Friday, May 26, 2006

Praise Jesus! At least one of His followers “gets it.”

Over in the Restore the Pledge Forums, discussing a recent case in Kentucky in which a Judge blocked a school-sanctioned prayer at a high school graduation ceremony and the Christian students’ response, rnrstar linked to a Letter of the Week at World Net Daily that gave me hope that there are at least SOME Christians who have taken the time to “walk in others’ shoes.”

Gary Christenot is an evangelical Christian who, while working with a youth group during service in the Air Force in Hawaii, attended a high school football game in a predominantly Buddhist area and came face to face with being a member of a minority religion in a public religious ceremony involving invocations and practices that were anathema to him.

The point is this. I am a professional, educated and responsible man who is strong in his faith and is quite comfortable debating the social and political issues of the day. Yet when placed in a setting where the majority culture proved hostile to my faith and beliefs, I became paralyzed with indecision and could not act decisively to defend and proclaim my own beliefs. I felt instantly ostracized and viewed myself as a foreigner in my own land.

We often advocate the practice of Judeo-Christian rituals in America’s public schools by hiding behind the excuse that they are voluntary and any student who doesn’t wish to participate can simply remained seated and silent. Oh that this were true. But if I, as a mature adult, would be so confounded and uncomfortable when faced with the decision of observing and standing on my own religious principals or run the risk of offending the majority crowd, I can only imagine what thoughts and confusion must run through the head of the typical child or teenager, for whom peer acceptance is one of the highest ideals.

I would say in love to my Christian brothers and sisters, before you yearn for the imposition of prayer and similar rituals in your public schools, you might consider attending a football game at Wahiawa High School. Because unless you’re ready to endure the unwilling exposure of yourself and your children to those beliefs and practices that your own faith forswears, you have no right to insist that others sit in silence and complicity while you do the same to them. I, for one, slept better at night knowing that because Judeo-Christian prayers were not being offered at my children’s schools, I didn’t have to worry about them being confronted with Buddhist, Shinto, Wiccan, Satanic or any other prayer ritual I might find offensive.

The student in the Kentucky case, it turns out, was a Muslim. 

It has been tradition at Russell County High School in Kentucky for graduating seniors to elect a “graduation chaplain” who delivers a Christian prayer at the graduation ceremony. This year, a Muslim student filed a lawsuit and a judge issued an injunction to prevent it. As the principal began his opening remarks, 200 students stood and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Most of the rest of the audience gave a standing ovation.

When the Muslim student went up to receive his diploma, he was booed.

Ah, feel the Christian Love^™…

I agree with Gary Christenot.  Every Christian in America should be required to attend at least one government-sponsored event in which a non-Christian religious ritual is performed as part of the official ceremony.  Or perhaps have the Eleven Satanic Principles posted in their child’s school, or have their taxpayer dollars spent erecting a monument displaying them at their county courthouse.  Sadly, I think that’s exactly what it would take to get these thick-headed, self-righteous sons of bitches to understand that the only way to guarantee equality for ALL is for the government to stick to the absolute neutrality in matters of religion that the First Amendment requires.

Constitutional matters aside, the response of the Christians at the graduation ceremony was shameful, rude and just plain mean.  Once again we’re treated to a demonstration of the all-too-common attitude of superiority and self-righteousness of the Christian majority.  They’ll rise up to shout out a prayer (or the unconstitutional Pledge, as those congressional fucksticks did a few years ago) in defiance of a judicial ruling, all the while complaining that said ruling is evidence of their “persecution” in America!

People give me shit all the time for calling Christians delusional… but if their acceptance of fable as fact isn’t enough evidence to support that notion, their claim of persecution in the United States clearly qualifies!!!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Breaking Commandments is OK, if it’s “for the children!”

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Unless, of course, your neighbor is Planned Parenthood, or a pregnant minor seeking an abortion.

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called “crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office” (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The “crisis pregnancy center” had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The “crisis pregnancy center” staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Our clinic director reports that the girl was “scared to death to leave her house.” They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these “crisis pregnancy centers” across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What’s more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They’re being funded by our tax dollars.

A bill has just been introduced in Congress to stop the fraudulent practices of fake clinics, but it desperately needs more support. Tell your representative to take a stand: anti-choice extremists must not get away with this any longer!

Go to: http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/fakeclinics

People wonder why I’m so hard on Christians… the story above is just one example of the things that prompt me to rail against the Christofascist hypocrites who claim the moral high ground.  Again we see that no underhanded deed is evil in the sight of the Lord they claim to follow, if it can be even remotely justified as being “for the sake of the children!” They will toss aside one of the Commandments they claim as the foundation of all human morality (which apparently American Christians will never remember unless they’re plastered on every school and government building in the country), usurp parental rights, and employ mafia-style tactics in order to further their agenda of controlling a woman’s body.  “Family values,” my fat, white ASS!

I’m so glad my tax dollars are supporting groups that consider MY right as a mother to take my teenaged daughter for medical treatment both she and I agree is necessary as secondary to the need for all people to bow to the wishes of this God character, whose “mind” they claim to know - and in whose existence I fail utterly to believe.

I find nothing so depressing and hopeless as the thought of a woman (and in particular a teenaged girl) bearing a child before she’s ready.  At this time in history, it simply should NOT happen.  We have the technology to guarantee that every child born is both wanted and loved… what we don’t have is comprehensive, REALISTIC education; and more sad still, our society has politicized the issue of a woman’s right to choose the number of children she will bear as well as when she will do so, using religion as justification to limit the methods that make it possible.  Shame and fear are the tools employed to keep women in check, which is why it is so important to be open enough in our education and public dialogue to remove the shame associated with our bodies, and to stop falling prey to fear of some sort of divine retribution for standing up for our right to do whatever the hell we want to with them.

Write to your representatives NOW.  These lying hypocrites must be stopped…

FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Lyle vs. Warner Bros. - update

More on the lawsuit I bitched about here and here.  Thankfully, it ended well and is another victory for Free Speech, though I doubt most Americans even knew about the case… much less gave a flying fuck.

From XBiz News:

Calif. High Court Rules Obscene Speech Not Always Workplace Harassment
By Rhett Pardon
Friday, April 21, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — In a ruling that could help protect adult entertainment companies from lawsuits, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that obscene speech is not always workplace harassment.

The justices agreed with Warner Bros. Television Productions that explicit comments in staff meetings during the production of “Friends” TV scripts were part of the creative process and, therefore, the studio and its writers could not be sued for workplace harassment.

Some of the comments queried were relative to the defendants’ own sexual experiences, the making of sexually explicit drawings in an erotic “coloring book” one of the defendants kept on his desk, speculation about the sex lives of the actors on the show, relation of sexual fantasies, repeated use of the “F word” and a Yiddish word for penis, disparaging remarks about women’s breasts, and simulated masturbation, among other things.

Amaani Lyle, 32, claims she was constantly subjected to comments and jokes made by the writers and producers during meetings.

But the justices thought different. Sometimes vulgarity is not just acceptable but necessary in the workplace, they said.

Lyle, who is black, worked for the show for four months, as a writer’s assistant. Producers of the show say she was fired because she could not type fast enough and that dialog developed during meetings was often missing as a result.

California Justice Marvin Baxter, who wrote for the majority of the court, said Lyle had no case for sexual harassment claims because she could not show that the offensive speech was directed at her or at other women in the workplace and because “considering the totality of the circumstances, especially the nature of the writers’ work, the facts largely forming the basis of plaintiff’s sexual harassment action ... did not present a triable issue whether the writers engaged in harassment ‘because of ... sex.’”

The case is Lyle vs. Warner Brothers Television Productions, No. S125171.

I rarely get the luxury of gloating, so I’m going to savor this… bwahahahah!

update: 7/11/06 - since the spammers have been hammering this entry with trackback and comment spam, I’m turning it off.  Stupid fucking cocksuckers who can’t peddle their shit the right way.  Die you fucking douchebags!

Friday, February 17, 2006

Justices in the Amaani Lyle vs. Warner Bros. Case Agree with ME!

In May 2004, I wrote about the ridiculous sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Warner Bros. and “Friends” by Amaani Lyle, a writer’s assistant who felt her 4-month stint exposed her to a hostile work environment because of the writers’ crass language and overly sexual comments while brainstorming.

Here’s what I said:

The fact of the matter is that in spite of the strides made by women in the workplace, it’s still a man’s world and boys will be boys… especially in the entertainment industry where eternal Peter Pans keep the machine going by giving the people what they want - the idea that whatever’s in front of them will somehow get them laid.  Sex sells, and the entertainment industry sexualizes anything and everything.  Any woman who expects to be treated with kid gloves in the business is woefully naive and deserves to be run off if she’s too easily offended AND can’t bring herself to tell the boys when they need to shut the fuck up already.  When you’re playing with the boys, you’d best have balls enough to stand up for yourself once in awhile or you’ll get chewed up and spit out in short order.  Hooray for Hollywood.

It would appear that the California Supreme Court Justices hearing the case on Tuesday are inclined to agree, according to this article on Law.com yesterday, Crass or Creative? Harassment Case Involving ‘Friends’ Sitcom Reaches Calif. Justices:

Joey Tribbiani would be thrilled.

On Tuesday, the justices of the California Supreme Court seemed inclined to keep their fingers—and jurors’ second-guessing—out of the creative process that helped breathe life into his sex-obsessed character, and others, on the sitcom “Friends.”

The court, in a case televised live by the California Channel, had been asked to rule that writers’ sexually crude comments and simulations while hashing out TV scripts could constitute sexual harassment serious enough to cause a hostile work environment, especially for women and minorities.

But the six justices on hand for oral arguments appeared uncomfortable with the thought of forcing writers to curb their thoughts, words and actions even if they often push the boundaries of sexual harassment.

“This case is unique, is it not, in that it arises in the context of this creative environment,” Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said.

Justice Ming Chin, recovering from surgery, was absent, but will participate by reviewing tapes of the arguments.

Tuesday’s case was filed by Amaani Lyle, a former writer’s assistant for “Friends,” who claimed that the vulgar language and graphic antics used by the show’s male writers during her four-month employment in 1999 subjected her to a hostile work environment. She argued that constant talk about anal sex, blow jobs, “schlongs” and degrading descriptions of women as “bitches” and “cunts” had nothing to do with the show—which was much tamer on air—and was simply lewd, frat-boy entertainment for the writers.

The writers and Warner Brothers Television Productions, which produced “Friends,” responded by claiming that dirty talk and lewd actions—such as simulating masturbation—were part of the free-rolling, creative process that made “Friends” one of the most popular shows ever on TV.
[Whoa, deja vu!—OB]

“It was one of the tools of the trade,” Adam Levin, a partner at Los Angeles’ Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp who represented the writers and Warner Brothers, told the justices Tuesday.

[snip]

On Tuesday, the high court seemed to be in Levin’s corner, with more than one justice noting that Lyle had been warned before she took the job that she would be exposed to foul language of a sexual content.

“If she’s told there’s going to be sexual banter back and forth—and that happens—where’s the alteration to conditions of employment?” Chief Justice Ronald George asked Scott Cummings, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Lyle.

George was referring to provisions of the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act that prohibit harassment so pervasive that it alters some condition of an employee’s job.

Levin had earlier argued that Lyle faced no change in employment conditions because exposure to sexually charged speech was part and parcel to her work.

Even so, Justices Werdegar and Carlos Moreno played the devil’s advocate by asking whether writers had absolute immunity from harassment claims or if there were limits on what could be said in writers’ meetings.

Levin said there “are limits, no question about it,” such as not being able to direct racial epithets at minority employees. He also said that writers for the movie “Finding Nemo” or the TV series “Sesame Street” likely wouldn’t engage in such banter.

Amaani should have stayed at Nickelodeon if she’s so goddamned sensitive to crude humor and the sort of sexual banter that goes on between adults, especially in an environment where a “sexy” show is being written.

Stupid fuckin’ cunt, heh.

I’m glad the Justices seem to be aware of the chilling effect ruling in favor of Ms. Lyle would have on the creative process, and that making an exception due to the “intensity” of some of the comments she’d “endured” simply because of her sex would be unfair.  According to the statute, harassment must be “because of a person’s gender”, and there’s “no indication that the writers’ comments and actions were based on sex.” So tough titties to you, Amaani!

Get used to the frat-boy humor and sex jokes, babe, or you’ll never make it in this town!

(Found via the Free Speech X-Press Newsletter)

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

I just want it to be OVER!

The election, I mean.  I’m already teetering on the edge of a meltdown, battling depression without the aid of prescription drugs, trying to manage some incredible stress in an attempt to keep my guts from making life more hellish.  If we end up with 4 more years of Bush, I sincerely believe I’ll have to give in and seek a pharmaceutical solution to the family curse of clinical depression.

For 20 years I’ve watched in horror (and not quietly) as my country’s turned into something I hardly recognize as the America I was born into and love with a fierce passion.  The Land of Liberty, where even the least of us is granted a voice no matter HOW unpopular our opinions might be, has turned into a place where public dissent can get you a visit from, and a permanent record with the FBI. The electorate is less informed yet more polarized than I can recall in my entire life.  The overwhelming number of Americans who prefer to remain ignorant, superstitious and blind to the violations of our Constitutional rights that are being perpetrated upon us shocks and sickens me, even as the economic impact of this Administration’s fuckups makes my life even more stressful in a variety of ways.

4 more years of Bush’s corporate cronyism, crushing of individual liberties and pandering to the Religious Right is too horrible to contemplate.  Good thing I’ve got about 16 hours worth of work to complete over the next 8 or so to keep my mind off of it…

“I can’t think about that today… I’ll go crazy if I do!  I’ll think about that tomorrow.  After all, tomorrow is another day.”