateful and still get into heaven.
I would remind them that jesus christ only ever talked about hell twice. And on one of those two occasions, he made a point of saying that that, come judgment day, a lot of people who claim to be Christians would be condemned because “I never knew you.”
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud:
@lowtechcyclist: if God is all-powerful, what does he need of any created thing (starships, money, political power, etc)?
Another Scott
@New Deal democrat: Consistency doesn’t matter to these monsters.
I’m reminded of the demands that many RWNJs seem to have that their home-schooled darlings must be able to participate in public school team sports and similar events. Because to exclude them is unfair and against their sincerely held religious beliefs and such like.
The only fair thing to do is to allow everyone to pick and choose however they want on their say so.
Every societal system must be broken to accommodate these noisy monsters, no matter the lack of logic (or standing or facts or the plain black letter of the law and regulations say). Otherwise is oppression, according to the Roberts SCOTUS.
Grr…
Fight for 15!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Not that proud
@TONYG:
I grew up in Springfield, Missouri. I no longer live there and the state has become more conservative since I left, but Springfield has become more liberal.
Elizabelle
The pastor informs that the children gave him permission to go political with his homily. He brought up Yeats’ “The Second Coming” and that George Floyd was murdered just a few miles away.
Stripping away the religiosity, it’s an interesting homily. And I think he has taken a few stabs at Felon47 (praising those who showed up in person to mourn) and the ugliness he has fomented and unleashed.
Truly. Where is God when Felon47 survives an attempt on his life, and we lose far better people to violence
ETA: The pastor mentioned he is also a professor at St. Thomas Law School.
Not that proud
Tony, I grew up in Springfield, Missouri. I no longer live there, and the state has become more conservative since I left, but the city has become somewhat more liberal.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Captain Kirk knew that the “God” he was talking to was an impostor, because it was demanding control of his starship. A God who makes petty demands like that doesn’t sound like much of a God.
(It’s a nice moment in an otherwise ludicrous movie, one of the worse outings in the Star Trek series.)
Steve LaBonne
@Citizen Alan: The Pew Foundation periodically does surveys of knowledge about the major religions. Atheists and UUs always come out ahead of Christians even on knowledge of Christianity.
japa21
@Elizabelle: Pope Francis prepared the ground for Pope Leo. By filling the Church with Bishops and Cardinals who are more progressive Francis gave more backup for Leo.
NB: I do not expect any major changes in the Church’s view of homosexuality or abortion. I do expect there to be less focus on those two issues however. And Trump is actually making that easier. The Archbishop of San Diego came out very strongly against the ICE roundups. He is also an immigrant.
I do expect to see more change in terms of the role of women in the Church. Francis led the way on that and I fully expect Leo to expand on it. Not for priesthood, but there has been a call for women bishops and that may be happening within the next decade.
Professor Bigfoot
@Citizen Alan: I remember very little of Hell being talked about growing up in a Black church.
But then, we were specifically taught that it was the Romans who killed Jesus, not the Jews.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: As a species we’re now well aware that there are billions and billions of galaxies, each filled with billions of starts.
I want to know, why would the Creator of ALL THAT have ANY concern about what a bunch of monkeys on a backwater planet in a backwater solar system in a backwater arm of a backwater galaxy do with their privates? Like, doesn’t He have bigger fish to fry?
Elizabelle
@japa21: Agreed. All good points.
Matt McIrvin
@Kayla Rudbek: V’Ger was a different superbeing. This general sort of thing happened to them a *lot*.
Not that proud
@sab:
That’s a fair point. I meant more from a legal perspective. If you recall about 15 years ago, there was a move by liberal states to ban gay conversion therapy. Those laws have been largely upheld, though it looks like there is a new challenge at the Supreme Court. I think it’s likely that if blue states can ban conversion therapy on the grounds that it’s harmful to children, red states can likely ban medical transition on ground that it’s harmful to children, but using their own view of harm. I don’t agree with their view, but law is always going to cut both ways.
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: I think that is why T. Jefferson and other Founding Fathers and others were deists, seeing God in nature. They believed in science and using one’s curiosity and intelligence.
Religion is pretty much men controlling the rest of us. Often, rules for thee, but not for me.
Not that proud
Sab, fair point about cancer treatments. If you recall, a lot of blue states have banned conversion therapy for LGBTQ on the grounds that it’s harmful to children. Those laws have largely been upheld, though there is a new case at the Supreme Court to be heard in the fall. I just think if we can ban certain treatments due to the harms they cause, it’s likely they can also ban certain treatments based on their own views of harm. I don’t necessarily agree with those views, but the law cuts both ways.
narya
@Steve LaBonne: I resemble that remark . . .
Not that proud
@Baud:
The lead plaintiffs in this case are Muslim.
Elizabelle
@japa21: Looking at your comment again: women bishops before women priests? Interesting.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
You don’t know what kinds of crazy rules he’s imposed on other planets.
Hoodie
@Elizabelle: Women run a lot of day to day things in Catholic parishes, hospitals, etc., so it would make some sense.
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
Sure that isn’t @Pontifexpetasum? ;-)
(petasum = Latin for ‘hat’)
Agree that Leo seems like an improvement over Francis. And given that Francis was the best Pope since at least John XXIII, that’s saying a lot.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
They kept on blubbering to her until she gave in. ;-)
Harrison Wesley
So the big match will be Pope Leo vs. Leonard Leo?
Elizabelle
@Hoodie: Yes. Was thinking it would be administrative.
lowtechcyclist
@Downpuppy:
Nah, P (pupil? parent?) would be specific about which Methodist denomination they were from. It would have a specific name, and it would not be the United Methodist Church, which performs gay weddings.
Just like if P was Lutheran, it would be the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (or some other even more RW synod) and not the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America which performs gay weddings.
Betty
@Gin & Tonic: Yes. Pope Leo is someone the world needs right now. He is not afraid to take on all the haters and evildoers, but does it using the language of peace and love.
Captain C
@Geminid: Hence the complaints of Jesus’ own words being too ‘woke’.
lowtechcyclist
@Kayla Rudbek:
So I saw. But whatever point Baud was trying to make still eludes me.
trollhattan
@Kayla Rudbek:
Have always treasured the species that mastered intergalactic travel and not Scotchbrite technology. Priorities.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Baud: thks for the link, I thought maybe “why does God need a space ship” was a reference to Elon Musk’s failed space program on which our vicious government still wants to spend money.
MagdaInBlack
@Another Scott:
[ “What the talking serpent said was actually right. They didn’t die – God lied to them (but that’s Ok because reasons). They did gain knowledge and become more like God, rather than being so childlike. Being an independent adult is bad!! “]
Sounds a wee bit like they became “self-aware” doesn’t it ?
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist: In other words, a get-out-of-hell-free card so they can sin all they want.
Harrison Wesley
@MagdaInBlack: As God warned them, FAFO.
Elizabelle
Tim Walz speaking.
I am so intensely grateful that Felon47 stayed the eff away from all of this. He has no class, and would have diminished the service by his presence.
Elizabelle
Walz’s praise of Melissa and Mark is a slap at what is in the oval office today. He is drawing such a distinction between them and what is going on, now, without ever saying it. The listeners and readers can draw the inference.
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen Alan:
Having married a woman who grew up Southern Baptist, I’ve got somewhat of a different take. First of all, the pre-teen years seem to be the typical age when they choose to answer the call at the end of the service, go up to the altar rail, and make their commitment to Christ, as their parents and the congregation beams with pride. Second, parental pressure isn’t really needed – it’s something they grow up anticipating as a rite of passage, but one where they get to choose the circumstances. But third, there’s rarely anything remotely transformational about it: afterwards, life goes on pretty much like it always did for them. Nothing that would remotely live up to the phrase “born again.”
I imagine that many of them feel a bit disillusioned afterwards, and as someone whose conversion experience was every bit as transformational as the phrase ‘born again’ suggests, I can’t help but feel sorry for them.
I’m sure a lot of them go that route. And many others get disillusioned and ultimately leave.
Another Scott
+1
Or, hey, we can compromise. We can use these.
Finally! A religion for us Eeyores!!
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
WTFGhost
Everyone in Texas should suddenly become Catholic and say that going to a school that displays the *wrong* decalog undermines their religious instruction. After all, protestants are all going to hell for wandering away from the one holy catholic and apostolic church.
As soon as they are done with that fight, turn protestant, and insist they’re wrong *AGAIN*. You can become Jewish next time, and say they’re *still* wrong.
There really are three different versions, you know. Catholics have no problem with graven images, that are not worshipped, protestants do. That’s why protestants wear a cross, not a crucifix (with Jesus on the cross). Of course, most people think the Ten Commandments were brought down from a movie set by Charlton Heston, so….
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: There’s another way people can go. They can start to fake religious ecstasy, proclaiming that they are in constant communication with the lord, that they pray over every decision, and the lord responds to them.
People who do this, and know they’re faking, will probably leave sooner or later, but, they might back people like the next type. See, if you do this hard enough, you can become an EmptyG (Marge T’s preferred backronym) and think your own cray-cray inner voice is The Word Of The Lord, and ignore how it always tells you to do what you think will cover you, personally, in the most glory.
This is how and why so many evangelicals can support Trump. He is, quite simply, what they want, with all of their dreams of POWER and glory and POWER and god and POWER and Jesus and, uh, faith, and POWER and hope, and POWER and what’s that third thing? Faith, hope and something, and the greatest of these is, uh, FAITH, because it came first!
Oh, yes, and POWER. And you’ll always know you’re right, just like a serial killer does.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Back in the day with Landover Baptist we would get a constant stream of kids from these religious schools coming in and complaining how useless the education they were getting. Mostly the teachers would spend the class preaching, never get around to English or math.
There have been plenty of surveys commission by the Evangelicals showing the best way to make a child into a hard core atheist is screaming the Bible at him all day.
The failure of the Evangelicals is the context this is being done in.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@lowtechcyclist: Pontifex = Bridge Inspector.
From “Pontus” Latin for Sea.
Bridges were a big deal in Rome and those river gods needs to be pleased.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
In Christianity God is a perfect, all knowing, all powerful being who transcends the universe. Any being who is so limited as to need a space craft isn’t God.
TONYG
@Gin & Tonic: good
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So what, these people chop out any mention of King David in The Bible?
p.a.
Everyone convert to Catholicism and demand our bishops defend the often-but-not-always (evangelical inroads) Catholic immigrant neighbors: a potential wedge between Cathofascism and Rethuglican evangelical bigots.
Gretchen
@Not that proud: why do you think banning transition meds is minor? Going through puberty or not is a major difference for a trans kid that can’t be completely redone later.
Harrison Wesley
@p.a.: That just happened in California.
Kent
@lowtechcyclist: Is this the case in Arlington that we are talking about?
I thought it was Muslim parents who were the anti-LGBT bigots who sued here, not Christian parents.
Or do Muslim bigots become honorary Christians when they hate on LGBT people?
p.a.
@Kent: The W admin allied with Muslim nations to try (can’t remember success or fail) denying international birth control/women’s health measures through UN & WHO.
Kent
@Not that proud: You might have a point.
Liberal bans on conversion therapy and conservative bans on gender-affirming care for minors are both premised on the state knowing what is best for children and not the parents (both overrule parental rights).
Allowing conversion therapy might be the price for overturning bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
Now I agree entirely that they aren’t the same thing. But both could be argued legally as a violation of parental and family rights.
TerryC
@TONYG: OMG! Stuck in the BRONZER age?
Baud
Citizen Alan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Heretic! David and Jonathan were just really good friends!
zhena gogolia
Lalo Schifrin, RIP.
Lyrebird
@Baud:
Oh, YES!
One of my classmates in middle school history had a note from home that she was not allowed to read “The King Must Die” by iirc Mary Renault. EVERYONE ELSE read it way more thoroughly than they read other assignments, to make sure they found whatever those parents were objecting to. The teacher later in the year said something like, “I could NEVER assign Renault’s book Persian Boy, because too many parents would object. There are some copies on that shelf over there by some happenstance, but I am NOT ASSIGNING IT.”
Both books were amazing.
I still fear for every LGBTQ kid’s safety, and anyone else who just doesn’t look the way some haters want them to look, but I am so happy for the authors of the books with the gay characters and all that, because nothing drives up teen readership like banning a book!
japa21
@Elizabelle:
my error, I meant deacons
cain
@TONYG:
Ironically, if people read the Bible instead of it being told to them .. the religious forces would have to ban reading the Bible because it would have the effect it had on you.
Instead they will make you read the old testament.
lowtechcyclist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Agreed. Still not connecting. Nevermind.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
That was one of my first thoughts too. And since what they usually do with the Commandments is post them on the walls of all the classrooms, it’s not like the objecting students can just leave the room for a little while – they’re there all the time. So they’d have to take them down. That should be a pretty easy win under this decision.
lowtechcyclist
@WTFGhost:
That brings back memories from such a distant part of my Christian life that I rarely think about it anymore. Back in the summer of 1971, a bunch of us found a Pentecostal fellowship that a woman led in her house. Lots of speaking in tongues, and Sister R. would prophesy, always starting off, “O my people, o my people…” before launching into her alleged prophecy.
One aspect of that fellowship that I recall was that people did seem to pray about the smallest things in their lives – not quite at the level of praying about whether to go to the bathroom now or later, but almost.
A bunch of us grew out of that fellowship and its overall dynamic together, and continued fellowshipping together in a more normal way, no tongues, no prophecies, no obsession with praying over trivial decisions. So I have no experience with people who don’t grow out of that latter sort of behavior early on in life.
I’ve only become aware of Christian Dominionists and the like in the past several years, and to say I don’t grok them is an understatement. “Love not the world,” says John in his first epistle. And what could be more worldly than seeking power and dominion over others? “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” What, that was just about him, but he gave his life so we could order others around?
I just don’t get it. I’d love to have a conversation with Russell Vought or someone like that and ask, “where the hell do you get this crap from? I don’t see it in my Bible.” Sure, if you can’t get people to open their hearts to the love of the Lord, just have everybody act in the way you think such people should act. Create lots of hollow ‘Christians’ like the ones evangelicals used to deride the mainline churches for cranking out. I really don’t get it.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: “Should” is doing an awful lot of work there.
Steve LaBonne
@cain: For most of its history the Catholic Church strongly discouraged laypeople from reading the Bible and translating it it into a vernacular would get you executed for heresy.
dnfree
@Citizen Alan: Many of the most devout evangelical Christians I know grew up either in a mainstream branch of Christianity (I know former Catholics) or were raised with no religious background. They are CONVERTS, with the level of belief and dedication that sometimes implies. And some move on from evangelicalism to Orthodox Christianity (the eastern branch of Christianity), believing it to be even more restrictive.