Two More Strong Arguments for the Separation of Church and State:

Michigan, a Blue state that stupidly elected a Red government, is learning just how stupid its voting choices were. The Michigan House of “Representatives” has passed a religious oppression “freedom” bill that pretty much gives the finger to our Constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Establishment Clause:

The Michigan House of Representatives, led by Speaker Jase Bolger (photo, above, left, with Gov. Rick Snyder,) just passed a bill that would allow discrimination to become sanctioned by the state. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, akin to one that made nationwide headlines in Arizona but was vetoed, appears to merely force the government to step aside if a person’s “deeply-held religious beliefs” mandate they act, or not act, in a certain manner.

Supporters of these bills claim they allow people of faith to exercise their religion without government interference, but in reality, they are trojan horses, allowing rampant discrimination under the guise of religious observance.

For example, under the Religious Freedom law, a pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication. An emergency room physician or EMT could refuse service to a gay person in need of immediate treatment. A school teacher could refuse to mentor the children of a same-sex couple, and a DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to a person who is divorced. 

Fundagelicals who support such “religious freedom” laws claim that the Founders were all about having a theocracy, but that argument would wash a lot of hogs. The author of the First Amendment himself (Thomas Jefferson) said it himself, time and again:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

And, of course, he was not alone:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; 

That bit being written by one Mr. Ames, wih help from James Madison and others. Add in the Supremacy Clause, and you can see that what Michigan’s Teapublican government is attempting to do is not just unconstitutional, it’s extraconstitutional. Perhaps you could say “treasonous and seditious” instead. Or, how about “un-American and illegal as all Hell”?

This writer has occasional need to travel to the Thumb State, and would prefer not to be left to die by, say, a Nazarene physician from Michigan who doesn’t like Presbyterians and refused to work on me based on his religious objection. That would be allowed if the law in question were to be enacted.

People, here we have two reasons for the Separation of Church and State: the law itself, and what would happen if we did not have that law to protect us. It is time to run these Teapubbies out of office on an elctoral rail. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The 2014 Election Summarized: “GOP Used Car Salesman Wins”.

Granted, it was from a single race. And it seems like a punch line, rather than reality. But it’s true: a member of one of the sleaziest of all professions just won election to high office, in spite of his complete lack of qualifications and dearth of experience:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Mark Maynard owns a used car lot, runs a towing business and spends his spare time on a professional drag racing pit crew. And despite not raising a dime for his Republican campaign and agreeing with his Democratic opponent on almost all the issues, he defeated West Virginia’s longest-sitting state senator.

Got it? The majority of voters that turned out and cast ballots in this race elected an unqualified used car salesman instead of a qualified public servant. There is nothing else to say about that choice except, “Oh, ferchrissakes, you stupid f***ing f***s”. But it wasn’t just in this one contest: all across the country, those who actually chose to vote made some amazingly silly choices, like electing hog-castrators and science deniers.

Kudos to the minority of American voters who cast thoughtful, deliberate ballots based on rational criteria. Thank you for being responsible citizens, we need more like you.
Bricks upside the heads to the vast majority of eligible American voters who lazily sat it out and let the Moron Minority choose our government. You are about to get what lazy people usually get: whatever the non-lazy people wanted. Tough s*** if you don’t like it.
And dunce caps for all the eedjits who voted for shysters, con men, extremists and yes, used car salesmen. You are about to get what you truly deserve.

We can’t fix stupid, but we CAN fix apathy. Get out and vote next time, please. If you disagree with that course of action, well, there’s a newly-elected “Republican” West Virginia State Senator who has a used car he’d like to sell you. Or maybe two or three used cars.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Every vote DOES count: 11 votes flip the Virginia Senate from Red to Blue.

That is eleven votes out of millions. And suddenly the Repubs, who until recently controlled the entire state, have lost 2/3 if it. Eleven votes. That made the difference.

F*** yeah, your vote matters. And anyone who says otherwise is an idiot who can’t do first-grade math.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Your vote matters, example five gazillion and three: Gay Marriage in Virginia.

The Democratic candidate won the Virginia Attorney General’s contest last fall by 163 votes, out of 2.2 million ballots cast. That means if a couple hundred Dems had stayed home, or a couple hundred more Repubs hadn’t, the “Republican” candidate would have won. Such a teeny tiny number of people deciding to vote made all the difference.

And because of those few extra Dems, gay marriage will soon be legal in Virginia. (Marriage Equality is a better term, so we will roll with it henceforth.) That is because new AG Mark Herring will fight to get rid of Virginia’s anti-equality law. You read that right: the new AG says the state’s marriage law is unconstitutional.

So tell us again that your vote doesn’t matter, please, do tell. Whether you are a Big Government Repub who wants the the State to monitor your bedroom activities, or a Small Government Dem who thinks that you have a right to privacy, your vote counts. Your individual vote counts. Your choices matter, especially when you choose to vote or not vote.

And because a very small number of freedom-loving people chose to get out and vote last November, Virginia will soon have more freedom for its dwellers than it does today. Marriage Equality is on the way in that state. You need no more proof, Gentle Reader: your vote matters.

So get the f*** out there and vote in the next election, so you can have the government you want. The freedom you save will very likely be your own.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Cuccinellingus

In the “you gotta be kidding me” department we have Virginia’s Attorney General and “Republican” gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, a big government guy who wants to tell you what kind of sex you can have. Gay or straight, married or not, he has pronounced himself to be your Bedroom Police.

He is still trying to reinstate an unconstitutional ban on certain consensual sex acts between adults (hint: think “oral”, but leave out “Roberts”). Indeed, he is campaigning on that position. Evidently, Virginia is too much “for lovers” to suit the guy. Or perhaps he thinks there aren’t enough Virgins in Virginia.

Thus we have a sitting attorney general trying to re-enact an unconstitutional law. We have a “small government” guy promoting Big Brother government. And he claims he’s doing all this to protect us. Typical Big Government type.

Anybody who can tie their brain into those kinds of knots must be capable of some pretty awesome contortions elsewhere, too: so in honor of this closet kinkster, we propose a sex act to be named after the man: Cuccinellingus .

It just might catch on.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Republicans Say: Have a Miscarriage, Go To Prison

Or at least, that’s what Virginia’s “Republican” AG-in-waiting thinks. He feels so strongly about it, in fact, that he wrote a law in 2009 that would imprison women who had miscarriages if they did not call the cops to report the event, and save the miscarried fetus to hand over as evidence.

This is the man that Virginia Repubs think should be their next Attorney General, so it’s pretty clear that they like his ideas about what should be legal or illegal. And he believes that women who endure the tragedy and trauma of losing a child-to-be should be assumed guilty of criminal acts until proven otherwise. So, the rest of the Republican Party of that state (and maybe the entire country) thinks women who miscarry are de facto criminals.

Don’t take the Cranky Word for it: it’s right there in Section E:
“When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.” Please note that Virginia already has similar laws on the books.

Class 1 offenses can get you up to a year in prison. A year in prison for someone who did nothing wrong. For a woman who loses a baby. For a heartbroken woman. Yes, that’s what today’s “Republicans” think.

This writer knows families that have lost babies, including his own: indeed, he came within a few months of having a brother named “Chris”, so he gets it. A pity that our Elephantine legislators don’t. Miscarriages are human tragedies, not crimes.

Regardless of one’s political philosophy, how could anyone be so cruel, so callous, so despicable as to summarily imprison grieving mothers who either failed to called the police immediately after suffering a miscarriage, or didn’t keep the remains of the poor lost child in their possession to hand over to the police? How could anyone hate women that much?

And how can anyone (including you) vote for a party that supports such legislation?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Racism, Partisanship and Dirty Tricks; Politics, Virginia Style

In the “nobody could be THAT sleazy” competition of 2013, the Virginia Senate’s GOP caucus has truly raised the bar for all the other sleazebuckets who would contend for the title. This was sleaze combined with racism, gall, and a truly epic flip o’ the bird to any sense of cooperation, bipartisanship, respect, or fair play. We are talking EPIC, here, peeps: Wow.

Short version: while a black State Senator ( and veteran of the Civil Rights movement) was, on Martin Luther King Day attending the public inauguration of a black President, the Virginia Repubs took advantage of his absence to ram a gerrymandering plan through that would diminish the impact of minority votes. You see, had he been there, there would have been a 20:20 tie between the Elephants and the Donkeys, and the bill would have been debated and passed (or not) on a bipartisan basis.

But nooooooo. The “republicans” in Virginia want to rig future elections by gerrymandering the state and to Hell with the wishes of the governed. Those voters expressed their wishes by electing equal numbers of Repubs and Dems. Got that? Virginians explicitly rejected partisanship with their votes. But the GOP could give a rat’s fart about what the electorate wants: for them it is all about power and wealth for their party and those that bribe them.

Oh, and the racism: after all the slights against black folk already named above, and the dirty pool played in order to screw black voters and elected officials; when their “work” was done, the Senate adjourned “in memory of Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson”.

Just to make it crystal clear: after taking a number of questionable actions that were specifically targeted to hurt black people, on Martin Luther King Day, the Virginia Senate “republicans” chose to honor a Confederate General.You know, a guy who betrayed his service oath and took up arms against his country in order to keep black people in chains.

Virginia voters, you can do two things: either embrace your Pro-Slavery Republicans; or kick their asses until they stop doing this crap. By your choice, we shall know you.

Mr. B& C