Tag: discrimination

Single Mother Advantage

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Rick Santorum to Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on the radio yesterday, about how single mothers are the government-dependent Democratic Party base:

Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: it is single mothers who run a household. Why? Because it’s so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they’re going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two parent families, you eliminate that desire for government.

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Fashion Faux Pas as Resistant Force in France

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Kathryn Montalbano: NiqaBitch, a YouTube video released shortly after France’s September 2010 April 2011 official ban of face-covering head apparel, provides interesting if not deceptively complex social commentary expressed via the most fundamental medium for communication possible: the body itself.  Although the video is set to what commenters call “vulgar” rap music (in English) and is plastered with French subtitles detailing the sometimes humorous dialogue (see below the photograph), undoubtedly observers—both within and of the video—are drawn to the remarkably stark, eye-catching juxtaposition of bare, toned female legs with shrouds that are, in Western minds, meant to hide sexuality.

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By the Power Vested in Meby the State of New York

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That New York state would eventually join the increasing number of those in the US to allow same-sex marriage was of little question.  We here at The Revealer have never been ones to uphold marriage as worthy of protection by the state because we’ll never be convinced that it’s the state’s business to regulate how we partner, love, have sex, or procreate.  But we love equal rights.  And we do like religious exemptions–for the most part–of which this bill has several.  These in particular protect religious institutions from legal address if they refuse to marry gays.  You can read the exemptions here, but it will be hard to do so without thinking about miscegenation laws that not so long ago regulated marriage between blacks and whites.  What makes these laws different from, say, exemptions for Anabaptists from military service or health care insurance?  We’ll have to get back to you with specifics on that but perhaps it has something to do with how a clergyman acts as a representative of the state when sanctioning marriage? Continue Reading →

Tolerance Makes Kids Gay

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“Tolerance” is considered a general good, an aspirational goal that, when done right, ameliorates violence and promotes understanding.  But “tolerance” has a number of definitions in play on the current political stage.  The dispute over its meanings is at the heart of a new bill in California that would institute the education of school children about the historical impact of gays. Continue Reading →

Two Sides to Prejudice?

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Last Wednesday the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a weeks-old video of an incident that took place outside a fundraiser held in Yorba Linda, California.  Muslim families who gathered to raise money for the poor, including a women’s shelter, were harassed and taunted by protesters.  The graphic and hate-filled nature of the protesters’ calls and speeches given by participating elected officials — including Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly, who, as Bethany Firnhaber writes at The Scoop, said she knows “quite a few Marines who would be happy to help these terrorists to [an] early meeting in paradise” — are utterly shocking.

Firnhaber goes on to note the misleading nature of the reporting about the event.  She writes, “When Muslims protest something they perceive as a threat to Islam, the coverage often frames them as scary, intolerant and dangerous. Until CAIR widened our perspective [by eventually releasing the video], the ugliness of the protesters at Yorba Linda was simply left out of the frame.” Continue Reading →

Killing a Homo is Easier Than Killing a Myth

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The Southern Poverty Law Center takes the time to list and debunk 10 anti-gay myths, including Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol, Homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals, and my favorite, the even more credulity-stretching, Homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.

Update:  Southern Poverty Law Center has declared Family Research Council a hate group

(h/t revtheodyke) Continue Reading →

Conscience With a Mission

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In the wake of the November excommunication and demotion of Arizona hospital administrator Sister Margaret McBride, for approving an emergency termination of a pregnancy to save a woman’s life, the ACLU has sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of Kathleen Sebelius’ Department of Health and Human Services.  The letter requests that two laws, not subject to provider refusal clauses — so-called “conscience clauses” — be enforced at denominational health facilities or that non-compliant facilities should lose their Medicare and Medicaid funding. Continue Reading →

First Mel Gibson Came for the Jews…

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He’s run through anti-semitism (The Passion of the Christ), classism (restraining order against a homeless man?!) and now — it’s not a new saw — racism.  HuffPo, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle are all reporting that Gibson’s been caught on tape using the N-word while slandering his former girlfriend and, uh, baby mama.

The Revealer spent a lot of time covering Gibson’s media melees over the past few years, including the release of The Passion.  We’ve combed through our archives for some Gibson classics so you don’t have to: Continue Reading →

Excluding Homos is Discrimination

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But only when you expect your public school to pay for it.

Back in November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case between Hastings College of the Law, University of California, and the Christian Legal Society, an extracurricular group at the San Francisco college.  CLS filed the case when they were denied “university recognition and funding”; the group requires voting members (though not meeting attendees) to make a faith pledge that, among other things, swears opposition to extra-marital and homosexual sex.  The College considered such a practice discrimination Continue Reading →

Florida Mosque Firebombed

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Yesterday a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida, was firebombed but the culprits were caught on tape. The videos are posted at the Florida Times-Union. The bomb was exploded against the back wall of the mosque and while no one was hurt, minor damage was done to the structure. Today an interfaith group of church leaders issued a statement in solidarity with the Muslim community.

“A possible bias-motivated attack on a house of worship should be of great concern to Americans of all faiths, and particularly to our nation’s religious and political leaders,” said Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Those who shape public opinion must begin to speak out against the rising level of anti-Muslim sentiment in our society.”

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