Birmingham Blues

From Think Progress, here’s Mike Huckabee campaigning in Michigan:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

I guess Huckabee forgot the wingnut party line that this country was founded as a Christian nation. However did those staunch fundamentalists screw up God’s Constitution so badly?

Huckabee scares the crap out of me. He’s engaging and funny, he plays in a band, and he can say batshit crazy things like the above and draw applause. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not interested in a theocracy.

Saudis Defend Punishment for Rape Victims

The Saudi judiciary on Tuesday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.

The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia’s rigid Islamic law requiring segregation of the sexes.

But in considering her appeal of the verdict, the Saudi General Court increased the punishment. It also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the woman, Saudi news media said last week.

The reports triggered an international outcry over the Saudis punishing the victim of a terrible crime.

But the Ministry of Justice stood by the verdict Tuesday, saying that “charges were proven” against the woman for having been in a car with a man who was not her relative.

The ministry implied the victim’s sentence was increased because she spoke out to the press…

Not to worry, though; the US, intent on liberating oppressed people living under fundamentalist tyranny and punishing the country that produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, attacked Saudi Arabia and overthrew its…

Oh, never mind.

Uh oh. Looks like someone still hasn’t done enough ass-kissing.

James Dobson has a real problem with Fred Thompson. Back in March, he called the US News & World Report to say that Thompson didn’t fit his definition of Christian (and we all know that God gave Dobson final say on that). Now he’s emailing his pals to say he won’t support Fred.

DENVER (AP) — James Dobson, one of the nation’s most politically influential evangelical Christians, made it clear in a message to friends this week he will not support Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.

In a private e-mail obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, Dobson accuses the former Tennessee senator and actor of being weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives.

“Isn’t Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won’t talk at all about what he believes, and can’t speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?” Dobson wrote.

“He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent ‘want to.’ And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!”

He’s right that Fred appears to be the Great Hope of the Republican party (and he might want to be careful about using that particular phrase, as it automatically brings to mind the word “white”), so what will he and his minions do if Thompson is the nominee? And who will he support in the meantime?

(more…)

 D. James Kennedy, head of Coral Ridge Ministries, has now joined Jerry Falwell in whatever afterlife awaits theocracy-loving homophobes.  My mama tried to teach me that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.  Apparently, Mr. Kennedy’s mama neglected that lesson. 

Right Wing Watch collected a few of Kennedy’s choice comments.  I’ll let him speak for himself:

“As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society. We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government… our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors – in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.” (Christian Science Monitor, 3/16/2005)

“With other dangerous and contagious diseases, all sorts of efforts are made to identify those carrying the disease, and to minimize their contact with the public. And yet, here we have homosexual rights groups working day and night to make sure AIDS victims ARE NOT IDENTIFIED! … Until action is taken, AIDS victims are free to infect anyone …” (Newsletter, 1989)

Another newsletter item featured a photograph of very young children under the headline, “SEX WITH CHILDREN? HOMOSEXUALS SAY YES!” The newsletter went on to assert that “Adult sex with children has been a crucial component of the homosexual movement all along.”

“Whatever four members of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts may say, the intimate coupling of two men or two women is not marriage. It is a pale and misshapen counterfeit that will only serve to empty marriage of its meaning and destroy the institution that is the keystone in the arch of civilization. … If homosexuals win the right to ‘marry,’ expect further similarly argued claims challenging legal barriers to polygamy, bestiality, and child marriage.” (Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, 10/2003)

I’m not saying a word.

An Iowa county judge struck down the state’s ban on marriage equality yesterday and today the same judge issued a “verbal stay”.  But not before several couples filed applications for marriage licenses. Of course this is riling up the blowhards in thier state legislature who are renewing calls for a state constitutional amendment banning two men from tying the knot.

We really should just get it all out in the open shouldn’t we?

This isnt about “homosexual marriage” at all. It’s about the fact that certain people in goverment find the idea of two men together “icky”. Sorry lesbians, but str8 white guys don’t seem to have a problem with two gals getting it on. We can argue about mysogeny till we’re blue, pink, or a fantastic shade of fuscia in the face. But it’s the idea of two men having sex that turns off politicians.

Here’s an idea. Let gay folks marry and then they will stop having sex.

I’m not sure where I was going with this, if anywhere.

Anyway, it’s good to be back in Alabama and I hope that Kathy doesn’t mind me ranting on her blog.

Heres the story that “P.’d me O.”(cnn)

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has some rabid followers in the clergy.  In fact, a couple of them are so zealous that they are willing to break the law to endorse him.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Huckabee campaign volunteer Rev. Tim Rude, who sent an email to some Iowa Sam Brownback supporters, telling them that he and his staff were supporting Huckabee and they should too.  In the process of heaping praises on Huckabee, he made a snide reference to Brownback’s conversion to Catholicism (”Frankly, as a recovering Catholic myself, that is all I need to know about his discernment when compared to the Governor’s.”) for which he later “apologized”, saying he was only trying to encourage Protestants to vote for Protestants and that he never intended for the email to be made public.  I guess not.  No word yet on whether the IRS plans to re-evaluate the tax exempt status of his church.

Not to be outdone, Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of a Buena Park CA megachurch and former national leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, endorsed Huckabee on church letterhead and during a church-affiliated radio show.  That bit of blatant law-breaking was reported to the IRS by officials of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.  But Rev. Drake isn’t going down without a fight; last week he urged his followers to pray for the deaths of two AUSCS leaders.

Drake said Wednesday he was “simply doing what God told me to do” by targeting Americans United officials Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, whom he calls the “enemies of God.”

“God says to pray imprecatory prayer against people who attack God’s church,” he said. “The Bible says that if anybody attacks God’s people, David said this is what will happen to them. . . . Children will become orphans and wives will become widows.”

Imprecatory prayers are alternately defined as praying for someone’s misfortune, or an appeal to God for justice.

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office,” the prayer reads. “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Forgive me if I’m a bit confused.  I thought we were supposed to be all aflutter because Muslim extremists believe God wants their enemies to die, and here Drake is, pointing out the ugly underbelly of Christian fundamentalism.  He’d better hope nothing happens to either of these men.  I don’t think God will take the blame if some kook decides to dispense a little fundie “justice”.

PTSD Mom pointed me to this story:

BANQUETE - The director of a Christian boot camp and an employee were arrested Friday for allegedly dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run, authorities said.

Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp, were arrested on aggravated assault charges in the June 12 incident.

The two were accused of tying the girl to the van with a rope then dragging her, according to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday by the Nueces County Sheriff’s Department.

Love Demonstrated, huh?  As in my previous post, I missed the New Testament passage where Jesus advocates showing love by holding down a 15-year-old girl, tying her to the bumper of a van, and dragging her on her stomach — because she couldn’t keep up on the morning run.

(Side note:  She may have been hanging back on purpose, trying to disrupt the group, smart-mouthing, or whatever other justification these sorry excuses for humanity might attempt.  I don’t know, and I don’t give a damn.  You don’t treat a child in your care this way, period.  They’re sadistic scum, and I hope they go to prison.)

I’m almost laughing too hard to post this story*.  Almost.

Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.

It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.

Only open to women.  Well, of course.  No manly Baptist man would be interested in learning how to cook or sew or raise children.  And no good submissive Baptist woman would heed the call from God to the ministry when she could be popping out babies and decorating the house instead.

We all know that some guy who was writing in the style of the apostle Paul composed a missive in which he said, “And I (not God or Jesus or likely even Paul, mind you, just ‘I’, the author of the letter) do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man,” so if she thinks she heard that call, she must be mistaken.

Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and “clothing construction,” three hours of general homemaking, three hours on “the value of a child,” and three hours on the “biblical model for the home and family.”

 Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home, teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children’s spiritual, physical and emotional development.

Yeah, I realize that the Bible was written during a time where women were nothing more than the property of their fathers, husbands, or sons, but I forget the passages where Jesus treated them that way.  Clearly I missed the section of the Beatitudes where he said, “Women? Not so blessed.  They shall cook, clean, sew, decorate, raise the children, and do whatever their husbands tell them to do.  And if they think they hear a call to ministry, that’s just Dad kidding around.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the, um, creative force behind the homemaker degree is Paige Patterson, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention and current president of Southwestern Baptist.  He was a big part of the SBC’s purge of moderates during the 1980’s, and he oversaw changes in the Baptist Faith and Message decreeing that women aren’t allowed to be pastors and that wives should “graciously submit” to their husbands.

When Patterson went to Southwestern Baptist in 2003, he made it clear that women weren’t welcome on the faculty.  He and the school are now facing a federal discrimination suit because Professor Sheri Klouda, the only woman on the theology school’s faculty, was fired last spring.  According to the suit, she was told that her contract was terminated because she was “a mistake that the trustees needed to fix”.

Oddly enough, Patterson’s wife Dorothy is now the only woman on the faculty.  I guess she’s going to teach cooking, sewing, and submission.  For women only, of course.

****

* The online link from al.com is incomplete, so I’m working from the print story in the Birmingham News.  Yeah, I know, actually reading a newspaper?  It’s crazy. 

UPDATE:  Here’s a link to the complete story.

…because the family wasn’t willing to pretend he wasn’t gay.  This man served his country in Desert Storm, but the hypocrites at the Dallas church compared him to a thief or a murderer.  Well, screw them.  I expect Jesus is shaking his head in pure disgust right now.

via Americablog

We’re up over 200 comments in the most recent Ousley thread, so I’m going to open a new one (previous threads here if you need to catch up).  I don’t mean to be flip with the post title — I’m just running out of ideas.  Clearly, this story and its implications have touched many people.  Some are sad, some are angry, many are both, and it appears that for several people here this is the first opportunity in years to address their situations openly.  I’ll keep a forum going as long as you need it.  If it’s time to move on, go with God.  Healing comes in many forms, and I pray that everyone here finds the one that works.

If you want to stick around, please remember to be kind to one another.  Almost everyone who has stuck with this discussion has done so because they were hurt by Rick Ousley’s actions over the years.  Please don’t come here pretending to be someone you’re not (we had a little problem with a sock puppet recently, but that appears to be resolved).  Do your best to keep your language under control; too much profanity takes away from your message.  And, although recommendations and resources for addressing pastor misconduct and abuse are welcome, please don’t assume that one size fits all.

Thanks, everyone.