draggonlaady

It is, I suppose, possible that I have posted this before, but I can't recall having done so, so here you are.

From The Reason Stick:
The Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense

I cringe and fume every time I hear/read "we shouldn't allow gay marriage/adoption/anti-discrimination policies/whatever because homosexuality isn't natural." HUMANS are not natural. It is not natural to drive cars, or receive dental care, or use soap, or keep pets, or have jobs, or go to school, or read, or any of a nearly infinite list of things. So the entire basis for this argument is fatally flawed from a logical standpoint, and yet it WILL NOT DIE.
There are 2 ways to respond to this stupid statement (well, 3 I guess, if you count looking disgusted and refusing to speak to the perpetrator of such inanity) - 1: yes it is and 2: so what? have you ever met nature? she's a bitch.

Response 1:
"A 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1,500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, and is well documented for 500 of them." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

My long-term favorite example: Whiptail lizards, aka lesbian lizards - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teiidae "These lizards reproduce by parthenogenesis, and research has shown that simulated mating behavior increases fertility."

Specific familiar examples: Rams with attraction only to other rams, cows mount each other when they come into heat (useful in heat detection on farms, so an argument can be made that humans have selectively bred for this trait, but it did have to exist to start with), pet birds often pair off in same-sex couples or form cross-species bonds to other birds or even humans.

So anybody who claims that homosexual behavior is an unnatural human deviancy is either brutally under-informed, or intentionally disregarding fact.

Response 2:
If we should do what is "natural" then should we....
engage in infanticide? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_(zoology)
enjoy a little cannibalism? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism_(zoology)
chalk rape up to "natural behavior"? how about incest? necrophilia? polygamy/polyandry? cross species intercourse? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour

Check this out for more details, but apparently the administration has decided that even religious non-profit employers will be required to provide coverage of contraceptives in their employee insurance benes. They get longer than anyone else to make that happen, of course, because religion is still a privileged category somehow (whatwhat? separation of church and state? what's that?) but no more "here, you can have insurance, but you can't get THAT done" exclusions.

Don't fall if you're preggers. You may get arrested for attempted feticide, despite promptly requesting medical care and stating that you intend to keep the baby.

This whole situation is bullshit.

Idaho Board of Pharmacy received a complaint alleging that on Nov. 6 a Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill a prescription ordered by one of Planned Parenthood's Boise-based nurse practitioners. The prescription was for a Planned Parenthood patient for Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion.

An inquiry to Walgreens' Corporate office seeking comment was not immediately addressed.

Planned Parenthood officials said the complaint states that the pharmacist inquired if the patient needed the drug for post-abortion care. The nurse refused to answer the question based on confidentiality of health information.

According to Planned Parenthood, the pharmacist then stated that if the nurse practitioner did not disclose that information, she would not fill the prescription. The nurse alleged that the pharmacist hung up when asked for a referral to another pharmacy that would fill the prescription.

Because the whole "separation of Church and State" thing is, in reality, tenuous at best, there is a (stupid!) legal loophole that allows pharmacists to decide they have moral objections to dispensing a medication, but they are required to refer the caller to a pharmacy that will dispense. Specifically, this is typically used by pharmacists who have decided that birth control is evil. In this case, however, this pharmacist (allegedly) decided that their moral judgment was more important than the risk of this patient bleeding to death, AND they refused to give a referral to a different pharmacy.

So, since I'm opinionated and this is my blog, you all get a big dose of my opinion tonight.

1: You're a pharmacist. Your fucking job is to dispense pharmaceuticals as prescribed by doctors and/or practitioners, not to pass judgment on whether the person deserves said medications. If you cannot or will not, for whatever reason, actually DO THIS JOB, then fucking get a different damned job. I really don't give a shit if that means you BUY the whole damned pharmacy and then decline to stock certain medications, but do NOT for FUCK'S SAKE have the medication in stock and then refuse to dispense it just because you have some "holier than thou" bullshit attitude. Read the damned bible again, paying particular attention to the calls for humility and refraining from judgment, you hypocritical fuckhead. (Yes, I'm assuming Christianity here, because odds are really high that only a Christian will pull this stunt.)

2: You can have whatever religious, ethical, and moral beliefs you want, I don't give a rat's ass. You want to picket the Planned Parenthood on weekends, whatever. I think you're wrong, but you're entitled to be wrong. Just don't bring it to work and inflict it on unsuspecting people there.

3: Your moral judgment DOES FUCKING NOT outweigh the risk of a patient DYING. You wanna whine about how teenagers shouldn't take birth control because they shouldn't be having sex anyway, whatever. This was someone with a potentially life-threatening, immediate condition. If they die, you have ZERO chance of ever converting them to your mighty moral standing, so what do you win by being a fucknut? Nada, except, in my mind anyway, a manslaughter charge on your soul when you check out. Go on, explain how that makes you more deserving of entry to Heaven than the poor woman you refused to help. Better make it good though, I hear God's a tough judge and doesn't care much for lying and dissembling.

4: So all the above is just my opinion on why pharmacists pulling these stunts are fucking fuckheads, but refusing the referral to another pharmacy is not only an asshole beyond fuckhead move, it's ILLEGAL. Since I'm not a proponent of putting non-violent offenders in jail, and it's a dubious claim for violence here, I hope that either there was really a phone-failure/disconnect and this pharmacist isn't actually this much of an asshole, or that they get fined like bloody hell. Or fired. I'd accept fired.

Ok. I think I'm done ranting. and no, I'm not going back and proofreading that, so if there are errors, repetitions, or inconsistencies, sorry. You're all big kids, you'll find a way to cope, I'm sure. :D

Someone please tell me that this is an elaborate hoax. Please?

O'Donnell The Bounty Hunter Offers $1,000 To Anyone Who Can Prove "Separation Of Church And State" Is In The Constitution

Probably much more worth reading than anything I've ever written on the topic of homosexuality. Reposted from JohnShore.com, a comment by FreeFox:

Are you really trying to define love? Trying to claim THIS is love and THAT isn’t? Come on. Love is a big word. It has zillions of meanings. Centuries and centuries and centuries peeps have written about love. You can fill books with what love means. At the lowest level love means intense affection. Everything beyond that depends on the culture, the context, the circumstances, the person who uses the word.

But reading all this made me think. Maybe it ISN’T really about who you fall in love with and who you get your loving from. I mean… fuck… how to say this…

“Loving’s pretty easy. It’s letting someone love you that’s hard.”
- Rita Mae Brown (Riding Shotgun, 1997)

The worst thing about being queer and told that you are an abomination isn’t that you aren’t allowed to be loved by others. That IS bad enough. But the worst is that your aren’t allowed to love yourself!

There is another thing that many think is supposed to go with love, and that is that it is supposed to be unconditional. BUT when you’re queer, it NEVER is unconditional. Yeah, God loves you, BUT he wants you to be different. Your 'rents love you, BUT they want you to be different. If your lover loves you, it really is a perversion. If you love a woman (or a man, for a dyke), you know that some part of your love is a lie, if only a lie of omission. As a queer bloke, even if you like a child, your own, or your baby brother, or your nephew, even then you know that those who know always have this little, held back fear in mind: He’s a perv, so, who knows if his affection for the kiddo is all that innocent.

When you’re queer, you can never be innocent. You can never be accepted. Not the real you. You can never really let go, let yourself fall into the arms of love. You always have to be on the look-out, against yourself, against those around you. A part of you has to fight love all the time. It is SO FUCKING EXHAUSTING. After a while you get so tired you just want it to stop, even when it means you have to stop breathing to get there.

So, all you good “Christians” who think that picking that one prohibition from the Good Book of a Zillion Prohibitions, there really are only three options for queers: Say “screw you all” to you bigots and ignore you and shag whosoever you want and feel good about it, or give up and die, or FIGHT till you are gone and we have won. And when that day is here, and there are queer boys happily snogging on all the school grounds in the world, and you can’t go through a town without having to retch all the time for seeing all those hand-holding dykes and happy faggots, just remember, we didn’t bring that fight to you. You brought it to us. And I hope you choke on it.

This is probably the most entertaining essay ever on the "ground zero mosque" issue. Read it, I loved it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/23/charlie-brooker-ground-zero-mosque

Perhaps spatial reality functions differently on the other side of the Atlantic, but here in London, something that is "two minutes' walk and round a corner" from something else isn't actually "in" the same place at all. I once had a poo in a pub about two minutes' walk from Buckingham Palace. I was not subsequently arrested and charged with crapping directly onto the Queen's pillow. That's how "distance" works in Britain. It's also how distance works in America, of course, but some people are currently pretending it doesn't, for daft political ends.

A few days bac, I got bored, and prompted by a comic, looked some stuff up. Thought I posted it, but apparently didn't. So I'll tack it on here:

The proposed mosque site is 2 1/2 blocks from "ground zero", not at the actual site of destruction.

It also is not actually a mosque. The proposed Cordoba House is an Islamic Community Center, similar to a Jewish Community Center. It will contain a mosque/prayer area, just like a Christian Life Center would be expected to contain a chapel, or a Jewish Community Center to hold a synagogue. Besides the prayer space, the Initiative's plan includes a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions, bookstore, culinary school, and a food court.

There is already a mosque 3 blocks away, which has been there since the 70's. So far, nobody's burned it, or demanded it be moved.

There is also a strip club within 2 blocks of GZ, and nobody's up in arms about THAT.

There is a Catholic St. Peter's Church about a block away from GZ, the priest there is in favor of building this center.

Tangentially, did you know that Christian groups came in and put up a couple hundred crosses at Auschwitz? (most have since been removed.) I had no idea until I started following links from some of these articles. Seems rather ... hypocritical ... to me, to put a Catholic chapel actually inside the SS admin building at Birkenau, despite the protestations of hundreds of Jewish survivors and relatives of the massacred, and then turn around and have a fit about a community center 2 blocks away from a terrorist attack site.
(http://www.scrapbookpages.com/poland/Crosses/Crosses.html)