#AND secular + gender/sexuality neutral

[jazzypizzaz]

Wedding Ceremony Script

WELCOME

Please be seated!

Greetings Friends, Family, Loved ones.  Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits.  Adventurers and Road-weary Travelers.  Whether your journey was long or brief, we now find ourselves settled in, recovering HP, and ready to celebrate the union of our two favorite people. Set down your swords, ready your pints, and let’s hear a mighty Huzzah for J-- and H--!  HIP HIP!

DECLARATION OF INTENT

Long ago, in the fires of Mount Doom, a ring was made.  That was largely considered a bad idea, and a fine fellowship of folks basically took care of that already, so we are here to focus on the good things about rings!

Love, and the commitment to love is a very powerful thing.  Stronger than Andúril (An-dew-rul), more fulfilling than Elevenses, it is a force that can bring out the very best in us, and we see that evidence before us here today.  

J--, M--, you are now ready to embark on the biggest quest of your campaign so far.  Your friends and family stand at your side, with all the buffs and support spells they have slots for, to help and support you on this next step of your journey.  As you venture forth into your beautiful future, let your love and fellowship guide you, as you learn and grow together.

If there is anyone out there who feels that these two should not be married, please remember that most of the wedding party is armed.  

READING

I would now like to introduce, Karen, Aunt and godmother of the Bride, who will read “Roads Go Ever On”

Karen (Aunt and godmother of bride) - “Roads Go Ever Ever On” from The Hobbit 

Roads go ever ever on

Under cloud and under star,

Yet feet that wandering have gone

Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen

And horror in the halls of stone

Look at last on meadows green

And trees and hills they long have known

I would now like to introduce Karen, Aunt of the Groom, to read a poem JRR Tolkien wrote to his wife.

Lo! Young we are and yet have stood

like planted hearts in the great Sun

of Love so long (as two fair trees

in woodland or in open dale

stand utterly entwined and breathe

the airs and suck the very light

together) that we have become

as one, deep rooted in the soil

of Life and tangled in the sweet growth. 

OFFICIANT: Thanks to you both, you may now be seated.

VOWS

J-- and M-- will now read their vows they have prepared.

[They do so. Leading directly into "I do's" 

Cue line - …And to each other cleave forever, this our greatest quest. ]

I DO’S

M--, do you promise to love and cherish J--, from this day until the end of all things.

M - I do.

J--, do you promise to love and cherish M--, from this day until the end of all things. 

J - I do

RING EXCHANGE

Officiant takes rings from pocket.

People often say wedding bands are a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end. But these rings did have a beginning. The materials were formed a long time ago deep with the ground. Skilled, possibly dwarven, hands unearthed and formed them. Something beautiful was made from raw elements.

As Celebrimbor was the architect of the rings, so are you the architects of your love. Unearthed amid the trees and lakes, tested in the fires, and molded by adventure, it has been shaped into something extraordinary. You have made something beautiful, and incorruptible, where there was once nothing at all.

J--, as you place the ring on M--’s finger, please repeat after me.

OFFICIANT/J--: With this ring/ I thee Wed. 

OFFICIANT: M--, as you place the ring on J--’s finger, please repeat after me. 

OFFICIANT/--: With this ring/ I thee Wed.

OFFICIANT: May you and your love remain forever constant in each others sight, never fading to invisibility.  May you follow each other ever onward, down from this beginning. 

By the power vested in me by the Mayor of Michel Delving, the Thain of the Shire, and by the state of Georgia, I now pronounce you married. You may kiss.”

WILD APPLAUSE, OFFICIANT CLEARS TO THE SIDE FOR PHOTOS.

Father of the bride returns flowers

Recessional 

At its conclusion 

OFFICIANT: Thank you everyone for joining J-- and M-- on their special day. While the wedding party is taking their pictures, there will be snacks, drinks, and yard games in the tent. Enjoy!

[lafemmemacabre]

When I first started to see the very blatant signs that I might not be "fully straight" I thought my life was over.

Truly, I should've known I wasn't even into guys at all, but with all the indoctrination both religious and secular I was under, it's no wonder I just assumed I liked boys "too", but if realizing that I liked girls was scary and life-ending on itself, just the thought that I maybe ONLY liked girls and not guys at all was the most terrifying, suicide-worthy possibility to me.

I fainted for the first time the morning my mom told me she'd read the stuff I wrote venting about the looming terror of my own possible "bisexuality" and she was very clearly not happy about it or with me. Like, full on just everything went to black, my body went cold, pins and needles, paralyzed, and I lost consciousness for a few seconds.

I wish my almost 33 years old self could travel back in time and tell my 15 years old self that yes, not only are you not straight, you don't even like boys, and that while you're suffering a lot for it right now and want to kill yourself over it, your life will be amazing with time, and the lesbianism you're currently cursing and considering killing yourself over, is pretty much 95% of the reason you have anything good going on in your life now.

I wish I could tell my 15 years old self that through lesbianism they'd meet the love of their life, and that this beautiful butch lesbian, the real life incarnation of all the things society and their parents taught them to despise while subconsciously desiring it, would change their life around in ways they never imagined would be possible.

I don't know if my 15 years old self would've believed my time-traveling current-self about the incredible joy and fulfilling happiness lesbianism has given me. Knowing me, I might have trusted my older self's words but not felt the hope in my heart at the same time. I just still wish I could tell them.

It's heartwarming that now, for a lot of people, realizing that they're a lesbian is a moment of shocking joy and liberation, or even coveted mundane normalcy. It's great that what used to be a near death sentence for lots of us back in the mid 00s and earlier, for people younger than us, it's more and more common for it to be a positive discovery or just a neutral fact of life. But it's not always the case, even today, even in liberal urban centers.

To all the people coming to terms with their lesbianism less like receiving great or mundane news, and more like being told a loved one is terminally ill, please know lesbianism can end up being the greatest reason for your future joys.

I suffered so much back then. I legitimately, non-hyperbolically, thought my life was downright over. That I'd never be able to have a normal life, that my parents would forever despise me for who I was unless I lived the whole rest of my life in hiding, that everyone around me would look at me with utter repulsion at knowing who and what I was, and I myself was disgusted and ashamed of what I was starting to realize I might be. I wanted to die if I couldn't just be normal about one (1) thing for once; if I couldn't have a husband, if I couldn't find a way to feel emotionally and sexually fulfilled by a man like I was taught I should be, unless I was monstrously broken in some detestable way.

But I'm glad now. I'm glad to be who I am now, I'm glad that I couldn't find that emotional fulfilling ever with a man because if I could maybe I wouldn't have met and married my wife, and regardless of gender, I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone other than them.

And maybe, some day, you'll be glad to be who you are too, like I am now.

Thank you, lesbianism. Sincerely and seriously, thank you so fucking much.

[st7arlight]

just in case some of you are misunderstanding me here. i am pro basically all types of queer people, including those with contradicting labels or Weird Funky xenogenders, especially those who have intersecting identities that affect their experience of gender/sexuality/queerness.

i'm disabled in multiple ways, am neurodivergent (including one of the stigmatized "bad" neurodivergencies), and im technically maybe intersex. all of these influence my identity. i'm a secular pagan. i use contradictory labels- im a transmasculine butch who's both a dyke and gay (in the boy way). the concept of canines and stars play into my queerness. i'm also ace and fluctuate between repulsed, neutral, and positive.

i make art to engage with my special interests and to share with people who identify with my experiences or art and, tbh, for the reward of knowing that what i do makes other people happy too.

rock hard, party on, and live life unapologetically <3

[cashwhisperer]

This greeting from Me (“Wishor”), to you (“Recipient”), is extended without obligation, implied or implicit, for best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, gender neutral, celebration of the secular winter solstice only. Any similarities to holidays celebrating the Festival of Lights, God, or birth of the baby Jesus are purely coincidental.

This greeting may be accepted in the context of the traditions of the religious or secular beliefs of your choice, regardless of sexual orientation, or operating system preference, and is void where prohibited by law. Acceptance by the recipient does not imply any endorsements or consent by the Wishor.

The good tidings expressed in this greeting are subject to further clarification or withdrawal, are revocable at the sole discretion of the Wishor, and are non transferable.

The Wishor implies no guarantee of actual results. The extent of the holiday spirit experienced will be determined by the effort recipient puts into it. The claims described are for illustration purposes only. Your results may vary.

[skinzchoerim]

instinct pt.1 and instinct pt.2 stOryline analysis

I've spent a lot of time in the past year thinking about these two albums. I found it curious that the first three songs mention women, skinz says gender doesn't matter and the rest of the songs are gender neutral while the MVs are gay. Since today is instinct pt.2's first anniversary and it's an album that changed my life, here's the story I've come up with (based purely on the lyrics and descriptions, not the MVs).

We can safely assume that the bOy wearing cOmme des garçOns, our main character in this series, is meant to be bisexual. From what I've gathered, it's common for bisexual people to realise their attraction to the opposite gender first (since it's already expected and easier to explore) and get the full picture of their sexuality later. libidO is about exploration and experimentation, and I always thought the line "girl, I just wanna know" was referring to exactly that - experimenting and starting with the "safer" option first, but still being aware of your blooming queerness in the back of your mind, accepting and understanding your libido as a whole through this first experience.

Next is yOu can tOuch it if yOu can't feel it. In libidO, he wasn’t acting on his desires yet, it was all an internal monologue about things he feels and wishes to take further. The longer he didn’t act on it, the stronger and more uncontrollable it became. After accepting his libido as an internal thing, in instinct he explores it further, no longer questioning and thinking, but acting on it with another person. I really like the line "Why the hell were you drawn to my wandering?" because it highlights that this is just the beginning of his journey of self discovery. He found someone he's attracted to and he doesn't question that, but he's also aware in the back of his mind that it's not the end, he's still lost and has more questions than answers. For now, though, he chooses to focus on this moment and this person.

Another line I find interesting is "I don't want your love tonight because it hurts." A lot of OOO's pre-instinct era songs' messages give me the impression that in order to have a full, satisfying, healthy relationship, the subject needs to grow up, understand and accept himself. Even in relationships with women, he can't just suppress and not think about his queerness, because in the long run, it'll become poison to the relationship. It's a vital part of his nature and not exploring it at all is doing himself injustice and stopping his growth as a person. I'm not here to say whether this is true or not, but it makes sense to me with some of their songs.

Moving onto byredO - since it's his first relationship and "the emotion of love of the boy, who is yet to become a grown-up, is quite impulsive and fickle", it turns unhealthy and obsessive. The interesting this is, hOly week is the previous track, not the next like one might expect. It's because he's been slowly turning away from god and he turns his worship elsewhere, letting his desires consume him. He doesn’t see his lover for the person she is, only focusing on the physical aspect of their relationship and putting it above anything else, her scent his new god.

tear Of gOd is repentance for following his impulses. He feels the promised paradise slipping away as he realises he can no longer reach it, both because of how he acted in the relationship and because of the constant awareness of his attraction to men. He begs for forgiveness and tries to feel closer to god again, but it's not the same anymore. His indulgence in pleasure already put distance between his faith and himself, and going back just causes him to feel more guilty, so he takes a different approach.

I called it yOu but it was actually me is a curious phrase that's been torturing me since I first saw it. The description says:

Confession is a word with both a religious and secular meaning, and the “low-lying voice” always makes me imagine him on his knees in a church. However, the phrase itself is very "call me by your name"-esque, which relates to the idea of being two halves of a whole, seeing yourself reflected in another person and seeing them in yourself. It's not physical, but emotional and intellectual. So, perhaps, after confessing his sins and not getting a response, he comes to the conclusion that people are closer to him than god. He used to believe he was created in god's image, but “i called it you but it was actually me” indicates a realization of inherent connection between god’s creations, people finding their reflections in each other instead. The boy stops seeing other people as separate from himself and starts looking into their shared humanity, hence, under the_ comes next.

"Emotion beneath innate nature" suggests more focus on the inner feelings, letting go of the fear that love will hurt and opening up to an emotional connection. For all that I know, instinct pt.2 makes no mention of the boy, but it's safe to assume he's still our POV character. In this album, I'll refer to his lover as "he", because although all the songs are gender neutral and the idea of the album is that gender doesn't matter, there's an implied "maleness" in suit dance and gaslighting (with Nine and Kyubin's lines responding to each other) and it makes sense within the larger narrative.

The songs on instinct pt.2 all correspond with a song on pt.1. skinz, like libidO, is an internal monologue of acceptance. He understands that gender doesn't matter to him and he should stop looking only skin-deep. He now knows that in order for a relationship to work, he needs to look beneath the physical and see the person inside. It's desperate and slightly aggressive because he's still young and impulsive, and there's this whole new side of him he's been suppressing that's just waiting to get out.

I haven’t read the book this title comes from, but from what I’ve seen other lyOns say, la nausee relates to the idea of individual choices and how they create a person. The description shows that there's someone new in his life that he’s beginning to have feelings for.

suit dance is, in a way, encouraging someone to come to the same conclusions he did. It focuses on physical aspects and wanting the other to act on his instincts, but there's also an element of helping him find identity and freedom in it (“time to cut loose yourself”, "focus a bit more on yourself"). It explores similar ideas as instinct, following someone with his eyes and wanting to be close to them so they can both act on their desires.

Now, the line "What do your eyes in the mirror want?" makes me think of “I called it you but it was actually me”. I'm a bit confused by who is who exactly in this song, it might be a translation issue, but it's hard to tell apart the "me" and "you" sometimes. They seem to blend together and I think it's part of the idea. They're both wearing suits and admiring themselves in the mirror, but also see a reflection of themselves when looking at each other.

gaslighting, just like byredO, is deeply toxic as he gets addicted to his lover and wants to be controlled. In a way, it's kind of religious as it shows a deep and unhealthy devotion one should not have towards another human being as it also reduces their humanity. He still feels the need to put someone on the pedestal, which, although not from the boy's story, goes back to angel. Growing up religious made him feel that there needs to be someone above him, someone more holy than him he can answer to, and once he steps away from religion, he fills the god-shaped hole (sorry, I find that phrase hilarious) with other people.

snapchat honestly baffles me a little, but the description says:

Perhaps the idea is that they're realising the instability of their relationship, that they're continually missing each other and they don't know how to communicate properly. All they have is small moments that become good memories, but even they disappear without a trace.

ultimate bliss is a rejection of all that was influenced by religion in the boy's life. He still dreams of paradise, but this time he wants to build one for himself and his lover. He's ready to let go of the ideas he'd been brought up believing in and there's catharsis in leaving it all behind. He accepts the things he's done wrong and doesn't blame himself for them, doesn't apologise to god anymore.

"Are we being punished, or are we dreaming" confuses me a bit. Dreaming in general is used a lot in OOO's songs, it's a pleasant state and an escape from reality, which, if you indulge in too much, stunts your growth. I think in this case, it means that it's hard to tell whether this love they have is good or bad. He's conflicted because it's both painful and pleasurable, and religious people really like to force black and white thinking. The boy is just beginning to learn that some things are morally neutral, not everything that hurts is punishment, not everything that feels good is a beautiful dream.

"Would you come with me?" means that it's not just him, but his lover as well who has to let go of these things. If we interpret this song and gaslighting as being about the same person, perhaps the lover's religious upbringing also made him feel that he needs to be more controlling. Since their relationship is forbidden, he needed to feel like there's some aspect of it that's up to him in the face of the great unknown and placed himself as the god. As a side note, my grandparents were once reading me something about god filling people with light if they put their trust in him and I was reminded of this line in gaslighting:

If we see it like that, ultimate bliss would then show that there's still hope for the two of them if they get rid of all these messed up ideas and stop feeling like there needs to be a higher power involved in their relationship. Neither of them is god and neither is the follower, they're both Adam and Eve who made their choice to bite the forbidden fruit and leave.

As a sort of epilogue/glue to the next project, there's undergrOund idOl #0 with the description:

It reminds me of the description under be free:

Both of these are about overcoming hardship as long as they can rely on each other. It also reminds me of angel and Mill's line "to me you are faith, sometimes hope", while in skinz he had the line "belief is toxic to me" (and the word used for belief in Korean also refers to belief in god). This just reiterates that they're letting go of the idea that they need to put someone on a pedestal.

And lastly, we have re-bidO. I'm not sure if it means that if he were exploring his sexuality again, he wouldn't make the same mistakes? It's normal to look back on your journey and wish you'd done things differently, but these words imply a lot of regret. Maybe he's not fully content with where he ended up, maybe he's imagining a version of his life which is better, easier. Maybe it shows that his journey isn't over just because the album has ended and he still has a lot of guilt, so he's back to square one - accepting the natural parts of himself. It's a bittersweet ending and that makes it feel more real. The road was rocky and just like at the end there's catharsis, there's also reflection.

[redpillfuturist215]

A post to replace my bio header

A supplement to my Twitter https://twitter.com/RPfuturist215 This post also serves as a Twitter bio character limit workaround Finally, a free thinking black man SOASBM and ex/recovering-SIMON, now IBMOR and SYSBM Living with BMI-T/ST, CCPTSD Anti-communist, not a democrat US army vet, OEF SECON, MAGA, intactivist Futurist. Longing for time travel so I can give some version of me a childhood I deserve, esp. to be free of sexual abuse as well as save as many males as possible from genital mutilation, false accusations and other grave injustices Masculinity isn't toxic. Feminism is. Anti-feminism is not anti-woman Male genital mutilation, euphemistically called circumcision, alone should make every man red pilled/MGTOW Common terms I use and definitions of abbreviations above FKA – formerly known as CRTFP2 – check retweet for part two/2 ATF – all things futurism AO – and/or OAL – or at least SECON – secular eco conservative Shen – gender neutral pronoun for vague animals DMF’s – delusional mother fuckers *In reference to being a black male IBMOR – introspective black men of reform SYSBM – save yourselves black men SIMON – slavery indoctrinated, mentally oppressed nigga BMI-T/ST – black mother induced trauma, sexual trauma CCPTSD – complex childhood post-traumatic stress disorder SOASBM – survivor of a single black mother BWTSLS – black women treat sons like slaves AWL – American (US) white leftist/liberal ALIG – American (US) liberal in general MGTOW - men going their own way Added 4/13/2024 SIMOEB – slavery indoctrinated mentally oppressed emasculated black man or men – a watered down version of SIMON randomly motivated by snowflakes Humans have a huge ego. I reject these words in favor of Anthropomorphic – sentient Hominid – free limbed, dexterous … or FLD for short TNOBRTKE – pronounced Tee-no-brit-key Trust no one and be prepared to kill everyone More descriptive + several other abbreviations I use and some clarifications https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/695996141462077440/several-abbreviations-terms-i-use-and-some

A recent revelation that I’m socially dead https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/716839276972752896/socially-dead My final planned major futurist post in this current timeline https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/716839844517740544/my-final-planned-major-futurist-post A collection of old futurist links with a loose red pill perspective https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/676094553119490048/futurism-esp-human-immortality-and-time-travel My most recent attempt at black male rights and awareness mega post, covering some general red pill and liberty topics as well. Last updated December 2022 Links to parts 2 and 3 are within https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/679869154187182080/african-american-women-are-terrible-mothers-much May 2023 IBMOR SYSBM thoughts, including Why I don’t have to be grateful for my so called mom My thoughts on my 100% VA disability status Why I haven’t moved out or deserted my “family” https://redpillfuturist215.tumblr.com/post/718570277858131968/may-2023s-ibmor-sysbm-thoughts

[legalupanishad]

What are the Laws Against Extra-Marital Affairs in India?

This article on 'Laws Against Extra-Marital Affairs in India' was written by Ayush Choudhary, an intern at Legal Upanishad.

Introduction

In India, institutions like marriage are considered to be very pure and holy. Marriage in Indian society is considered to be a bond for seven lives, and thus concepts like Extra-marital affairs are considered a moral wrong. This belief is across all religions, whether it is Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, or Christianity. That is why there were strict laws against Extra-marital affairs even in the past. But, over a period of time with the development of fundamental rights, Extra-Marital affairs have been decriminalized in India.

Earlier Laws

Prior to 2017, an Extra-marital affair also known as adultery was considered a criminal offence and there were strict provisions against it. Therefore, an Extra-marital affair was a penal offence that is defined under Sec. 497 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. According to it, adultery means an act of having sexual relations with the wife of another man and that too without the consent of that man. Here, this act is not rape but it is called adultery and was thus penalised. As per this Section, if a person is found guilty of Adultery, he can be imprisoned for 5 years or can be punished with a fine or in some cases with both. Thus, earlier the laws for Extra-marital affairs were very strict.

Present Situation

There was a lot of discussion and debate about the constitutionality of the penalization of Extra-marital affairs. Many scholars argued that such a harsh punishment for such an act is against the Fundamental rights of a person. It was also argued that having an affair with another man or woman is also a right of a person. Finally, after a long debate in 2017, an Extra-marital affair has been decriminalised by the Hon’ble court in the case of ‘‘Joseph v. Shine’’. Thus, now it is not an offence of high velocity. But it does not mean that it has been allowed in India. In the case of an Extra-Marital affair, a spouse can still reach the court to sue his/her partner for such an act and can claim remedies.

Hindu Marriage Act, 1955

Though an extra-marital affair or Adultery is not an offence anymore still a spouse of the person who is found guilty of Adultery or extra-marital affair can apply for certain remedies under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The remedies provided by this law are as follows- - (a) Ground for Divorce According to Section 13(1)(i) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, if a person after the solemnization of marriage engages in any sexual activity with a person other than his/her spouse then the spouse of that person can apply for a Divorce. Thus, under this law Adultery or an Extra-marital affair is a ground for Divorce. Here it should be noticed that this provision is gender-neutral, that is both husband and wife can use it to file a suit for divorce. - (b) Ground for Judicial Separation Under the Hindu Marriage Act, of 1955, an Extra-marital affair or Adultery is not only a ground for Divorce but also has been recognised as a legal ground for Judicial Separation. Thus, in the case of Extra-marital affairs spouse can apply for the Judicial remedy also.

Laws Against Extra-Marital Affairs in India

Indian Divorce Act, 1869

Not only in Hindu law but also in secular laws, adultery has been defined and prevented. The best example of it is the Indian Divorce Act, of 1869, which is a secular law. According to Section (27), clause(1) and sub-clause(a) of the Indian Succession Act, 1869, adultery or an extra-marital affair is a valid ground for divorce. Thus, in such cases, the spouse of the guilty can claim remedy in court. Adultery amounting to Cruelty Apart from being ground for divorce and judicial separation, adultery or extra-marital affair has also been defined as cruelty by the hon’ble high courts of India in many cases. In many cases court declared an extra-marital affair as cruelty against his/her legally wedded spouse. But this act does not amount to cruelty in all cases, and whether the adultery amounts to cruelty or not varies from case to case and depends upon the facts of the case present. Apart from this, a false case of adultery by a spouse against his/her partner is also a legal wrong and the Hon'ble court held it in the case of Rajbala v. Sukhbir Singh case, where it was said that a false allegation of cruelty by the spouse also amounts to cruelty.

Suggestion

Decriminalisation of Adultery by the Hon’ble Supreme Court is one of the biggest steps of the court toward the development of the legal system and constitution. Earlier when the extramarital affair was an offence it was clearly infringing the rights of a guilty of Adultery because according to the severity of the offence, the punishment prescribed by the law was too much and was thus unfair for the accused. Thus, decriminalisation of Adultery is a great step toward the empowerment and further strengthening of the Indian Constitution. Adultery or Extra-marital affair is more a moral wrong instead of legal wrong and it is always not necessary that a moral wrong is also a legal wrong and vice-versa. Thus, though an extra-marital affair is immoral in countries like India, it is not required it should also be illegal. But, from the point of view of a spouse, it is wrong and a spouse guilty of such an act should be compensated and provided a proper remedy. Because directly or indirectly an extra-marital affair implies bigamy and Indian Laws do not accept or promote bigamy it is instead an illegal act.

Conclusion

Thus, though adultery has been decriminalised in India long ago, the law provides the person who is affected by such an act proper compensation and remedy, i.e., the legal spouse of the person guilty of Adultery. In this way, the laws in India against extra-marital affairs protect the rights of both the guilty person and the person affected by it, which also indicates the healthy democracy of our nation.

List of references

- Tanuj Kanchan and KR Nagesh, 'Adultery and the Indian law' 10(2) International Journal of Medical Toxicology & Legal Medicine (2008) - Vijendra Kumar, 'Bigamy and Hindu Marriage' 59(4) Journal of Indian Law Institute (2017) - Vijay kumar and ShriKrushna Chowbe, 'Adultery – A Conceptual and Legal Analysis' SSRN Electronic Journal, January 2011, available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228263447_Adultery_-_A_Conceptual_and_Legal_Analysis Read the full article

[woman-loving]

This year, over 100 anti-transgender bills have been introduced in more than 25 state legislatures, the vast majority of them banning trans kids, especially girls, from participating in organized sports in school, as well as prohibiting or even criminalizing the delivery of gender-affirming healthcare. One of these bills was North Dakota’s HB 1476, which sought, in its own words, to “prohibit the state from creating or enforcing policies that directly or symbolically respect nonsecular self-asserted sex-based identity narratives or sexual orientation orthodoxy.” This long, wordy proposal categorized trans people, transition-related healthcare for minors, same-sex marriage, drag queens, and any sexual orientation other than hetero as expressions of a “religion” called “secular humanism.”

Introduced on January 18th by a group of five conservative House members, and withdrawn from further consideration only three days later, HB 1476 generated no debate or commentary on the record, and triggered only a limited response from journalists and progressive groups. The bill depicts trans people as “faith-based” adherents to a religious dogma enacted through taking hormones, changing names, and other aspects of transition; by the same token, it recategorizes advocacy by trans people for their civil rights as an act of proselytization. According to the bill’s legal logic, the state of North Dakota is thus justified by the establishment clause of the US constitution in withdrawing legal recognition, protection, and state spending that would benefit trans youth and adults. Further, the bill claims that the state must discriminate against trans people to the point of expelling them from the public sphere by banning their ability to transition, change legal documents, and assemble and express themselves in spaces like schools, because “the state may not directly or symbolically create, enforce, or endorse a policy that respects or promotes nonsecular” beliefs. In other words, the bill uses the rhetoric of religious freedom to declare trans people unfit for public life.

The logic of HB 1476, however evidently forced, tells us much about how to understand the larger flood of anti-trans bills. Liberals have tended to see these bills as promoting a straightforward form of irrational discrimination toward trans youth that flouts the expert opinion of major medical organizations. Some more astute critics, meanwhile, have contended that the bills are in a sense not really about trans people at all, but are instead a cruel though also somewhat arbitrary effort to raise funds and appeal to the evangelical base of the Republican party in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. In fact, the right-wing proponents of this legislative avalanche have greater ambitions than mere electoral dominance. As HB 1476 shows, this legislative tactic is an attempt to use trans people as a pretext for a broader reformation of civil life and citizenship to advance an authoritarian, Christian state policy on sex and gender. From this vantage point, it shares its strongest affinities with antisemitic, Islamophobic, and New Jim Crow-era anti-Black politics; it is also an example of settler colonial logic, since the state’s indigenous population would find its Two-Spirit cultures and practices disestablished under the law.

On first read, many observers were struck by the apparently flagrant contradiction between Republican efforts to pass “religious liberty” laws to codify private discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender people, and HB 1476’s tactic of labeling trans people “a nonsecular sham,” framing them as adherents to a religion that the state cannot endorse. Rather than a fatal contradiction, however, this incongruity in fact points to a skillful manipulation of the ambiguous concept of state secularism. By promoting implicitly Christian policy in the name of religious neutrality, and advancing a notion of universalism that is in fact based in Christian particularism, the bill’s authors in effect characterize a range of non-Christian identities—transness, but also Muslim and Jewish identities—as incompatible with the mores of the public sphere. The apparent contradiction is not one that these laws aim to resolve, but to exploit.

What looks like legal amateurism is in fact the most open expression to date of the larger political strategy of anti-trans legislation, which trans activists have speculated is presently undergoing an authoritarian and evangelically-driven escalation. While a first wave of bills, which were signed into law in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas in March, ban both pediatric trans healthcare and participation in sports, the most recent slate of bills—advanced in the past month by right-wing groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and the Family Research Council—proposes much harsher interventions. These new bills conform with the logic of HB 1476 whereby the state must aggressively attack, not merely prohibit support for, trans youth. A Texas bill would label supporting trans children child abuse, allowing the state to forcibly remove children from their homes and place them in foster care (where, presumably, they could be adopted by a Christian family). A North Carolina bill would force teachers to out any children who display what they perceive to be gender non-conforming behavior to school officials and their parents. And a recently passed bill in Florida opens the door to requiring physical, genital inspections of young children to assign them a sex for school sports under the law. While these bills are commonly cloaked in secularized language about countering allegedly unnatural “gender ideology,” they also importantly enlarge the authoritarian scope of the state to subject trans youth to forms of cultural conversion based in an evangelical understanding of the gender binary. Seeing these bills in the context of their larger political strategy, it becomes clear that simply insisting on trans kids’ right to inclusion and individual liberty does not constitute an adequate defense against the agenda of the Christian right.

[pamphletstoinspire]

The New State Church Comes for You

Children as young as six are being taught “sex is assigned at birth.” They are being taught that boys and girls can be born into the wrong body, that boys can turn into girls and girls into boys. Children are being forced to use the “proper pronouns.” This is happening in the public school, where secularists believe religion was banned in 1962-63.

But none of these claims are based in science. There are no objective scientific criteria for being a new “gender,” for being non-binary, two-spirit, or even “feeling” you are the wrong sex. All of these propositions are based on faith, a new heretic-hunting faith that requires the imposition of its beliefs on younger and younger ages.

Consider forcing a boy to call another boy “she.” This is not only a monstrous lie; it is also forcing a boy to recite a religious dogma in direct violation of his own beliefs that God created them male and female.

Secularists insist that religion was banned in public schools with the school prayer decision of 1962. Secularists insist we live in a secular age. Nothing could be further from the truth. In my last column, I argued that we live in a deeply religious age, that those who claim “none” status are still profoundly religious. Even a certain percentage of atheists believe God is important to their lives. It is impossible to get away from some vision of the sacred.

In this column, I will argue not only that we live in a profoundly religious age, but that there is a new religion, perhaps a newly revived old religion, but more importantly, a newly established Church. This official state Church has been established through a series of Supreme Court decisions, beginning with the school prayer decision in 1962 and banning school-based Bible reading in 1963.

Understand, the banned school prayer was relatively anodyne:

Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.

It was written by a committee of Protestant pastors, Catholic priests, and Jewish rabbis. Thirteen New York judges upheld the constitutionality of this prayer. Thirteen. It was banned only when it reached the Supreme Court. This began the process to effectively remove Christianity from the public schools, and it also cast a disapproving pall over Christianity. Somehow, Christianity was henceforth suspect, if not dangerous for schoolchildren to hear.

A year later, the Supreme Court banned Bible reading in public schools and said that the Constitution demands government must remain “neutral” in matters of religion and that this neutrality is achieved only if the government limits itself to “secular” purposes having primarily “secular” effects.

This decision was the Supreme Court putting its thumb on the scale in the culture wars. Before this moment, there was a healthy debate in this country from the founding onward about who we are as a people. On one side are those we may call the “providentialists” who see the hand of God in history and believe this must play a role in our public life and even be taught to our schoolchildren. On the other side are the seculars who believe religion can have no part in our public lives. Both sides were represented at the founding, and the debate between the two parties continued until 1963 with this court decision.

These decisions were the beginning of an established church. “Secular” may have had many meanings over time. Most people reading this are “secular” since they are not “religious,” that is, not in religious congregations or ordained. But in the modern age, “secular” has come to mean without God, without religion. Therefore, a purely secular government must also be without God. But we also know no man can be without the sacred of some kind. And into this supposedly bare secularity came a new faith and a new established church that was spelled out in subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court; on contraception, abortion, sodomy, and same-sex marriage.

This new established Church has been communicated down through the federal government, through the Justice Department, and the Department of Education, to the state and local governments, and down to the schoolhouse down the road.

Who are the priests in this new Church? Anyone who wears a robe; judges, academics, scientists, those who hand down the new encyclicals that the faithful accept without question. They say boys may be girls. This fanciful idea has no basis in science or even reason. It is a matter of pure faith. And the faithful accept it and then force it on others, including schoolchildren.

The Supreme Court decisions on school prayer and Bible reading were crucial because prayer and the Bible were part of the story that we told about ourselves, about who we were. In that way, there is no more important place to tell the story of who we are than what we tell little children. But we no longer tell little children that story about ourselves because it has been banned by the high priests of the Supreme Court and replaced with a new story.

Gender theory is not the only denomination in the new established Church. There is also pantheism, seeing the sacred in the environment. It is interesting to note that no less than Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America that Americans would have to choose between pantheism and Catholicism one day.

Yet another denomination in the new established Church is the sex-obsessed who see the sacred in the orgasm and their sexual pleasure. Those involved in things like bondage and domination speak openly about how their proclivities are deeply religious experiences.

All of these are one way or another being taught to little school children, and this has become the story we tell about ourselves in the 21st century.

At heart, it is a debate between what Professor Steven Smith calls the “Immanentists” and the “transcendents;” between those who place the sacred exclusively on the temporal plane and those who know the sacred may be present to us here and now but exists beyond our vision. This was the essential debate between the pagans in ancient Rome and the Christians. And now, the Immanentists have the whip hand, and they are using it.

Catholics and other Christians must understand that we are not merely up against a new faith but a new faith that is an established Church backed by the power of the federal, state, and local governments.

But I do not despair, and neither should you. On the contrary, as I write in my book—Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic—this is a time of rejoicing because God knows what He is about. He knew this degradation of society would be upon us. And what did He do? He sent the likes of us here, right now, to defend His creation. Things may seem very dark for us, but we must rest assured that future generations will look back with envy that they could not be here with us, when things look so very desperate, fighting against the new established Church.

BY: AUSTIN RUSE

[wisdomfish]

Complementarity and Creation

It should not be surprising that men and women are strikingly different in all sorts of ways that transcend cultural variations. Not only do these differences not disappear in purportedly sex-neutral societies; there is evidence to suggest that some of them actually increase, as people are freed to do what they actually want. (To take one widely reported example, differences in mental rotation between men and women are higher in countries with greater sexual equality.) The bell curves for men and women are centered in different places, and not just for obvious physical traits (height, strength, hair, and so on) but also for hormonal, psychological, and interpersonal traits.

Men are typically more aggressive, competitive, fearless, likely to take risks, promiscuous, and prone to violence, and testosterone is aligned with higher levels of confidence, sex drive, and status assertion. Women are, on average, more prone to neuroticism and agreeableness. Consequently, men are generally clustered at the upper and lower extremes of society: men are not just more likely to be very rich or very powerful (which prompts all sorts of public debate), but also far more likely to be criminals, killers, homeless, excluded, or imprisoned (which doesn’t).

Male groups are more characterized by sparring, fighting, power structures, and banter, while female groups are typically smaller, more indirect in confrontation, egalitarian in structure, verbally dexterous, and oriented around people rather than things. Gendered trends can be noticed before children are particularly aware of which sex they are (to take a tragic example, 40 of 43 serious shootings by toddlers in 2015 were by boys) ...

Julia Turner, an editor of Slate, commented recently that the boyishness of her twin sons had provided a significant challenge to her commitment to gender as a social construct, offering the fascinating remark that, despite her egalitarian bona fides, “There’s a there there.” To which ethicist Christina Hoff Sommers mischievously responded in The Federalist: “Indeed there is. And it takes a liberal-arts degree not to see it.”

I mention all this not to validate any or all of these differences, as if science somehow renders them virtuous, let alone to excuse the male propensity to promiscuity and violence. I mention it for four reasons:

1. Complementarity appears to be hardwired into us as human beings, even from the perspective of mainstream secular scientific and sociological research. The vast majority of human societies have known this intuitively, but in a culture like ours, where most of us have never fought for our homeland, died in childbirth, gone down the mines, or settled a frontier, it has become forgotten. Facts, however, are stubborn things.

2. There is an interesting correspondence between many of these traits and the sorts of things we would expect to find if Genesis 1–4 was true, and the man (adamah = “earth”) had been given the task of guarding the garden against attack, and the woman (havah = “life”) had been identified as the mother of all living.

3. At a pastoral level, it can be reassuring to hear that we’re not imagining it when we observe that men and women are generally predisposed to different sorts of sins or weaknesses (#MeToo, #ToxicMasculinity, #HeForShe), and that we should disciple people accordingly.

4. It also sheds interesting light on the (very obvious) biological differences between men and women, and their significance. Imagine an alien visiting earth and discovering that one sex was taller, stronger, and hairier than the other, with sexual organs that were external and faced outward; while the smaller partner’s sexual organs were internal, and served as the location of both sexual intercourse and pregnancy. Then imagine them discovering that, generally speaking, one was better at forming relationships, holding small groups together, and working with people; while the other was more suited to external agency, risk-taking, and working with things. Finally, imagine them being introduced to biblical categories for describing the sexes: towers and cities, warriors and gardens, priests and temples, the blood-spattered groom and the pure spotless bride. Which would our alien think was which?

~ Andrew Wilson

[southsidebree]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ VANESSA MORGAN ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ BREE WESTBROOK ]. Damn, [ SHE ] looks good for [ 25 ], good thing that they’re [ PANSEXUAL ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ THE LOST SOUL ] of the [ SOUTH SIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ GUARDED ] and [ INDECISIVE ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ SEDUCTIVE ] and [ ARTISTIC ]. Can’t wait to see what kind of trouble [ DANIELLE/23/CST/SHE/HER/NONE ] will bring.

01.  BASICS

Full Name: Aubrey “Bree” Jean Westbrook 

Nickname: Bree 

Sex/Gender: Female/She/Her 

Birthday: 6/16

Age: 25 

Astrological Sign: Gemini 

Occupation: Burlesque Dancer at Afortunado 

Spoken Languages: English

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual 

Birthplace: Riverdale 

Relationship status: Single 

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Dark Brown long hair with either pink/purple or blonde highlighs 

Eye Color: Dark Brown 

Face Claim: Vanessa Morgan 

Height: 5′3 

Weight: 115 

Tattoos: A rose on her right underboob, a butterfly behind her right ear. 

Piercings: Two in each ear 

Unique Attributes:  Flexible, Artistic, Focused, Resourceful 

Defining Gestures/Movements: Crosses her arms or has her hands on her hips. 

Posture: Good poster, always stands straight 

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: Rude people, people who don’t appreciate what they have, the list could be endless tbh 

Hobbies/Interests: Dance, Photography, Art, Motorcycles 

Special Skills/Abilities:  Quick Witted, Manipulative, Connections throughout Riverdale 

Likes: Music, Movies, Photography, Art, Movies 

Dislikes: Being confined, being alone

Insecurities: Her past choices and decisions 

Quirks/Eccentricities: Fiddles with her clothes 

Strengths: Resourceful, Curious, Adaptive 

Weaknesses: Indecisive, Inconsistent, Nervous 

Speaking Style: Changes with who she is speaking to 

Temperament: Short Tempered 

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Her mother, father, sibling 

How do they feel about their family? When she was younger she used to be ashamed of them but after high school she didn’t want to waste her time on those feelings anymore. 

How does their family feel about them? There was a lot of tension when she was in high school on the North Side but since she has come back to the Southside things are better. 

Pets: None 

Where do they live? In an apartment on the Southside 

Description of their home: A small apartment with a living room, kitchen and her bedroom. 

Description of their bedroom: A bed, dresser, and closet. It is simple but she does have photos and art work all over her walls. 

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert?

Optimist or Pessimist?

Leader or Follower?

Confident or Self-Conscious?

Cautious or Careless?

Religious or Secular?

Passionate or Apathetic?

Book Smarts or Street Smarts?

Compliments or Insults?

Pajamas or Lingerie?

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Purple/Pink 

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: She is a mixture of punk and grunge. Jeans, plaid, layered necklaces 

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: She likes a variety of genres but typically not what is just on the radio 

Favorite Movies: Loves Tim Burton movies 

Favorite Books: Not much of a reader, but when she was younger she likes ‘The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane’ 

Favorite Foods/Drinks: Not picky on food or drinks 

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: None 

Favorite Time of Day: Evening 

Favorite Weather/Season: Summer/Fall 

Favorite Animal: Wolf 

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: When she was younger she didn’t want anyone to find out she was from the Southside, but now there are no fears. 

Political Views: Democratic 

Addictions: Smokes from time to time 

Best School Subject: Art

Worst School Subject: Math 

School Clubs/Sports: Cheerleading, Dance 

How does she get money? Her job as a dancer as well as from patrons of the club that tip her extra 

How is she with technology? Very tech savvy 

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory: Getting her first camera when she was younger 

Deepest, Darkest Secret: tbd 

Dream Vacation: Anywhere thats not Riverdale 

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Winning a photography contest. 

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Losing her scholarship due to taking the fall for a prank that the cheerleaders put her up to. 

What do they want to be when they grow up? Photographer 

Perfect Date: A simple dinner and a movie 

BIOGRAPHY BULLETS 

Was originally born on the Southside. But Bree never felt like she was able to fit in. She always longed for more and to become more. Her grandma even made her promise to be more that was her family was. That is what motivated her to get into the Northside High School. To get a chance to get a better education and open herself up to more opportunities. 

She became your typically bitchy cheerleader to fit in with the rest. And it worked for awhile. Until her senior year rolled around. Her fellow cheerleaders wanted to pull a prank on the school but it went very wrong. At the end of the day they put the blame on the outsider, Bree. This resulted her in getting expelled and made her lose her scholarship. Her one key to be able to get out of Riverdale. 

After that she went back to Southside High to finish her senior year and went to the community college to study photography. She worked hard to be able to go to school. Even if it was for two years it is something she is proud of. 

Bree still holds a grudge on the North Siders. While she can’t change the past she is bitter that they are getting everything they want and have multiple chances at their finger tips. But her whole future was screwed over because of a prank. 

Finally she is trying to make a life for herself away from the mistakes she made. She works as a burlesque dancer at Afortunado where she can take part in dancing, one of her hobbies. And on the side she works on her own art and photography. Another perk of her job is it gives her an easy spot to manipulate the same North Siders that threw her under the bus years ago. 

While she use to be against joining a gang part of her has been considering joining one. She has a foot in both but she won’t make the choice easily. But now she is starting to long for that connection with people. A bond that everyone speaks so highly of. But at the same time she is realizing how many perks there are to being neutral. 

[cassiexbailey]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ KAT MCNAMARA ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ CASSIOPEIA “CASSIE” BAILEY ]. Damn, [ SHE/HER ] looks good for [ 22 ], good thing that they’re [ BISEXUAL ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ NANCY DREW ] of the [ NORTH SIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ INDEPENDENT ] and [ RESOURCEFUL ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ SECRETIVE ] and [ STUBBORN ].

01. BASICS

Full Name: Cassiopeia Sebine Bailey

Nickname: Cassie, Cas, Teeny

Sex/Gender: Female

Birthday: November 11, 1996

Age: 22

Astrological Sign: Scorpio

Occupation: Private Investigator

Spoken Languages: English, French, Italian

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual; Heteroromantic

Birthplace: Riverdale, MA

Hometown: Port Townsend, WA // Chicago, IL

Relationship status: Single but complicated

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Red-orange or blonde, depending on her mood; she was born with bright red hair, but when she was younger she used to dye it dirty blonde so that she’d look more like her mother; since she found out both of her parents were lying to her about who she was, she let her hair go back to it’s natural color. As for style, she doesn’t really style it often, but it’s usually either down, in a ponytail, or put up in a messy clip

Eye Color: Green

Face Claim: Kat McNamara

Height: 5′3″

Weight: 120 pounds

Tattoos: a large phoenix covering part of her back and left hip symbolizing her love for Greek myth but also as a means for covering up an old stab wound; a small ring of laurel leaves with ‘03/19/1980′ on one side and ‘06/12/2019′ on the other on the inside of her right arm, representing her mother { photos coming soon }

Piercings: Both her ears are pierced twice

Unique Attributes: coming soon

Defining Gestures/Movements: running a hand through her hair; bouncing her leg/knee when she’s nervous; cracking her neck and knuckles; drumming her fingers on whatever surface she’s nearby

Posture: Decent posture, but slouches from time to time

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: { she has a lot okay? this isn’t even all of them } ignorance, lairs, cheaters, being chronically late, people who talk loudly on their phones, people chewing loudly or with their mouths open, people who walk slowly in the middle of the sidewalk or stop suddenly, line cutters, people who don’t use their turn signals, bad grammar, passive aggressive behavior (even though she’s guilty of this herself), people who refer to themselves in the third person 

Hobbies/Interests: dance, writing, photography, criminal justice, reading, cooking, hiking

Special Skills/Abilities: private investigation, adaptable, researching, staying calm under pressure

Likes: sex, coffee, tattoos, photography, hiking, swimming, astrology, astronomy, nature, traveling

Dislikes: rude people, ignorance, fake people, cigarettes/smoking in general

Insecurities: losing people she cares about, not being good enough for someone { i’ll probably add more later }

Quirks/Eccentricities: coming soon

Strengths: coming soon

Weaknesses: coming soon

Speaking Style: coming soon

Temperament: she can keep a calm head in most situations, but she does have a bad temper

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Edward Bailey (Anderson) { father }; Sebine Smythe { mother }; Athena Bailey { adopted mother, deceased }; Sebastian Smythe { half-brother }, Sebrina Smythe { half-sister, deceased }; Bruce Anderson { uncle }; Blaine Anderson { cousin }; Darius Anderson { cousin }

How do they feel about their family? coming soon

How does their family feel about them? coming soon

Pets: None yet

Where do they live? She lives in a small one bedroom house in the neutral zone

Description of their home: coming soon

Description of their bedroom: coming soon

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert? A bit of both, depending on the situation and people

Optimist or Pessimist?

Leader or Follower?

Confident or Self-Conscious? A bit of both

Cautious or Careless?

Religious or Secular? Raised Catholic, but doesn’t practice anymore

Passionate or Apathetic?

Book Smarts or Street Smarts? Both

Compliments or Insults? Depends on the person

Pajamas or Lingerie? Neither; she sleeps in a loose-fitting tank top and short shorts

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: dark green

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: coming soon

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: coming soon

Favorite Movies: coming soon

Favorite Books: coming soon

Favorite Foods/Drinks: coffee

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: She doesn’t necessarily have a favorite team, but she enjoys watching hockey and football

Favorite Time of Day: early evening

Favorite Weather/Season: tied between fall and winter; she loves the cold

Favorite Animal: wolf

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: not being good enough; people finding out who she really is and blaming her for Sebrina’s death

Political Views: she doesn’t really care to be honest; she doesn’t have a party declared, she votes with who she thinks will be best at the time

Addictions: coffee, sex

Best School Subject: English, History

Worst School Subject: Math

School Clubs/Sports: dance team

How does she get money? she owns her own private investigation business

How is she with technology? very adept; not hacker-level, but she can get by

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory: learning to cook with her mother

Deepest, Darkest Secret: coming soon

Dream Vacation: coming soon

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: coming soon

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Losing her mother and learning that both she and Edward had been lying to her for her entire life

What do they want to be when they grow up? she is grown up, and she’s doing what she wants to do; that being said, married to someone who loves her for who she is. maybe a few kids.

Perfect Date: she doesn’t really have anything in mind for a perfect date. good food, good company. that’s all she can ask for.

09. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

triggers: mention of presumed KIA military status, drive-by gun violence, torture, murder, death

Growing up, life for Sebine Laurent had been anything but normal. Her parents had died at a young age, leaving her growing up as an orphan on the South Side. Early in her teen years, she fell in love with a young South Sider named Edward Anderson - the youngest son of the Serpents leader. The two were together for years, but despite this relationship when the Smythes came looking for a wife for their youngest son, Sebine ended things with Edward per her new in-laws demands; they shoved a hefty prenup in her direction demanding she not bring any scandal to the family name via her relationship with the South Side boy she had been involved with for so long, and she had begrudgingly accepted it in search of a better life.

Years passed without any contact between Edward and Sebine. She gave birth to two beautiful twins, Sebastian and Sebrina, and her life seemed perfect; her marriage was far from perfect, but she loved her family regardless. A chance encounter brought Edward and Sebine back into each other's lives, and the spark quickly reignited between the two of them. The Smythes knew what was going on between their daughter-in-law and her old flame, but they let it go. They had their picture-perfect family and their beautiful grandchildren. As far as everyone else was concerned, the Alexander and Sebine Smythe had the perfect family. Problems quickly arose, though, when Sebine fell pregnant, and it was clear that Alexander wasn't the father this time.

The family threatened to leave her completely desolate if she didn't end things with the Serpent once and for all, including giving the baby to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy once Sebine had given birth. They thought they had everything under control until Edward refused to be pushed out of Sebine's life for a second time. He had secret, grand plans to sweep Sebine away from her life in the North Side so they could run away to be together, but her in-laws intercepted. They gave Edward a counter-offer that was almost too hard to refuse. Sebine would never leave with him, but he could still have a piece of her; they offered to give him a substantial amount of money to get out of the gang-life that was expected of him in the South Side as well as to leave Riverdale with the baby and never return.

After trying and failing to convince Sebine to leave with him, Edward refused the Smythe’s offer at first, though instead of leaving town like they had asked, he simply took Cassie and left the North side. He returned to the familiarity of the South Side with his daughter, but instead of pledging his loyalty to the Serpents like he was expected to - like his older brother, Bruce, had done - he joined the Ghoulies alongside his best friend, Luca Gilbert. His brother was furious at this perceived betrayal, especially since Bruce had taken over the Serpents in the wake of their father’s passing in the years before. Knowing how angry Bruce was, Edward and Luca prepared for some sort of retaliation, but after weeks of quiet on the Serpents end it seemed as if it wasn’t going to come. In retrospect, Edward should have known better.

Time passed and a relative peace between the Serpents and the Ghoulies settled in. Weeks turned into months. Months into years. It was just long enough that Edward and Luca began to let their guard down, and that was all the chance that Bruce needed. He knew attacking Edward wouldn’t work - while Bruce was brutal and merciless, his brother was worse, and he knew Bruce’s few weaknesses. Hurting Edward himself wouldn’t work, and even he wouldn’t have touched his newborn niece, though he’d never admit that particular fact to anyone. Instead, Bruce turned his rage towards Luca and Derek Gilbert; Luca was Edward’s best friend, and he’d come to see Derek as a son himself. Hurting Edward by killing his family was the best kind of revenge Bruce could have come up with; he knew it would break his baby brother.

Two years of relative quiet between the gangs on the Southside passed, and then suddenly Luca and Derek went missing. Edward had searched for his family for a few days until he got the word from fellow Ghoulies that they’d found Luca’s body beside the river that runs through Fox Forest. He’d been beaten and clearly tortured to death, but they’d been unable to find Derek; from what they could tell, though, it seemed as if he had suffered the same fate as his father. From what he’d seen of the scene himself, Edward suspected that Bruce had dumped Derek’s body in the river as a means of torturing him even further. There would be no closure without the body, and Bruce knew Edward enough to know how much that would bother him.

Losing both Luca and Derek did exactly what Bruce thought it would have done: it broke Edward. When Bruce threatened to kill Cassie if Edward didn’t leave Riverdale behind him, Edward had no choice but to take his daughter and run. He didn’t stick around long enough to learn that police found Derek wandering through the woods alone days later. Instead, he went back to the Smythes. While they wouldn’t give him as much as they had initially offered, they still gave him a hefty amount of money when he threatened to make his affair with Sebine public knowledge. Taking the hush money that they gave him, Edward changed his last name and left the small town in his rear-view mirror with his daughter in tow. Moving them all the way across the country, Edward set out to put his past in the past and start over.

Cassie spent most of her early life in Port Townsend, Washington, a small maritime town located just north of Seattle, with absolutely no recollection of her early life in Riverdale. Edward wanted to get as far away from Riverdale as possible, and a small town located literally on the other side of the country seemed like the best option to him.

Six months after moving to Port Townsend, Edward met a woman named Athena working as an emergency room resident in the local hospital. He’d been working various protection details for important people around the city and had been stabbed while protecting someone. What started as innocent flirtation between Athena and Edward quickly blossomed into something more. She looked beyond the damaged and rough exterior to the broken man inside, and it was Athena who helped him begin to heal. She knew who he was and what kind of man he had been raised to be, and she loved him anyway. She treated and raised Cassie as her own, and she is the only mother that Cassie has ever known.

Shortly after Cassie’s ninth birthday, Athena took a job at a medical center in the South Side of Chicago, and before she knew it, Cassie’s life was being uprooted and moved back east. Edward took various jobs in an attempt to keep up the semi normal life he’d been living in Port Townsend, but eventually he fell back into the only life he’d ever known, working as an enforcer for a local mob group in the city. It was the only real talent he had, and while Athena didn’t necessarily approve of it she stood by the man’s side regardless as he fell back into the familiar role. As she grew older, Cassie began following in her father’s footsteps, though Edward’s way of life was the last thing either parent wanted for Cassie. With time, though, they came to realize that there was no stopping the young woman. Much like both of her parents, once she set her mind to something there was no way she was going to budge.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Cassie literally ran into the man of her dreams. Anthony had stopped by a local diner for lunch; the same diner that Cassie was working part-time in. She had been in a hurry and not fully paying attention and slammed right into the taller man as he went to take a seat at one of the booths; luckily, his reflexes were amazing, and strong arms caught her before she could stumble backwards. He was only home on leave for a few weeks, but it only took a few short weeks for Cassie to fall head over heels in love with the Marine. Their relationship took off faster than most, but even to those around them it was as if they’d been together for years.

Cassie and Anthony were together for six months before he asked her to marry him. Her parents weren’t exactly thrilled at just how quickly the two had gotten to that point - it was one thing to approve of it, quite another to be okay with your daughter getting engaged after such a short time - but they didn’t object to it. Both Edward and Athena agreed that Anthony and Cassie were good for each other; the fact that he was going to be serving an entire deployment before they actually got married also helped Edward accept their engagement a little easier.

Tragedy struck their small family, though, when a notification party showed up on Cassie’s doorstep one morning to inform her that Anthony had officially been declared as Missing in Action, and Cassie and her family were listed as his only next of kin. Given the fact that he was a member of a Delta Force team, there wasn’t a lot that they could tell her about his disappearance, but they were certain that he had been gone missing during one of their missions. He had been presumed dead, but they hadn’t found a body so they couldn’t officially declare him Killed in Action yet. Cassie was torn apart at this news, but Edward and Athena were there to help her pick up the pieces. Even still, she hasn’t dated anyone since; there’s a part of her that hopes Anthony will show up on her doorstep one day.

Despite helping her father whenever she could, Cassie still had her own life as well. She had her own passions and interests outside of following in her father’s footsteps. Cassie had always been a curious nature, and after spending years of helping people on the South Side (of Chicago) with their own problems she decided to make a career out of it. Cassie enrolled in a local college to study criminal justice, though she dropped out just a few credits shy of graduating when another tragedy struck her family once more.

Throughout his years as an enforcer, Edward had made more than a few enemies. He never worried about it until the day that one of those enemies came after his family. Athena had been waiting outside of a local, family-owned restaurant for Edward and Cassie to meet her there for a family night out - a tradition they had started when she began college - when she was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting; Edward and Cassie had arrived moments later, and Cassie’s world began to come crashing down around her. Athena bled out in Edward’s arms while Cassie watched horrified from the sidelines.

In the months that followed, Cassie’s life was turned upside down. Not only had she lost the only mother she’d ever known, but she uncovered a truth she’d never thought possible. Edward had never hidden the fact that Athena wasn’t Cassie’s biological mother, but he had always told her that the woman who’d given birth to her had died in childbirth. Cassie had always believed him - she’d never had reason to doubt him - until the day she stumbled across letters between Sebine and Edward. She hadn’t thought anything of them at first, many of them were from when they were teenagers and before she was born, but then - as she continued to read - she realized that they continued for nearly a year after she was born. Letters in which Edward spoke about how he still loved her, but he understood her decision to stay with the Smythes, and he would continue to send her photos of Cassie as she grew. Not only had Edward lied about her mother’s death, but he’d kept an entire family from her for years.

In her anger, and after doing months worth of research on her mother and the woman’s family, Cassie left Chicago without a word to her father. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for in Riverdale or from Sebine, but she knew she had to see the woman in person.

10. HEADCANONS

Cassie absolutely loves to dance. She stopped dancing for a while, but now that she’s in Riverdale she’s started going to Jackie’s dance studio more often.

[omgokiguess]

I just got this holiday card from a company. This is a good one

TO ALL OUR DEMOCRATIC FRIENDS:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2020, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

TO ALL OUR REPUBLICAN FRIENDS:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[charliexxpuckerman]

Is that [SKYLER SAMUELS]? Oh no, it’s just [CHARLOTTE CHARLIE PUCKERMAN]! The [17] year old [FEMALE] goes by [SHE/HER]. They were born on [NOVEMBER 26th] and are usually labeled as [THE BEAUTIFUL MIND] around town. They are a [JUNIOR] in [MCKINLEY HIGH]. Rumor has it they [FOUND OUT HER CHILDHOOD CANCER HAS COME BACK], but you didn’t hear it from me.

01.  BASICS

Full Name: Charlotte Jean Puckerman Nickname: Charlie, CJ Sex/Gender: Cisfemale Birthday: November 26th Age: 17 Astrological Sign: Sagittarius Occupation: Junior at McKinley High School Spoken Languages: English, conversational French Sexual Orientation: tbd Birthplace: tbd Relationship status: Single pringle

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Dirty blonde, naturally curly Eye Color: Green Face Claim: Skyler Samuels Height: 5′ 6″ Weight: 119 lbs Tattoos: none Piercings: once in each ear Unique Attributes: Slim build, radiation tattoos on various areas of her body Defining Gestures/Movements: the Fabray eyebrow quirk Posture: Straight

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: Chronic lateness, people who play on their phones during conversations or meals,  Hobbies/Interests: Paint by numbers, ice skating, computer programming, mathematics, healthy living (she’s a vegetarian and practices meditation), biking, playing games on her handheld gaming console. Special Skills/Abilities: Self-taught programmer, can roll her tongue. Likes: Doing crafty things, LoFi and folky music, kiwi, dogs, bananas, the colors yellow and green, ivy house plants, Emmett Cullen. Dislikes: Bacon (the HORROR), cats, lightning/thunder, driving, group projects, neutral colors. Insecurities: Her marks/scars from being sick as a child, being a burden to her family. Quirks/Eccentricities: Doesn’t like getting anything messy/sticky on her hands,  Strengths: Her family, her intelligence, her resilience. Weaknesses: Her family, her health, her tendency to bottle things up. Speaking Style: Very careful with her words, thinks before she speaks. Temperament: Mostly melancholic (analytical, wise, quiet)

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Her mother Quinn and brother Jackson. Her father Noah is deceased. How do they feel about their family? She loves her family. More to come after plotting. How does their family feel about them? Hopefully they love her and feel the same way. More to come after plotting. Pets: none Where do they live? Lima, OH Description of their home: tbd Description of their bedroom: Walls are painted a soft purple (she flat out refused pink but comprised with her mother on a color that was still feminine), various paintings she’s filled in and pictures of herself with family/friends are pinned on it. She has a full size bed, a sizable desk, book shelves, a desktop computer that she helped piece together. There are still remnants from her earlier childhood littered around but most of it she keeps in boxes stuffed at the back of her closet.

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert Optimist or Pessimist? Optimist Leader or Follower? Leader Confident or Self-Conscious? Self-conscious Cautious or Careless? Cautious Religious or Secular? ... agnostic, maybe? Passionate or Apathetic? Passionate Book Smarts or Street Smarts? Book Smarts Compliments or Insults? Compliments Pajamas or Lingerie? Pajamas

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Yellow and green Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: Lots of sweaters with blouses, dark wash jeans, ballet flats, comfy slip-on shoes. Dresses on Sunday when the family goes to church. She has a small collection of graphic tees that she only ever wears at home. Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: LoFi mixes, folky sounding stuff, old music from the 1980′s and the 2010′s. Favorite Movies: Historicals, documentaries, the old Twilight Saga movies. Favorite Books: mostly non-fiction (space/astronomy, mindfulness, memoirs) Favorite Foods/Drinks: Kiwi, bananas, breakfast for dinner, smoothies, iced tea. Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: Soccer, figure skating, cheerleading Favorite Time of Day: Dawn Favorite Weather/Season: Cool and overcast, rain without the lightning, Spring Favorite Animal: Dogs, also has a fondness for chinchillas

07. MISCELLANEOUS

- Her secret is that she recently found out she has cancer a second time (she was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 8, beat it shortly after her 12th birthday). - She had to do online school while she was sick, and in the process of gaining an aptitude for math and the sciences, she also learned how to code. Started teaching herself more in-depth computer programming as a way to escape hospital life. - She’s skeptical of the faith she was brought up in but is too scared to tell her mother for fear it’ll upset her. - She’s never been kissed. Mostly because either she’s too busy with school and extra-curriculars, or people remember her as the ‘cancer girl’, and that makes navigating dating kind of awkward. - More to come after plotting.

[southsidepey]

HOLY SHIT IS THAT [ ELIZABETH OLSEN ]?! Oh, wait it’s just [ PEYTON JULY ]. Damn, [ SHE ] looks good for [ 25 ], good thing that they’re [ BISEXUAL ], I might have a chance. I hear that they call them the [ THE COQUETTE ] of the [ SOUTH SIDE ]. I guess that’s because they’re [ CHARMING ] and [ CONFIDENT ]. But I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re also [ SECRETIVE ] and [ JEALOUS ]. Can’t wait to see what kind of trouble she’ll bring.

01.  BASICS

Full Name: Peyton Gwen July

Nickname: Pey, PJ, Scarlet (her stage name)

Sex/Gender: Cisfemale, She/her

Birthday: April 20th

Age: 25

Astrological Sign: Taurus

Occupation: dancer at  Afortunado and is a florist at a place called The Secret Garden

Spoken Languages: English, some asl & spanish

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

Relationship status: single

02. PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: medium, bounces backforth between blonde and brunette

Eye Color: green

Face Claim: Elizabeth Olsen

Height: 5’6 ft

Weight: 126 lb

Tattoos: has a flower tattoo on her right side, but she covers it up whenever she’s working

Piercings: ears

Unique Attributes: has a scar on her left hand from climbing a tree at her parents’ house, a small dot on her right foot after a screw getting into her foot on the fourth of July.

Defining Gestures/Movements: would rub the top of her stomach whenever she’s nervous and would talk pretty fast, then she would start playing with her fingers as she tries to explain something. After that, she would start talking with her hands and bit down on her bottom lip whenever she’s not rubbing the top of her stomach. Cross her arms around her stomach if she’s leaning against something. She runs her hand through her hair whenever she’s too focused on something.

Posture: straight, sometimes slouch against a counter

03. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Pet Peeves: getting accused of something she didn’t do, liars, cheaters, people coming at her just because, loud chewers.

Hobbies/Interests:  sports, anime, partying, sex, drugs, flowers, reading up on flowers, writing poetry and short stories.

Special Skills/Abilities: read body language, hiking, can tie a cherry stem with her tongue, roll her tongue, etc.

Likes: movies, music, dancing, learning new dance moves, cuddles, hot chocolate, apple cider, fall, sweet tea, Chicago Bears, jokes, good company, sleeping, food, sex, long hugs, money, sports, concerts, Marvel, painting and comedies/romantic movies, Feminism.

Dislikes: body odor, liars, being alone during a thunder storm (had a bad experience as a kid), wet socks, flowers & plants dying, cheaters, crowds, someone stringing her along.

Insecurities: not being good for anyone & anything, not being lovable.

Quirks/Eccentricities: Also carries around a Spider Gwen comic book in her bag, listens to her music whenever she’s walking home from the florist, paces back and forth, talks in her sleep and sometimes walks in her sleep.

Strengths: adventurous, observant, flexible, independent, sometimes straightforward (depending on the person)

Weaknesses: blunt, friends that became family, falls in love quick, etc. Anxiety

Speaking Style: curses whenever she’s mad, but she uses proper English

Temperament: its kind of mild, but she can go from 0 to 60 within seconds

04. FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Her parents, James & Leorah July and Cassandra.

How do they feel about their family? Peyton has an estrange relationship with her dad, but she has a great relationship with her mom, despite living on the Southside.  Her relationship with her sister, well, is kind of strained but she wants to be closer to them.

How does their family feel about them? Her family is worried about her, well, her mom is worried about her wellbeing but she sees her all the time whenever she picks up flowers.

Pets: none, but she wants a dog.

Where do they live? Two bedroom, run-down house on the Southside with her plants and her broken down motorcycle.

Description of their home:  It’s a little rundown because of the no keep up happening, has a stack of records in one corner next to her record player, as a TV and gaming system in the middle of the room in front of her couch.

Description of their bedroom: bed in the middle of the room, kind of in front of the window, not made up because she doesn’t see the point of making it when you’re going to be sleeping in it later. Has posters on her walls, a floor length mirror on one of her walls.

05. THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert?

Optimist or Pessimist? Also a Optimist on a good day

Leader or Follower?

Confident or Self-Conscious?

Cautious or Careless?

Religious or Secular?

Passionate or Apathetic?

Book Smarts or Street Smarts?

Compliments or Insults?

Pajamas or Lingerie?

06. FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: short shorts, long sleeved sweater, hair in a bun and feet bare as she walks around her place.

Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: Lizzo, Truth Hurts,  a ton

Favorite Movies: A ton

Favorite Books: A ton

Favorite Foods/Drinks: A ton

Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: Football and Chicago Bears

Favorite Time of Day: Evenings

Favorite Weather/Season: Fall/Winter

Favorite Animal: Dogs

07. MISCELLANEOUS

Fears/Superstitions: her place being broken into, she throws salt over her left shoulder once it was being spilled.

Political Views: Democratic

Addictions: gum, Dr. Pepper, pizza, alcohol, weed,  books, writing music.

Best School Subject: English

Worst School Subject: Math

School Clubs/Sports: Basketball, art, creative writing

How does she get money? Works

How is she with technology? She’s a genius

08. PAST & FUTURE

Fondest Memory:  Her mom, her sister and she having a picnic.  

Deepest, Darkest Secret:  Can’t reveal that.

Dream Vacation: Somewhere away from Riverdale.

Best thing that has ever happened to this character: Moving away from her family, yet, still having a relationship with her mom.

Worst thing that has ever happened to this character: Her dad telling her to move out, but she’s looking on the brighter side of things.

What do they want to be when they grow up?: An English teacher, she has the degree for it, so why can’t she become one?

Perfect Date: Can’t reveal that.

Bullet Points:

Peyton grew up in the July household, knowing that her parents wanted her to go to New York and not stay in Riverdale. Well, she had a different planned, by going to LA for schooling and majoring in English. She ended up graduating from Berkeley, with a BA in English and business. She packed her bags and headed back to Riverdale, where she’s working for Santana Lopez and opened up a flower shop on the neutral parts of town, called The Secret Garden.

Pretty much a tomboy, doesn’t go to Church, doesn’t judge or give anyone crap if they go to Church since she’s like, if that’s your thing, not mine. Believes in Karma.

More will be filled out once I  can actually think <3

[arcticdementor]

Near the beginning of Ibram X. Kendi’s celebrated best-seller, How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi writes something that strikes me as the key to his struggle: “I cannot disconnect my parents’ religious strivings to be Christian from my secular strivings to be anti-racist.” Kendi’s parents were “saved into Black liberation theology and joined the churchless church of the Black Power movement.” That was their response — at times a beautiful one — to the unique challenges of being black in America.

And when Kendi’s book becomes a memoir of his own life and comes to terms with his own racism, and then his own cancer, it’s vivid and complicated and nuanced, if a little unfinished. He is alert to ambiguities, paradoxes, and the humanness of it all: “When Black people recoil from White racism and concentrate their hatred on everyday White people, as I did freshman year in college, they are not fighting racist power or racist policymakers.” He sees the complexity of racist views: “West Indian immigrants tend to categorize African-Americans as ‘lazy, unambitious, uneducated, unfriendly, welfare dependent, and lacking in family values.’” He describes these painful moments of self-recognition in what becomes a kind of secular apology: a life of a sinner striving for sainthood, who, having been saved, wants to save everyone else.

…

Liberal values are therefore tossed out almost immediately. Kendi, a star professor at American University and a recent Guggenheim Fellowship winner, has no time for color-blindness, or for any kind of freedom which might have some inequality as its outcome. In fact, “the most threatening racist movement is not the alt-right’s unlikely drive for a White ethno-state, but the regular American’s drive for a ‘race-neutral’ one.” He has no time for persuasion or dialogue either: “An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change.” All there is is power. You either wield it or are controlled by it. And power is simply the ability to implement racist or antiracist policy.

The book therefore is not an attempt to persuade anyone. It’s a life story interspersed with a litany of pronouncements about what you have to do to be good rather than evil. It has the tone of a Vatican encyclical, or a Fundamentalist sermon. There is no space in this worldview for studying any factor that might create or exacerbate racial or ethnic differences or inequalities apart from pure racism. If there are any neutral standards that suggest inequalities or differences of any sort between ethnic groups, they are also ipso facto racist standards. In fact, the idea of any higher or lower standard for anything is racist, which is why Kendi has no time either for standardized tests. In this view of the world, difference always means hierarchy.

…

He’s capable of conveying the complicated dynamics of that violent mugging on a bus, but somehow insists that the only real violence is the structural “violence” of racist power. After a while, you realize that this worldview cannot be contradicted or informed by any discipline outside itself — sociology, biology, psychology, history. Unlike any standard theory in the social sciences, Kendi’s argument — one that is heavily rooted in critical theory — about a Manichean divide between racist and anti-racist forces cannot be tested or falsified. Because there is no empirical reality outside the “power structures” it posits.

…

He wants unelected “formally trained experts on racism” (presumably all from critical race-theory departments) to have unaccountable control over every policy that won’t yield racial equality in every field of life, public or private. They are tasked with investigating “private racist policies.” Any policy change anywhere in the U.S. would have to be precleared by these “experts” who could use “disciplinary tools” if policymakers do not cave to their demands. They would monitor and control public and private speech. What Kendi wants is power to coerce others to accept his worldview and to implement his preferred policies, over and above democratic accountability or political opposition. Among those policies would be those explicitly favoring nonwhites over whites because “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Every now and again, it’s worth thinking about what the intersectional left’s ultimate endgame really is — and here it strikes me as both useful and fair to extrapolate from Kendi’s project. They seem not to genuinely believe in liberalism, liberal democracy, or persuasion. They have no clear foundational devotion to individual rights or freedom of speech. Rather, the ultimate aim seems to be running the entire country by fiat to purge it of racism (and every other intersectional “-ism” and “phobia”, while they’re at it). And they demand “disciplinary tools” by unelected bodies to enforce “a radical reorientation of our consciousness.” There is a word for this kind of politics and this kind of theory when it is fully and completely realized, and it is totalitarian.

…

I once thought I understood what sex and gender meant. “Sex” meant male or female; “gender” meant how you express that sex. Simple enough. I also thought that homosexuality was defined as a sexual and emotional attraction to someone of your own sex, as would be implied by “homo” meaning same, and “sexuality” meaning, well, sexuality. This baseline agreement on basic terms was a good start for a reasoned debate. You can tell someone’s sex by their chromosomes, hormones, genitals and secondary sex characteristics. You can tell someone’s gender by the way they manifest their sex and sex characteristics. People have infinitely different ways to express their maleness or femaleness, and cultures create different norms for these expressions. And my basic position was that we should expand those norms and accept all types of nonconforming men and women as very much men and very much still women.

But now I’m confused, and I don’t think I’m alone. Slowly but surely, the term “sex” has slowly drifted in meaning and become muddled with gender. And that has major consequences for what homosexuality actually is, consequences that are only beginning to be properly understood. Take the Equality Act, the bill proposed by the biggest LGBTQ lobby group, the Human Rights Campaign, backed by every single Democratic presidential candidate, and passed by the House last May. Its core idea is to enhance the legal meaning of the word “sex” so it becomes “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity).”

The Act provides four different ways to understand the word “sex,” only one of which has any reference to biology. Sex means first “a sex stereotype”; secondly “pregnancy, childbirth, or a related condition”; thirdly “sexual orientation or gender identity”; and last “sex characteristics, including intersex traits.” Yes, at the end, we have “sex characteristics” in there — i.e., biological males and females — qualified, as it should be, by the intersex condition. But it’s still vague. “Sex characteristics” can mean biologically male or female, but can also mean secondary sex characteristics, like chest hair, or breasts, which can be the effect of hormone therapy. So in fact, the Act never refers to men and women as almost every human being who has ever existed on Earth understands those terms.

…

In these lesson plans, here’s the definition of homosexuality: “a person’s sexual identity in relation to the gender to which they are attracted.” Homosexuality is thereby redefined as homogenderism. It’s no longer about attraction to the same sex, but to the same gender. I’m no longer homosexual; I’m homogender. But what if the whole point of my being gay is that I’ve always been physically attracted to men? And by men, I mean people with XY chromosomes, formed by natural testosterone, with male genitals, which is what almost every American outside these ideological bubbles means by “men.” I do not mean people with XX chromosomes, formed by estrogen, with female genitals, who have subsequently used testosterone to masculinize their female body — even though I would treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve in every context.

…

Of course, anyone can and should like whatever they like and do whatever they want to do. But if a gay man doesn’t want to have sex with someone who has a vagina and a lesbian doesn’t want to have sex with someone who has a dick, they are not being transphobic. They’re being — how shall I put this? — gay. When Rich suggests that “it’s not just possible but observable and prevalent to have ‘preferences’ that dog-whistle bigotry,” and he includes in the category of “preferences” not liking the other sex’s genitals, he’s casting a moral pall over gayness itself. Suddenly we’re not just being told homosexuality is “problematic” by the religious right, we’re being told it by the woke left.

That’s the price of merging gender with sex. It’s time the rest of us woke up and defended our homosexuality.