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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Why do conservatives use the word “Entitlement” as if it was a bad word.
They’re called “Entitlements” because the people who receive them worked hard for and earned them as part of an agreed upon contract with the United States government. Money is taken from our paycheck each week as insurance until such time as we either retire, become disabled and cannot work, or the worst case scenario, a disaster happens and we need help.
Entitlements are not handouts. Entitlements are not charity. Entitlements did not tank our economy. Corporate greed did. So why do you want to punish the least of us just so the wealthiest can have tax breaks?
Conservatives claim to be for limited government and keeping government out of our private lives.
How does amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage limit government or keep the government out of our private lives? How does one person’s marriage affect yours? Is the foundation or your marriage so fragile that it would crumble under the weight of another couple’s happiness?
Conservatives claim to be for fiscal responsibility, yet they are largely against paying for birth control. Does it not occur to them that tax payers will undoubtedly foot the bill, through welfare, for eighteen plus years of childcare for many of the children that result from unplanned pregnancies? Compared to that, contraception is cheap.
There’s nothing wrong with conservative ideas. Personal responsibility is important. Responsibility to our community is even more important.
Ensuring that companies provide a living wage so that families don’t have to rely on food stamps is the responsible thing to do. A family that can’t afford food isn’t self-sufficient. Isn’t that what conservatism is all about; being self-sufficient? A family that’s not self-sufficient cannot contribute to the economy.
If families aren’t contributing to the economy, the economy doesn’t grow.
One more thing.
As our country experiences extreme weather powerful enough to bring about the destruction of whole communities, more and more people are going to find themselves in need of some kind of assistance, be it food stamps or welfare. These people are not deadbeats. They aren’t looking for handouts either. Yet many conservatives want to reduce these life saving safety nets because of the cost. Are these the “family values” that conservatives claim they hold in such high regard?
The United States of America is a vast and wealthy country populated with people of many different faiths and from every walk of life. In order for us to have a strong country we must look out for one another. United we stand. Divided we fall.
“Some Serious Questions For Conservatives” first appeared Friday 6/6/2013 on ADignorantium’s Wordpress page. It is re-posted here because I believe it is important.
Things Nobody Says To Heterosexuals
“I think my friend might be straight, do you know them”
i’m crying
“The recent brutal slaying of a gay man in New York City had all the trappings of a national news story, so why was it ignored by major cable news outlets?”
WTF Fox!? Where’s your righteous indignation now???
(Source: mediamattersforamerica)
A far-right French historian shot himself in the head beside the altar of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris today apparently in protest against the legalisation of gay marriage in France.
Dominique Venner, 78, a former member of the nationalist terrorist movement, OAS, placed a pistol in his mouth and shot himself dead in front of scores of tourists inside the most visited building in France.
Mr Venner, a presenter on a Catholic-traditionalust radio station and controversial historian and essayist, posted an essay on his website earlier in the day calling for “new, spectacular and symbolic actions to shake us out of our sleep, to jolt anaesthetised minds and to reawaken memory of our origins”.
His long essay was a tirade against gay marriage but also a warning that the “population of France and Europe” was going to be “replaced” and brought under “Islamist control” and “sharia law”.
Mr Venner placed a sealed letter on the altar of the cathedral before shooting himself. His choice of the altar - associated with religious marriage ceremonies -appeared to be a symbolic gesture of protest against the law permitting civil gay marriages in France which took effect last weekend.
Skim the zoomed-out surface of Humboldt State University’s alarming “Hate Map” and you’ll encounter angry clouds of bright red framed by smears of gloomy blue, as if some giant freak storm were raining down hell across the the United States.
(MORE: Star Wars and Doctor Who Fans Clash at Sci-Fi Convention)
What you’re looking at is actually a map created by pairing Google‘s Maps API with a hailstorm of homophobic, racist and other prejudicial tweets. It’s part of a project overseen by Humboldt State University professor Dr. Monica Stephens, who, along with a team of undergraduate researchers, wanted to test for geographic relationships to hate speech.
Above the map, the words “homophobic,” “racist” and “disability” define alternate “hate storm” views, each describing a range of highly offensive terms. Click on the keywords or any of their subcategories and the map shifts, the splotches reorganizing to reflect occurrences of the selected term: Bright red areas describe the “most hate,” while light blue ones describe “some hate.”
“Linda Harvey of Mission America is worried that ‘homosexual news blogs’ and other websites “that are sympathetic to the social and political goals of the homosexual movement” may actually trick young people, who could simply be visiting such sites in order to research the debate on same-sex marriage, into becoming gay”
There is so much wrong with this woman’s thinking. I don’t even know where to begin.
From the first gay-rights organization to the battle for marriage equality, TIME looks at the history of the gay-rights movement.
see interactive timeline at Time.com
File this under #DiggyRant
Can you imagine waiting for The Supreme Court of the United States of America to decide whether or not you are Created Equal & endowed by your creator to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Can you imagine waiting for a group of nine judges to determine your worthiness as a human being?
Fifteen years ago, when the idea of Same-Sex Marriage was in it’s infancy, I may have settled for Civil Unions, but the negative outcry from conservatives and religious zealots has made me dig in my heals.
So now I will settle for nothing less than equal treatment under the law.
It’s personal.
At the height of the AIDS crisis I lost many close friends, the majority of whom were in long term relationships. In each case, the surviving partner had a negative experience with the parents or family of the deceased. All but one surviving partner were forced out of their homes as family members of the deceased claimed property. He was spared because he and his partner were rather wealthy and had hired lawyers to draw up contracts that specifically defined ownership rights. It cost then thousands of dollars for the very same protections that every heterosexual couple is afforded with a $50 marriage license.
In one particularly ugly case, the surviving partner challenged his deceased partner’s family. The father had disowned his gay son and then completely cut off all communication when he discovered his son had AIDS, but then decided he had rights to his dead son’s property. The father, who was a lawyer, told his son’s partner, “I have infinite resources. You will go bankrupt if you try to challenge me.” The surviving partner’s case never made it to court. He was forced to move less than a year later.
These are just two examples, but they illustrate the issue clearly. Our relationships deserve the same legal rights and responsibilities as all married couples.
Civil Unions are NOT Equal to Marriage. Married couples have 1,138 federal rights, protections and responsibilities. Civil Unions do not.
Apple, Facebook, eBay, Intel and dozens more American corporations will submit an amicus brief to the Supreme Court today defending marriage equality in light of the upcoming cases on Prop 8 and DOMA.
According to a copy of the brief obtained by Fortune, the companies signing on say that laws like Prop 8 “send an unmistakeable signal that same-sex couples are in some way inferior to opposite-sex couples, a proposition that is anathema to amici’s commitment to equality and fair treatment to all.”
They also made the argument pro-marriage-equality folks bring up all the time, but that conservatives never seem to hear: same-sex marriage is good for business.
Fleshing out that contention, the companies argue: “By singling out a group for less favorable treatment, Proposition 8 impedes businesses from achieving the market’s ideal of efficient operations — particularly in recruiting, hiring, and retaining talented people who are in the best position to operate at their highest capacity. Amici are competing domestically and internationally with companies inside and outside the United States in places where all couples, regardless of whether they are of the same sex, are afforded equal access to marriage.”
Specifically, it suggests that when “potential recruits or employees are members of a same-sex couple,” they “may forgo the opportunity to work in California, and prefer other states (like Iowa, New York, and Massachusetts) or other nations (like Spain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, or Belgium) where they can be married and obtain equal treatment and respect under the law.”
Laws like Prop 8 “leave companies in the untenable position of being compelled implicitly to endorse the second-class status to which their gay and lesbian employees, clients, customers, and business associates are relegated,” the brief argues. “Until the law no longer relegates same-sex couples to second-class status as inferior “domestic partnerships,” our adherence to the law compels us to abide by a distinction that stigmatizes and dehumanizes gay men and lesbians.”
Basically, this is a very wordy way of saying that equality is the only way to go. Everyone’s starting to realize it. It’s only a matter of time before we don’t even have to ask this question anymore.
