Women Born Transsexual

From Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/17/anti-gay-groups-protest-splc-with-claims-of-hate-and-intolerance/

January 17, 2012

About a dozen African American pastors joined anti-gay extremists today in condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center for using its “hate group” label to describe faith-based organizations that demonize the LGBT community, characterizing it as part of an orchestrated liberal plot.

The pastors spoke at a press conference staged outside the SPLC offices in Montgomery, Ala., by Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), which the SPLC lists as an anti-gay hate group.

“The SPLC has moved from monitoring actual hate groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis to slandering mainstream Christian organizations with that very same hate group label,” said Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel, affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. “By extension, the SPLC is smearing billions of Christians and Jews worldwide as haters simply because they embrace the traditional Judeo-Christian ethics.”

Rachel Conner of Abiding Truth Ministries, also listed as a hate group, charged that  “the Southern Poverty Law Center has now become a tool of the God-haters, promoting hatred in the form of vicious lies against Christianity.”

“This has nothing to do with hate and tolerance,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of AFTAH. “It has everything to do with pro-gay politicking.”

Continue reading at:  http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/17/anti-gay-groups-protest-splc-with-claims-of-hate-and-intolerance/

From Alternet:   http://www.alternet.org/food/153831/sugar_high%3A_the_dark_history_and_nasty_methods_used_to_feed_our_sweet_tooth/

Sugar is now 20 percent of the American diet, but it’s not just our health that suffers from its pervasiveness.

By Jill Richardson
January 20, 2012

Americans think an awful lot about sucrose — table sugar — but only in certain ways. We crave it and dream up novel ways to combine it with other ingredients to produce delectable foods; and we worry that we eat too much of it and that it is making us unhealthy or fat. But how often do Americans think about where sugar actually comes from or the people who produce it? As a tropical crop, sugarcane cannot grow in most U.S. states. Most of us do not smell the foul odors coming from sugar refineries, look out over vast expanses of nothing but sugarcane, or speak to those who perform the hard labor required to grow and harvest sugarcane.

Of course, sugar can be made from beets, a temperate crop, and more than half of sugar produced in the United States is. But globally, most of the story of sugar, past and present, centers around sugarcane, not beets, and as biofuels become more common, it is sugarcane that is cultivated for ethanol. What’s more, some conscious eaters avoid beet sugar as most of it is now made from genetically modified sugar beets.

While I do not fool myself that sugar is “healthy,” if I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I prefer cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey over the other choices: beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Of the bunch, most Americans can find only honey and perhaps maple syrup sustainably and locally produced, but cane sugar is often the most versatile product for baking.

As a major consumer of cane sugar, I was disturbed to learn the realities of cane sugar production when I visited a sugarcane-producing area in Bolivia.

Sugarcane grew as far as the eye could see on the degraded soils of the deforested industrial agricultural area in Bolivia’s lowlands. At one point, the van I was riding in got stuck in a traffic jam of enormous trucks, each full of sugarcane, delivering their loads to a refinery. The area around the refinery smelled terrible, and the locals told us the smell came from oxidizing ponds that hold the refinery’s wastewater. When the refineries are washed out, typically once a year, the wastewater is dumped into local waterways, resulting in fish kills. This spurred me to learn more about how sugar is made, both in the U.S. and around the world, and how it impacts the land and the people who produce it. Sadly, the story of sugar is also the story of the African slave trade. Today, sugar production still uses exploitative labor practices and can cause serious environmental problems.

Continue reading at:   http://www.alternet.org/food/153831/sugar_high%3A_the_dark_history_and_nasty_methods_used_to_feed_our_sweet_tooth/

From The New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jews-and-the-modesty-fight.html

By DOV LINZER
Published: January 19, 2012

IS it possible for a religious demand for modesty to be about anything other than men controlling women’s bodies? From recent events in Israel, it would certainly seem that it is not.

Last month, an innocent, modestly dressed 8-year-old girl, Naama Margolese, living in Beit Shemesh, described being spat on and vilified by religious extremists — all men — who believed that she did not dress modestly enough while walking past them to the religious school she attends. And more and more, public buses in Israel are enforcing gender segregation imposed by ultra-Orthodox riders in and near their neighborhoods. Woe to the girl or woman who refuses to move to the back of the bus.

This is part of a larger battle being waged in Israel between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israeli society over women’s place in society, over their very right to have a visible presence and to participate in the public sphere.

What is behind these deeply disturbing events? We are told that they arise from a religious concern about modesty, that women must be covered and sequestered so that men do not have improper sexual thoughts. It seems, then, that a religious tenet that begins with men’s sexual thoughts ends with men controlling women’s bodies.

This is not a problem unique to Judaism. But the Talmud, the basis for Jewish law, offers a perhaps surprising answer: It places the responsibility for controlling men’s licentious thoughts about women squarely on the men.

Put more plainly, the Talmud says: It’s your problem, sir; not hers.

Continue reading at:   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jews-and-the-modesty-fight.html

From RH Reality Check:  http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/17/dragging-helms-amendment-out-dark

by Jessica Mack
January 17, 2012

It’s been almost three years since President Obama repealed the global gag rule, one of the most ludicrous and paternalistic U.S. foreign policies in history. But as we celebrate the anniversary of its repeal, just one day after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22nd, another matter deserves our attention.

The last stronghold of America’s oppressive overseas reproductive health policies, the Helms Amendment, is still alive and well. The 1973 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act restricts U.S. funding for abortion overseas – even in countries where abortion is legal. Specifically, it states:

“No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”

The Helms Amendment invented what the global gag rule caricatured: a foreign policy that explicitly intrudes on the lives of women in developing countries, singling out and stigmatizing ‘abortion’ from the continuum of reproductive care necessary for a healthy life. Yet we’ve heard relatively little of this “grandfather” of anti-choice policies over the past 40 years, and all the while its colonial specter has continued to haunt the United State’s legacy of global reproductive rights.

Some are now aruing publicly for change. In late-December, 12 Members of Congress, including Representatives Lois Capps, Pete Stark, and Jan Schakowsky,  sent a letter to President Obama  asking for a formal review of the policy for the first time in history.

Continue reading at:   http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/01/17/dragging-helms-amendment-out-dark

From The Guardian UK:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/20/greece-verge-breakthrough-debt-deal

• Agreement secured on interest rate for new bonds
• Athens hopes to brief EU meeting on Monday

Phillip Inman and Helena Smith in Athens
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012

Greece is on the verge of a breakthrough in talks with its creditors that could wipe out up to 70% of its debts and alleviate the crisis in the eurozone.

An outline deal, hurriedly endorsed by Brussels, came after a frantic three days of negotiations that at one time appeared to be heading for deadlock.

It appeared that Greece had secured a deal to pay an interest rate of 3.1%, rising to 4.75%, on new 30-year bonds created from its outstanding €360bn (£300bn) debt burden. The effect would be for creditors to accept writedowns of up to 70% on many of their loans.

Sources close to the Greek government said it was still possible that major lenders could walk away if there was a failure to get agreement on some of the fine detail, but Athens was confident that further talks over the weekend would bring a comprehensive deal.

Continue reading at:   http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/20/greece-verge-breakthrough-debt-deal

From The ACLU:  http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/score-one-womens-health-obama-administration-stands-birth

Posted by Sarah Lipton-Lubet, Washington Legislative Office
Jan 20th, 2012

Most people may be keeping track of the NFL playoffs at the moment, but the big win today went to women.  For anyone who’s keeping score, it’s women’s health — 1, discrimination — 0, with the Obama administration and thousands of women’s health proponents who pressured the Administration to do the right thing tied for MVP.

Today, the Obama administration announced that it would keep in place a proposed rule that ensures that new insurance plans include coverage of contraception, and provides an exception for houses of worship.  The powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ lobby, among others, had pressed for months to create gaping loopholes so that a broad range of employers could discriminate against women and deny them coverage for this essential preventive care. They tried to do so in the name of “religious liberty,” but what we know, is that as a nation, we protect religious beliefs, but one person’s religion must not be used to trump another’s civil rights protections. Because of the outcry from groups like the ACLU, however, the Obama administration stood up for women’s health and did not broaden the religious exception.  The final rule will give certain religious employers that do not currently cover contraception an additional year to come into compliance.

We also know that the majority of women of childbearing age, regardless of religious background, use some form of birth control for 30 years, at costs that range from $50 per month for oral contraception, to up to $1,000 for longer-acting methods. We use birth control to prevent unintended pregnancies, protect our health, and to plan our lives. That’s why the nonpartisan Institute of Medicine initially recommended to HHS that insurance companies be required to cover contraceptives in the first place, and why the administration adopted — and has now confirmed — that policy.

Continue reading at:  http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief-reproductive-freedom/score-one-womens-health-obama-administration-stands-birth

From The Washington Blade:  http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/20/will-obama-endorse-marriage-equality-in-sotu/

By Chris Johnson
January 20, 2012

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Friday he wouldn’t rule “in or out” the possibility of President Obama endorsing same-sex marriage in the upcoming State of the Union address.

Carney made the remarks on whether Obama would announce support for marriage equality during the State of the Union address, which is set to take place Tuesday before a joint session of Congress, in response to a question from the Washington Blade.

“I will not rule anything in or out,” Carney said. “I’m just not going to talk about — beyond pointing at his words — his personal views on this. I think his administration’s policies on related issues are there for people to judge.”

Obama doesn’t support same-sex marriage, but since October 2010 he’s suggested his views could “evolve” in favor of same-sex marriage, However, he hasn’t yet made an endorsement in support of marriage rights for gay couples.

However, in 1996, Obama, during his bid to become an Illinois state senator, said in a questionnaire response to the Windy City Times, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Continue reading at:   http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/20/will-obama-endorse-marriage-equality-in-sotu/

Quiverful family’s One Man Population Bomb and patriarchal jerk

Duggar Douche Nozzle Comes Out Against Transgender Girl Scout

From Buzzfeed:   http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/duggar-dad-comes-out-against-transgender-girl-scou

“Our family loves Girl Scout cookies and I don’t think allowing a boy in the Girl Scouts is a good thing,” says Douche Nozzle Jim Bob Duggar.

LAURENS, S.C. — Unlike the presidential candidate he’s endorsing, reality TV star and father of 19 Jim Bob Duggar has an opinion on the conflict over a transgender child in the Girl Scouts.

“Our family loves Girl Scout cookies and I don’t think allowing a boy in the Girl Scouts is a good thing,” Duggar told BuzzFeed after a Rick Santorum campaign stop in Laurens. Duggar and some of his children are on the campaign trail for Rick Santorum in South Carolina this week.

“I think the founders of the Girl Scouts would be truly upset to hear this direction,” Duggar said, noting that his wife Michelle is a former Girl Scout troop leader. “If they’re wanting to create a new scout program where girls and boys would join together, that might be an option. But whether somebody declares they’re a boy or girl and can join either one — it isn’t even logical and it goes against the core principles the group was founded on.”

Continue reading at:   http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/duggar-dad-comes-out-against-transgender-girl-scou

Girl Scouts accepts transgender kid, provokes cookie boycott

From CNN:    http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/13/living/girl-scout-boycott/

NOW Press release:   http://www.now.org/press/01-12/01-20b.html

Statement of NOW President Terry O’Neill

January 20, 2012

In an important decision that ensures access to affordable birth control for millions of women, including those who get insurance coverage through a religiously affiliated hospital, university, or other religiously affiliated organization that serves the broader public, the Obama administration announced today that it would not expand an unconstitutional refusal clause that will already deny contraceptive coverage to some women under the Affordable Care Act. NOW thanks the many activists and women’s rights supporters around the country who flooded the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services with messages urging the administration to remove — not expand — that refusal clause.

Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops intensified its lobbying campaign peddling a version of so-called “religious freedom” that would allow organizations to withhold needed reproductive health care from women, as if those organizations were people with the ability to have a “conscience.” Though 77 percent of women and men in this country believe private medical insurance should cover birth control with no co-pay, just like any other preventive health service, the bishops had already convinced HHS to insert a deeply discriminatory refusal clause that will deny birth control to women who work for religious institutions, such as churches, and get their health coverage through their employers.

Contraception is basic medical care, and nearly all women use a form of birth control at some point in their lives. On average, a woman uses birth control for 30 years of her life at an average cost of $50 per month. After a thorough review that included independent recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, contraceptive coverage will be available without co-pay under the Affordable Care Act.

The National Organization for Women remains deeply disturbed by the narrower refusal clause earlier secured by the bishops. Any attack on some women’s access to birth control is an attack on all women’s access to birth control. We continue to affirm that any reproductive health refusal clause infringes a woman’s right to freedom of religion under the First Amendment, her right to privacy under Griswold v. Connecticut, her right to equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment, and her right to be free from workplace discrimination.
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