#mike roe

[singeratlarge]

SUNDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO—“The Sky Cries” (live on Karen’s Place TV show) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7zooKNXcQs ...Rain is one of the great equalizers of humanity, meaning that it falls on everyone regardless of your status in life.

“Blood is pounding through your head, nothing makes any sense

You have a dark spot a feeling of dread, tired of waiting on the fence

Makes you feel like you’re the only one who ever felt this pain

Makes it hard to see the sun when all you see is rain

“And the sky cries, the rain falls down on everyone

But it never ever lies, and it doesn’t last forever…

“The rain falls on the just and the unjust

The rain falls on the rich and the poor

The rain falls on the captive and the free

The rain falls on the black and the white

The rain falls down on you and me

…and the sky cries, it cries, it cries…

…but it doesn’t last forever!”

The lyrics for “The Sky Cries” are based on the scripture, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust…” (Matthew 5:45). Musically I was influenced by Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison, and Mike Roe (of the 77s). 

#sky #equalizer #blood #rain #fleetwoodmac #royorbison #michaelroe #mikeroe #the77s #seventysevens #12stringguitar #slideguitar #matthew545 #karensplace #johnnyjblair #singeratlarge

[odinsblog]

Just to emphasize: Mike Johnson is an antivaxxer, an anti-abortion, forced bither, he believes the job of poor women is to give birth to an infinite supply of low wage jobseekers, he is a climate change denier, he wants to cut Social Security + Medicare + Medicaid, and he’s a “Trump won!” Republican. And House Republicans just unanimously voted for him as Speaker of the House.

Please take note: there are no “moderates” in the Republican Party.

[mysharona1987]

[lenbryant]

Preach

[tomorrowusa]

Do you need more proof that Republicans are becoming even more homophobic by the week?

Whenever you hear somebody thinking of sitting out the election or ruminating about wasting a vote on some automatic loser third party, remind them of the insidious evil which the Republican Party has become.

MAGA Mike Johnson is now the highest ranking Republican in the US. He received every single vote of GOP House members, including the alleged moderates, to become House Speaker.

15 Not-Fun Facts About Speaker Mike Johnson

1. He masterminded Trump’s election coup. 2. He's the least-experienced House Speaker in 140 years. 3. He worked for the conservative legal group behind the case that ended Roe v. Wade. 4. He wants to ban abortion nationwide. 5. He blamed abortion for school shootings. 6. He also blamed abortion for Social Security and Medicare cuts. 7. He blamed mass shootings on the teaching of evolution. 8. He fought to make taxpayers fund a Noah’s Ark theme park. 9. He fought to ban same-sex marriage in Louisiana. 10. He led an anti-gay campus movement. 11. He wrote a lot of homophobic op-eds. 12. He introduced a national version of Florida's "Don’t Say Gay" bill. 13. He was an advocate for "covenant marriage," which makes it harder to divorce. 14. He blamed post-Katrina looting on America turning away from God. 15. He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state.

^^^ click the link to New York Magazine just above the list for details.

The 2024 election pits the 17th century against the 21st century. Republicans don't accept any of that newfangled thinking from The Enlightenment.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Professor Laurence Tribe’s reflection on Project 2025

Professor Tribe’s career as America’s leading constitutional scholar spans half a century. From that unique vantage, he is raising the alarm about Project 2025’s most pernicious goal—one that is frequently lost in understandable concern about the plan to weaponize the DOJ against Trump's political enemies.

In a thoughtful essay in The New York Review of Books, Professor Tribe identifies Project 2025’s most dangerous aim as that of imposing a “theocratic autocracy” to extinguish fundamental liberties at the core of our democratic existence. See Laurence H. Tribe, The New York Review of Books, Where Freedom Ends.

Professor Tribe addresses the current threat to constitutional liberties by tracing his career defending those liberties before the Supreme Court. His career began during a hopeful time when the Court was recognizing and defending personal liberties against encroachment by a web of theocratic prohibitions masquerading as civil law. The watershed case of Roe v. Wade was one of many cases that challenged religious dogma posing as legislative policy. The victories that began with Roe v. Wade (reproductive liberty) ran through Obergefell v. Hodges (marriage equality).

Since the 2015 high water mark, small groups of religious fundamentalists have engineered a “regulatory capture” of the Supreme Court. The Court has been reduced to the political action arm of the Christian nationalism. That movement aims to extinguish all rights that conflict with its extreme religious doctrine. As Professor Tribe writes,

Law can oppress as easily as it can liberate, and it is the everyday life we lead at our kitchen tables and in our bedrooms that is most dangerously threatened by a return of Trump to power.

As Professor Tribe notes, Project 2025 is at root a religiously motivated effort to replace civil rights with religious dogma. The trappings of an imperial presidency are the means to imposing the religious values of a small minority on the personal lives of all Americans. As Professor Tribe writes,

The threat to all our personal freedoms and civil liberties posed by a second Trump administration is not principally that Trump will finally have learned how to thoroughly weaponize his Department of Justice, filling it with obedient acolytes. We needn’t underestimate this threat to recognize that we look through the wrong end of the telescope if we focus on the powers an unleashed president might exercise through his underlings rather than on the freedoms that exercise would suffocate.

There is much more in Professor Tribe’s essay that merits your consideration. But if we take nothing else away from his essay, it is that the threat of a second Trump term is that it aims to erase the promise that lies at the heart of American democracy: “Liberty and justice for all.”

But Professor Tribe is not merely raising the alarm. He notes that he is “tirelessly working” to achieve the results in 2024 that will allow for the restoration of the rights abrogated in Dobbs. Like Professor Tribe, we must simultaneously recognize the true nature of the threats we face while working diligently to prevent those threats from materializing. The fact that the nation’s preeminent constitutional scholar of the last half century is on the front lines in the defense of liberty tells us all we need to know about the urgency of our own actions.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[mountainashes]

Just saw someone calling MikeChris 'Hartroe' and I kinda love it

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Shruti Rajkumar at HuffPost:

Former President Donald Trump bragged about eliminating abortion rights in the U.S. during a news conference Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. “We don’t need it any longer because we broke Roe v. Wade,” Trump said on Friday. “The states are working very brilliantly. It’s working the way it’s supposed to.” His comments come after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that an 1864 law criminalizing nearly all abortions can go into effect and override the state’s previous ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The ruling, which is expected to draw legal challenges, has been stayed for 14 days pending additional arguments in a lower court.

At least 14 states that have banned abortions since the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022. “The states are working their way through it. You’re having some very, very beautiful harmony. You have some cases like Arizona that went back to 1864... but that’s going to be changed, I disagree with that,” Trump said. Despite his history of anti-abortion policies, supporting anti-abortion lawmakers and lauding himself for his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has been intentionally vague about his stance on abortion rights.

Earlier this week, Trump admitted that he would not sign a national ban on abortions and instead supports leaving the decision up to the states. His supposed “middle ground,” or compromise, on the divisive issue appears to be an attempt to garner more votes, but has been criticized by abortion rights groups and Democrats.

During a joint presser at Mar-A-Lago with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) this past Friday, Donald Trump bragged about the elimination of abortion rights by gloating he "broke Roe v. Wade." America does not need this anti-abortion ghoul back in office.

[the--king--in--yellow]

Spotify Playlist Feb 2023

Death of A Predator - Banshee

Mojo - Peeping Tom (Mike Patton, Rahzel, Dan the Automator)

Everyone's Dyin' (Grandma's Drunk Again) - Roe Kapara

Dead Men Don't Rape - Delilah Bon

Rasputin - Boney M

Loose - Cinnamon Babe

Valhalla Calling (Trio Ver) - Miracle Of Sound, Peyton Parrish, Eric Hollaway)

Burn - The Cure

Cyber Sitar - Dance Music Federation (DMF)

Good Mistake - Mr Little Jeans

I Spit On Your Grave - ZAND

One Of Us Is The Killer - The Dillinger Escape Plan

[singeratlarge]

“Blossoms fall around your face, Sunshine plays upon the lace, Meet me at the summer place.” 

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Meet Me at the Summer Place”—A “vacation of the mind” song, with summer as a peaceful place, a twilight refraction on discreet and gentle moments that remove us, emotionally and spiritually, from the ruckus of life. The title name-checks that schmaltzy but irresistible 1960 instrumental “Theme From a Summer Place” by Percy Faith (that track blissed me out when I was a kid). I was nudged into making this song after hearing Mike Roe’s evocative track, “Come & Gone.” It’s also influenced by Todd Rundgren and Steely Dan. On a cosmic jukebox, this would play next to “Crystal Blue Persuasion” (Tommy James), “Groovin’” (Young Rascals), and a plenitude of Beach Boys tracks.

Thank you for listening…see you at that summer place in your soul. Downloads appreciated and feedback welcome (track remastered in 2021 by Chris von Sneidern at Tape Vault Studios in San Francisco)…

#summer #beachboys #toddrundgren #steelydan #mikeroe #michaelroe #tommyjames #rascals #groovin #crystalbluepersuasion #soul #percyfaith #johnnyjblair #singersongwriter #singeratlarge #blossom #sunshine #vacation

[odinsblog]

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion smugly declared that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Alito mocked the dissent’s concern that getting rid of abortion would ultimately imperil things like access to contraception, saying the dissent was “designed to stoke unfounded fear that our decision will imperil those other rights.”

But as anti-choice politicians and activists are now deploying Dobbs to try to roll back decades of law about bodily autonomy, it’s clear the dissent’s fears were quite well-founded.

Conservatives are not going to stop at unwinding the constitutional right to privacy, which underpins things like the right to obtain birth control and the right of same-sex couples to marry. After they destroy the agency of half the population by imposing so-called “fetal personhood” laws, they’re coming for the modern welfare state.

The blueprint

Over at the hard-right Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll, a former comms person for both the Heritage Foundation and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, has a lengthy list of laws he’d like to get rid of — everything from Medicaid, to Head Start, to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those laws, he argues, “penalize marriage and encourage alternative family formation.” Carroll’s goals therefore dovetail not only with forced-birth conservatives but also with forced-marriage conservatives.

(continue reading)

[filosofablogger]

Filosofa's Fury

It is 1:00 a.m. where I live.  One of the three human family members, daughter Chris, is fast asleep, for she gets up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to go to her job.  All four furry family members are asleep in their respective happy places (one on my lap).  And the other human family member (besides myself, that is) is chatting online with her friends.  Therefore, it would be disruptive, to say the…

[petermorwood]

Here's that Mike Whelan cover.

Per DD, the subversive bit - this was 1976, after all - was to flip the usual male-female fantasy cover dynamic, so the female character held the dominant / powerful pose and the male character, if not quite subservient, certainly wasn't the focus of attention. (Entirely in keeping with the Morgaine / Vanye character dynamic in the story, BTW.)

That pose in its usual form is what TVTropes call "Leg Cling"...

...even when clinging isn't involved.

Or even when clinging doesn't involve legs, such as this example.

Snrk...

This article has a lot more examples. I hadn't realised it was such a cross-genre cliché.

*****

Actual poses and possible subversion aside, I can't shake a feeling that Whelan also had to deal with an art editor who wanted a Vallejo-style fantasy cover with plenty of bare skin, even though this is actually a science fiction story despite its fantasy-ish setting.

If that guess is correct, then the cover art requirement also ignores how location and clothing are described in the text, because - except for the preamble and springboard incident - that text makes clear the action of the entire book takes place in deep winter, with frequent mentions of intense cold, deep snow, windswept bare rocks and heavy fur clothing.

A cloak, a bikini top and a couple of loincloths Are Not Enough.

See the TVTrope "Covers Always Lie" for more about cover / contents variance.

Here’s the US cover again, alongside my much-preferred (even with a horned helmet) UK one by Dave Roe. Its emphasis is still very much on the fantasy aspect...

...but at least the main character is better dressed for harsh weather and the horse's visible breath emphasises that the air is cold...

What would you recommend as a good intro to CJ Cherryh? You've several times talked very highly of her work, and I'm curious now.

Depends on your preferences.

If you're a fantasy fan, I'd start with The Dreamstone and/or Tree of Swords and Jewels. If you prefer fantasy that's edging a bit toward SF, then you want the "Morgaine Cycle" of books that begin with Gate of Ivrel, a great favorite of both mine and @petermorwood's . (Don't be weirded out by the first-edition Mike Whelan cover on Ivrel: Mike was being fabulously subversive on that.) If you prefer straightforward unambivalent hard SF, try the "Company Wars" books that begin with Downbelow Station. And there are the fabulous "Chanur" books, featuring an interstellar trading family of lioness-like hominids who get caught up with a member of the weird "human" species...

And all of that said: I have favorites among these that are standalones, or are "off the beaten track" of one or another of her major universes. My absolute favorite of the favorites is Hunter of Worlds, which is one of the best get-into-your-aliens'-minds books I know—unquestionably an influence on my Rihannsu work for Star Trek.

So there you have it. Pick a spot and jump in! You've got so much terrific reading ahead of you. :)

[tomorrowusa]

At least 125 House Republicans want to ban abortion from the time of conception.

H.R.431 — 118th Congress, dated 20 January 2023, is called "Life at Conception Act”.

Of course this bill would prohibit ALL abortions. And according to The New Republic, it would also outlaw in vitro fertilization.

Like the Alabama ruling, the Life at Conception Act would have severely restricted—if not effectively banned—IVF treatments as well, because it grants “equal protection” to “preborn” humans, including embryos. Since it’s common for fertilized eggs not to survive the IVF process, the act would put doctors at risk of being charged for wrongful death of embryos. That risk would be enough to scupper the IVF industry. And that is exactly what is happening in Alabama. The state Supreme Court ruled 7–2 last week that embryos created through IVF can be considered children and are thus protected under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

Effectively, Republicans want to make America Alabama.

HR 431 was sponsored by Rep. Alexander X. Mooney (R-WV-02) who sits on the House Judiciary Committee. The bill has 124 co-sponsors. That's too long to list in a post but you can view the names here. Of course, the list includes fundamentalist Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson (R-LA-04).

Democrats have released a list of nine GOP co-sponsors of HR431 in swing districts and two 2024 GOP House candidates in similar districts who have voiced support for HR 431.

Vulnerable House Republicans Put IVF and Feriilty Treatments At Risk

Republicans are intent on regulating reproduction at every level in the US. They had worked for 49 years to repeal Roe v. Wade until they were finally successful in 2022 – thanks to Trump and Bush Supreme Court justices.

The ONLY sure way to protect reproductive freedom in the United States is to make sure the White House and both chambers of Congress are run by Democrats.

[rockpaperscissuhs]

Band of Brothers Birthdays

January

1 John S. Zielinski Jr. (b. 1925)

21 Richard D. “Dick” Winters (b. 1918)

26 Herbert M. Sobel (b. 1912)

30 Clifford Carwood "Lip" Lipton (b. 1920)

31 Warren H. “Skip” Muck (b. 1922) & Robert B. Brewer (b. 1924)

February

8 Clarence R. Hester (b. 1916)

18 Thomas A. Peacock (b. 1920)

23 Lester A. “Les” Hashey (b. 1925)

March

1 Charles E. “Chuck” Grant (b. 1922)

2 Colonel Robert L. “Bob” Strayer (b. 1910)

4 Wayne “Skinny” Sisk (b. 1922)

10 Frank J. Perconte (b. 1917)

13 Darrell C. “Shifty” Powers (b. 1923)

14 Joseph J. “Joe” Toye (b. 1919)

24 John D. “Cowboy” Halls (b. 1922)

26 George Lavenson (b. 1917) & George H. Smith Jr. (1922)

27 Gerald J. Loraine (b. 1913)

April

3 Colonel Robert F. “Bob” Sink (b. 1905) & Patrick S. “Patty” O’Keefe (b. 1926)

5 John T. “Johnny” Julian (b. 1924)

10 Renée B. E. Lemaire (b. 1914)

11 James W. Miller (b. 1924)

15 Walter S. “Smokey” Gordon Jr. (b. 1920)

20 Ronald C. “Sparky” Speirs (b. 1920)

23 Alton M. More (b. 1920)

27 Earl E. “One Lung” McClung (b. 1923) & Henry S. “Hank” Jones Jr. (b. 1924)

28 William J. “Wild Bill” Guarnere (b. 1923)

May

12 John W. “Johnny” Martin (b. 1922)

16 Edward J. “Babe” Heffron (b. 1923)

17 Joseph D. “Joe” Liebgott (b. 1915)

19 Norman S. Dike Jr. (b. 1918) & Cleveland O. Petty (b. 1924)

25 Albert L. "Al" Mampre (b. 1922)

June

2 David K. "Web" Webster (b. 1922)

6 Augusta M. Chiwy ("Anna") (b. 1921)

13 Edward D. Shames (b. 1922)

17 George Luz (b. 1921)

18 Roy W. Cobb (b. 1914)

23 Frederick T. “Moose” Heyliger (b. 1916)

25 Albert Blithe (b. 1923)

28 Donald B. "Hoob" Hoobler (b. 1922)

July

2 Gen. Anthony C. "Nuts" McAuliffe (b. 1898)

7 Francis J. “Frank” Mellet (b. 1920)

8 Thomas Meehan III (b. 1921)

9 John A. Janovec (b. 1925)

10 Robert E. “Popeye” Wynn (b. 1921)

16 William S. Evans (b. 1910)

20 James H. “Moe” Alley Jr. (b. 1922)

23 Burton P. “Pat” Christenson (b. 1922)

29 Eugene E. Jackson (b. 1922)

31 Donald G. "Don" Malarkey (b. 1921)

August

3 Edward J. “Ed” Tipper (b. 1921)

10 Allen E. Vest (b. 1924)

15 Kenneth J. Webb (b. 1920)

18 Jack E. Foley (b. 1922)

26 Floyd M. “Tab” Talbert (b. 1923) & General Maxwell D. Taylor (b. 1901)

29 Joseph A. Lesniewski (b. 1920)

31 Alex M. Penkala Jr. (b. 1924)

September

3 William H. Dukeman Jr. (b. 1921)

11 Harold D. Webb (b. 1925)

12 Major Oliver M. Horton (b. 1912)

27 Harry F. Welsh (b. 1918)

30 Lewis “Nix” Nixon III (b. 1918)

October

5 Joseph “Joe” Ramirez (b. 1921) & Ralph F. “Doc” Spina (b. 1919) & Terrence C. "Salty" Harris (b. 1920)

6 Leo D. Boyle (b. 1913)

10 William F. “Bill” Kiehn (b. 1921)

15 Antonio C. “Tony” Garcia (b. 1924)

17 Eugene G. "Doc" Roe (b. 1922)

21 Lt. Cl. David T. Dobie (b. 1912)

28 Herbert J. Suerth Jr. (b. 1924)

31 Robert "Bob" van Klinken (b. 1919)

November

11 Myron N. “Mike” Ranney (b. 1922)

20 Denver “Bull” Randleman (b. 1920)

December

12 John “Jack” McGrath (b. 1919)

31 Lynn D. “Buck” Compton (b. 1921)

Unknown Date

Joseph P. Domingus

Richard J. Hughes (b. 1925)

Maj. Louis Kent

Father John Mahoney

George C. Rice

SOURCES

Military History Fandom Wiki

Band of Brothers Fandom Wiki

Traces of War

Find a Grave

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The "religious liberty" angle for overturning the overturning of Dobbs

Frank Wilhoit’s definition of “conservativism” remains a classic:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Conservativism is, in other words, the opposite of the rule of law, which is the idea that the law applies equally to all. Many of America’s most predictably weird moments live in the tension between the rule of law and the conservative’s demand to be protected — but not bound — by the law.

Think of the Republican women of Florida whose full-throated support for the perfomatively cruel and bigoted policies of Ron Desantis turned to howls of outrage when the governor signed a law “overhauling alimony” (for “overhauling,” read “eliminating”):

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/this-is-a-death-sentence-for-me-florida-republican-women-say-they-will-switch-parties-after-desantis-approves-alimony-law-34563230

This is real leopards-eating-people’s-faces-party stuff, and it’s the only source of mirth in an otherwise grim situation.

But out of the culture-war bullshit backfires, none is so sweet and delicious as the religious liberty self-own. You see, under the rule of law, if some special consideration is owed to a group due to religious liberty, that means all religions. Of course, Wilhoit-drunk conservatives imagine that “religious liberty” is a synonym for Christian liberty, and that other groups will never demand the same carve outs.

Remember when Louisiana decided spend tax dollars to fund “religious” schools under a charter school program, only to discover — to their Islamaphobic horror — that this would allow Muslim schools to get public subsidies, too?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/louisiana_n_1593995

(They could have tried the Quebec gambit, where hijabs and yarmulkes are classed as “religious” and therefore banned for public servants and publicly owned premises, while crosses are treated as “cultural” and therefore exempted — that’s some primo Wilhoitism right there)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-francois-legault-crucifix-religious-symbols-1.4858757

The Satanic Temple has perfected the art of hoisting religious liberty on its own petard. Are you a state lawmaker hoping to put a giant Ten Commandments on the statehouse lawn? Go ahead, have some religious liberty — just don’t be surprised when the Satanic Temple shows up to put a giant statue of Baphomet next to it:

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

Wanna put a Christmas tree in the state capitol building? Sure, but there’s gonna be a Satanic winter festival display right next to it:

https://katv.com/news/offbeat/satanic-temple-display-installed-at-illinois-capitol-next-to-nativity-scene-menorah-decorations-snake-serpent-satanic-temple-springfield-christmas-tree

And now we come to Dobbs, and the cowardly, illegitimate Supreme Court’s cowardly, illegitimate overturning of Roe v Wade, a move that was immediately followed by “red” states implementing total, or near-total bans on abortion:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/15/paid-medical-disinformation/#crisis-pregnancy-centers

These same states are hotbeds of “religious liberty” nonsense. In about a dozen of these states, Jews, Christians, and Satanists are filing “religious liberty” challenges to the abortion ban. In Indiana, the Hoosier Jews For Choice have joined with other religious groups in a class action, to argue that the “religious freedom” law that Mike Pence signed as governor protects their right to an abortion:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468

Their case builds on precedents from the covid lockdowns, like decisions that said that if secular exceptions to lockdown rules or vaccine mandates existed, then states had to also allow religious exemptions. That opens the door for religious exemptions to abortion bans — if there’s a secular rule that permits abortion in the instance of incest or rape, then faith-based exceptions must be permitted, too.

Some of the challenges to abortion rules seek to carve out religious exemptions, but others seek to overturn the abortion rules altogether, because the lawmakers who passed them explicitly justified them in the name of fusing Christian “values” with secular law, a First Amendment no-no.

As Rabbi James Bennett told Politico’s Alice Ollstein: “They’re entitled to their interpretation of when life begins, but they’re not entitled to have the exclusive one.”

In Florida, a group of Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Universalists and United Church clerics are challenging the “aiding and abetting” law because it restricts the things they can say from the pulpit — a classic religious liberty gambit.

Kentucky’s challenge comes from three Jewish women whose faith holds that life begins “with the first breath.” Lead plaintiff Lisa Sobel described how Kentucky’s law bars her from seeking IVF treatment, because she could face criminal charges for “discarding non-viable embryos” created during the process.

Then there’s the Satanic Temple, in court in Texas, Idaho and Indiana. The Satanists say that abortion is a religious ritual, and argue that the state can’t limit their access to it.

These challenges all rest on state religious liberty laws. What will happen when some or all of these reach the Supreme Court? It’s a risky gambit. This is the court that upheld Trump’s Muslim ban and the right of a Christian baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. It’s a court that loves Wilhoit’s “in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

It’s a court that’s so Wilhoit-drunk, it’s willing to grant religious liberty to bigots who worry about imaginary same-sex couples:

https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court

But in the meantime, the bigots and religious maniacs who want to preserve “religious liberty” while banning abortion are walking a fine line. The Becket Fund, which funded the Hobby Lobby case (establishing that religious maniacs can deny health care to their employees if their imaginary friends object), has filed a brief in one case arguing that the religious convictions of people arguing for a right to abortion aren’t really sincere in their beliefs:

https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20230118184008/Individual-Members-v.-Anonymous-Planitiff-Amicus-Brief.pdf

This is quite a line for Becket to have crossed — religious liberty trufans hate it when courts demand that people seeking religious exemptions prove that their beliefs are sincerely held.

Not only is Becket throwing its opposition to “sincerely held belief” tests under the bus, they’re doing so for nothing. Jewish religious texts clearly state that life begins at the first breath, and that the life of a pregnant person takes precedence over the life of the fetus in their uterus.

The kicker in Ollstein’s great article comes in the last paragraph, delivered by Columbia Law’s Elizabeth Reiner Platt, who runs the Law, Rights, and Religion Project:

The idea of reproductive rights as a religious liberty issue is absolutely not something that came from lawyers. It’s how faith communities themselves have been talking about their approach to reproductive rights for literally decades.

The Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop (I’m a grad, instructor and board member) is having its fundraiser auction to help defray tuition. I’ve donated a “Tuckerization” — the right to name a character in a future novel:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clarion-sf-fantasy-writers-workshop-23-campaign/#/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/11/wilhoitism/#hoosier-jews

[Image ID: Moses parting the Red Sea. On the seabed is revealed a Planned Parenthood clinic.]

Image: Nina Paley (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moses-Splits-Sea_by_Nina_Paley.jpg

CC0 1.0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en

 — 

Kristina D.C. Hoeppner (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/40406966752/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/