All Things LGBTQ+ (6 Viewers)

[Farb]

Didn't really see a place for this so I thought I would start a thread about all things LGBTQ since this is a pretty hot topic in our culture right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/sup...y-that-refuses-to-work-with-lgbt-couples.html

• The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a unanimous defeat to LGBT couples in a high-profile case over whether Philadelphia could refuse to contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says its religious beliefs prevent it from working with same-sex foster parents.
• Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion for a majority of the court that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by refusing to contract with Catholic Social Services once it learned that the organization would not certify same-sex couples for adoption.

I will admit, I was hopeful for this decision by the SCOTUS but I was surprised by the unanimous decision.

While I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with same sex couples adopting and raising children (I actually think it is a good thing as it not an abortion) but I also did not want to see the state force a religious institution to bend to a societal norm.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

All of your fervent advocacy for the anti-tans movement has turned me from somebody who was uninformed and ambivalent about gender affirming care to somebody who supports it. Funny how that works.

The document actually says on a "case-by-case" basis, but facts be dammed by Fox News.

I was going to say the same thing, but also draw attention to where it specifically says that surgery is generally reserved for adults.

 

[coldseat]

So we are back to the question, are words violence? Is someone responsible for how a crazy person interperates their words?

When crazy person after crazy person keep interpreting the words to mean violence, absolutely.

Do you think a person is responsible for how someone interprets and acts upon their words if those words don't call for actual violence? I do not. At all.

If it keeps happening, Yes. But it's not just one person, it's the whole right wing.

 

[TomT]

Didn't really see a place for this so I thought I would start a thread about all things LGBTQ since this is a pretty hot topic in our culture right now

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/sup...y-that-refuses-to-work-with-lgbt-couples.html

• The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a unanimous defeat to LGBT couples in a high-profile case over whether Philadelphia could refuse to contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says its religious beliefs prevent it from working with same-sex foster parents.
• Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in an opinion for a majority of the court that Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by refusing to contract with Catholic Social Services once it learned that the organization would not certify same-sex couples for adoption.

I will admit, I was hopeful for this decision by the SCOTUS but I was surprised by the unanimous decision.

While I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with same sex couples adopting and raising children (I actually think it is a good thing as it not an abortion) but I also did not want to see the state force a religious institution to bend to a societal norm.

As in most legal cases, the plaintiff must demonstrate actual harm. In this case there was no harm. The adoption agency did not try to force the Catholic Social Services (CSS) to place a child with a same sex couple. The city informed the CSS that was one of two agencies contracted by the city to take abandoned children and place them in foster care at taxpayer expense. Once the city was informed by CSS that it had a policy of not placing children in foster care of same sex couples, the City refused to place any children with the Catholic agency. CSS made the case that when placing children into foster care they had full discretion to determine fitness of the foster care candidates. (CSS), sued the city, claiming the Constitution gives it the right to opt out of the nondiscrimination requirement.

In a unanimous judgment on June 17, 2021, the Court ruled that the city's refusal due to the agency's same-sex couple policy violated the Free Exercise Clause. The case was decided on narrow grounds outside of the Supreme Court's prior decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which had previously ruled that neutral laws of general applicability could not be challenged for violating religious exemptions. Instead, in Fulton, the court ruled that services like foster care contracting were not public accommodations covered by Smith, and thus were subject to strict scrutiny review. Because the city allowed for exceptions to be made in its anti-discrimination policy for foster care certification, the Court deemed the city's policy to violate the foster case agency's free exercise of religion under Smith.

 

[SaintForLife]

This is exactly what the purposeful demonization of the LBGTQ community has wrought:



How long before another mass shooting at a synagogue?

I remember you bringing up the phrase Stochastic Terrorism before and your posts trying to politically link recent shootings or violence reminded of this article.

It's a very informative article on the use of Stochastic Terrorism and the left trying to link shootings and violence to the right.

Stochastic Terrorism - A game of rhetorical asymmetry

The history and function of the increasingly common phrase explained

drrollergator.substack.com

He goes all the way back to the left trying to claim that Sarah Palin was responsible for Gabby Gifford's shooting due to her map:

The Democratic Leadership Council had put out a similar map with the objectionable language “targeting" regions, and used bullseyes, which of course suggest a goal of sending a projectile into the absolute center. “Behind enemy lines” likewise suggests one is in a shooting war of some kind.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had used a similar template just a year prior to the Gifford’s shooting, and also specifically named politicians as “targets”

Stochastic Terrorism is a truly clever piece of rhetoric that one can admire for its pure propagandistic potency.

The concept itself is certainly coherent. In almost any population of sufficient size, there will be people — commonly considered “crazy” or at least considered “unhinged” — who get caught up in political emotions in a way that is more extreme than the average citizen, and are set on a course that ultimately results in them committing violent acts.

This possibility is not often predictable in specifics (e.g. ‘Mark Stouffers’ will shoot ‘Debbie Brownstone’ on June 12th) but predictable in the sense that someday, someone, will commit some act. This randomness, the inability to know when, who, or what will be involved but knowing eventually something will, is the ‘stochastic’ part of Stochastic Terrorism.

If one assumes people motivated to carry out an attack are not attacking purely at random (that is, attacking just anybody who happens to be nearby at the time), they will attack with targets in mind. That suggests someone with broad reach can count on somebody listening to them can be activated like a Manchurian Candidate and that Manchurian Candidate will focus on the targets the Stochastic Terrorist wants.

The lack of direct call for violence is then framed as being strategic — it creates plausible deniability. The Stochastic Terrorist gets “the best of both worlds.” They get to “mathematically” rely on their targets being the victims of an attack with no record to be found of them ever actually asking anyone to do so.

By labeling someone as a Stochastic Terrorist you can influence others to associate some of the most immoral and violent acts imaginable with the person being labeled regardless if any violent acts have occurred.

 

[RobF]

It's a very informative article

This will shock no-one, but I looked, and it wasn't.

I can see how it would appeal to someone who really doesn't want to think that words can have dire consequences though. But no amount of gish-galloping will change the reality that they do.

 

[SaintForLife]

This will shock no-one, but I looked, and it wasn't.

I can see how it would appeal to someone who really doesn't want to think that words can have dire consequences though. But no amount of gish-galloping will change the reality that they do.

I'm so surprised you didn't like the article. You strike me as the type to use the term Stochastic Terrorism and/or politically linking shootings or violence.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

It most definitely is

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bi...ender-agenda-youth-sex-change-hormone-therapy
President Biden's administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled "Gender Affirming Care and Young People." The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, "Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care."

The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including: "'Top' surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;" and "'Bottom' surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures."

Looks like parental choice to me!

 

[MT15]

What would you call it if it not medically necessary? It is not medical, it is mental, that is the difference.

Your not for the government telling people how to live? Did you support a vaccine mandate? Did you believe that those that are unvaxed should be denied medical services at the hospitals if they contracted covid? Do you not believe the federal government should not enforce tax law? Do you believe a baker should not be made to bake a cake for a gay couple if they don't want to? I think you believe the government should tell people how to live, just as long as it fits your ideological beliefs.

What a huge bunch of straw men. And your last sentence is hysterical, Farb. Zero self awareness.

No, I am not for the government telling people how to live, especially if it doesn’t affect the health and safety of others. Yes, for the reason that is cited in the previous sentence, I support all vaccine mandates. If you don’t support them, you’re a conspiracy theorist who has lost touch with reality. Communicable diseases affect other people. Some people cannot take vaccines, and so there will always be exceptions. But everyone who is capable should take them so that vulnerable people are protected. If the Covid vaccines are added to vaccine mandates they will be like all the other vaccines. If they are not, then they aren’t required, similar to influenza. Although certain jobs (like my job in the hospital) the flu vaccine is mandated due to being around high risk patients all the time.

I would never support denying medical services to Covid patients. I cannot imagine where you would have gotten that idea. It’s ludicrous.

What does tax law have to do with anything? Ridiculous.

I struggled with the baker question, but have settled on the idea that we shouldn’t prohibit people from being butt crevasses. This wasn’t my first stance, I have come to this gradually. Also, we shouldn’t care if people choose to boycott a business if the owners are being butt crevasses. That said, the only thing that makes the cake baker different is that it’s a custom job. If it’s a simple dry cleaners or restaurant, they wouldn’t be able to discriminate. Or even if the gay couple just want a generic cake, just with flowers and such, the baker shouldn’t be able to discriminate.

Farb, you needn’t point fingers at anyone other than yourself. You are the one who desperately wants to control other people and make them live by your religious beliefs. It’s not even debatable at this point. Don’t try to make yourself feel better by pointing fingers at other people. Own it.

 

[MT15]

It most definitely is

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bi...ender-agenda-youth-sex-change-hormone-therapy
President Biden's administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled "Gender Affirming Care and Young People." The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, "Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care."

The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including: "'Top' surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;" and "'Bottom' surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures."

Those are not political documents. They are medical documents. Jeesh.

 

[MT15]

I'm so surprised you didn't like the article. You strike me as the type to use the term Stochastic Terrorism and/or politically linking shootings or violence.

Are you trying to say that painting democrats, LBGTQ people, Jewish people, black people or any group as satanic, pedophiles, groomers, child abusers, child traffickers, perverts, socialists, communists, etc. is just fine? That it doesn’t affect people prone to violence in any way?

Come on, don’t be obtuse. We have seen it over and over and over. We know it does. We see the things these murderers say, we see what they have written, we know who they are listening to.

The people who are saying these horrible things know it too. They know that unstable people will act on their lies. They say them anyway. Stochastic Terrorism is a real thing. Your guy admits it’s a real thing. He is just objecting to some uses - saying it isn’t always deserved, as in the Palin map. I agree that one is sort of a stretch.

But what we have seen since then isn’t a stretch at all. The rhetoric on the right is out of control. And it is responsible for killers taking action. It’s objectively true at this point.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Religion, the state, and the states explain why Mexico has stronger LGBT rights than the US | LSE Latin America and Caribbean

New research reveals the puzzling finding that Mexico has offered greater legal equality for LGBT people for a longer period of time than the United States. This can be explained by the wider separation of church and state in Mexican politics and the strong importance of human rights in new...

blogs.lse.ac.uk

===============================================================

The role of religion​

The relationship of religion and the state has shaped LGBT policy in Mexico and the US (José Miguel Rosas, CC BY-SA 2.0)

While a simple understanding of the major theories of comparative politics does not adequately explain these differences, we find that a more nuanced understanding of religion and party ideology helps to explain national level divergences.

An overwhelming majority of Mexicans belong to a religion that condemns homosexuality, and Mexicans are more religious than people in the United States. However, the separation between church and state has been much wider in Mexico than in the United States.

In Mexico, there is a powerful discourse about the secular nature of the state, and it is politically unacceptable to promote a religious rationale for policy decisions. Even religious conservatives couch their political discourse in secular terms. This contrasts sharply with the pervasive appeals to religious doctrine found in US politics. Thus, while religious denomination and level of religiosity do not explain LGBT policy, the relationship between religion and the state seems to be important.

We would expect reforms to grant greater rights to sexual minorities to be more likely when secular, leftist parties are in power. But in Mexico, the new national anti-discrimination policies and constitutional reforms took place while the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), a rightist Catholic party, was in power. Moreover, no similar national initiatives were in play in the United States, even when the Democratic Party controlled the presidency from 1992-2000 and 2008-2016.

 

[SystemShock]

===============================================================

The role of religion​

The relationship of religion and the state has shaped LGBT policy in Mexico and the US (José Miguel Rosas, CC BY-SA 2.0)

While a simple understanding of the major theories of comparative politics does not adequately explain these differences, we find that a more nuanced understanding of religion and party ideology helps to explain national level divergences.

An overwhelming majority of Mexicans belong to a religion that condemns homosexuality, and Mexicans are more religious than people in the United States. However, the separation between church and state has been much wider in Mexico than in the United States.

In Mexico, there is a powerful discourse about the secular nature of the state, and it is politically unacceptable to promote a religious rationale for policy decisions. Even religious conservatives couch their political discourse in secular terms. This contrasts sharply with the pervasive appeals to religious doctrine found in US politics. Thus, while religious denomination and level of religiosity do not explain LGBT policy, the relationship between religion and the state seems to be important.

We would expect reforms to grant greater rights to sexual minorities to be more likely when secular, leftist parties are in power. But in Mexico, the new national anti-discrimination policies and constitutional reforms took place while the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), a rightist Catholic party, was in power. Moreover, no similar national initiatives were in play in the United States, even when the Democratic Party controlled the presidency from 1992-2000 and 2008-2016.

A couple notes:

When it comes to being religious, Mexicans are more ritualistic than people in the U.S., but I don't know about daily life religious. Mexicans don't live "by the book" like most evangelicals in the U.S., but Mexicans have a lot of religious rituals. And overall, Mexicans don't condemn. A Mexican family with a non-straight child is much less likely to kick them out of the house or try to make them straight. They surely will light a candle to the Virgen de Guadalupe, pray a few rosaries, and even wear a El Niño de Atocha escapulario for the soul of their child, but not condemn them. Not that it doesn't happen at all, but....

The PAN is not rightish... well, not rightish in the U.S. sense. Indeed, it was formed in the 1930's as opposition to the PRI, and it was known as the party of the Catholics, but other than their family values and pro-life platforms (and even in those members don't tow party lines) , their policies are very much leftist: free education, free healthcare, subsidized housing, workers rights, gender parity, renewable/green energy, pro-science, etc.

It all sounds great, until you get to the "rule of law" part

 

[SystemShock]

I remember you bringing up the phrase Stochastic Terrorism before and your posts trying to politically link recent shootings or violence reminded of this article.

It's a very informative article on the use of Stochastic Terrorism and the left trying to link shootings and violence to the right.

Stochastic Terrorism - A game of rhetorical asymmetry

The history and function of the increasingly common phrase explained

drrollergator.substack.com

He goes all the way back to the left trying to claim that Sarah Palin was responsible for Gabby Gifford's shooting due to her map:

The Democratic Leadership Council had put out a similar map with the objectionable language “targeting" regions, and used bullseyes, which of course suggest a goal of sending a projectile into the absolute center. “Behind enemy lines” likewise suggests one is in a shooting war of some kind.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had used a similar template just a year prior to the Gifford’s shooting, and also specifically named politicians as “targets”

Stochastic Terrorism is a truly clever piece of rhetoric that one can admire for its pure propagandistic potency.

The concept itself is certainly coherent. In almost any population of sufficient size, there will be people — commonly considered “crazy” or at least considered “unhinged” — who get caught up in political emotions in a way that is more extreme than the average citizen, and are set on a course that ultimately results in them committing violent acts.

This possibility is not often predictable in specifics (e.g. ‘Mark Stouffers’ will shoot ‘Debbie Brownstone’ on June 12th) but predictable in the sense that someday, someone, will commit some act. This randomness, the inability to know when, who, or what will be involved but knowing eventually something will, is the ‘stochastic’ part of Stochastic Terrorism.

If one assumes people motivated to carry out an attack are not attacking purely at random (that is, attacking just anybody who happens to be nearby at the time), they will attack with targets in mind. That suggests someone with broad reach can count on somebody listening to them can be activated like a Manchurian Candidate and that Manchurian Candidate will focus on the targets the Stochastic Terrorist wants.

The lack of direct call for violence is then framed as being strategic — it creates plausible deniability. The Stochastic Terrorist gets “the best of both worlds.” They get to “mathematically” rely on their targets being the victims of an attack with no record to be found of them ever actually asking anyone to do so.

By labeling someone as a Stochastic Terrorist you can influence others to associate some of the most immoral and violent acts imaginable with the person being labeled regardless if any violent acts have occurred.

I don't know that Palin's map was responsible for Gifford's shooting, but can't you see the difference between crosshairs and something that looks like a map of were to find Target stores across the US?

 

[MT15]

Speaking of American evangelical intolerance: I saw a clip of Jenna Ellis today specifying that the victims of the CO shooting were burning in hell, because we have “no evidence” that they were Christians. She said the actual shooting was of secondary importance and we shouldn’t be focused on that, rather we should be talking about the fact that these victims weren’t “saved”.

This is why people get turned off by religion. Exactly this.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Speaking of American evangelical intolerance: I saw a clip of Jenna Ellis today specifying that the victims of the CO shooting were burning in hell, because we have “no evidence” that they were Christians. She said the actual shooting was of secondary importance and we shouldn’t be focused on that, rather we should be talking about the fact that these victims weren’t “saved”.

This is why people get turned off by religion. Exactly this.

I’ve often said that a big part of the problem people have with religion isn’t religion it’s “religious” people

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

I’ve often said that a big part of the problem people have with religion isn’t religion it’s “religious” people

Yup, they suffer the same failure of understanding their religion as the Taliban and Isis.

 

[MT15]

Yup, they suffer the same failure of understanding their religion as the Taliban and Isis.

It’s exactly the same sort of radicalization that leads zealots to bomb buildings. Exactly.

 

[SamAndreas]

The cracked nut didn't fall far from the tree.