Quote of the day: Chris Kluwe has all the awesome

"Now, I would hope that I would get the chance to play football again, because I think I can still play. But if it ends up being something that costs me that position, I think making people aware of an issue that is causing children to commit suicide is more important than kicking a leather ball."
~Chris Kluwe on whether his outspokenness on LGBT rights had anything to do with being released from the Vikings

(AP Photo/Genevieve Ross)

Chris Kluwe rocks something fierce. And he has it completely right. Thank you, Chris!

via HuffPost Impact

Quote of the day: Bill Clinton on Marriage Equality

Setting aside the way that President Clinton screwed over the gay community when he was president (though to his credit, he tried to keep his promises. Compromises and all...), he's been very outspoken in his support of marriage equality.

While accepting the GLAAD “Advocate for Change” award, Clinton in part, said this:

"I want to keep working on this until not only DOMA is no longer the law of the land, but until all people, no matter where they live, can marry the people they love. For example, when I flew here from New York, I knew I’d still be married when I got here. Heck, I’m going to Texas next week to George W. Bush’s library dedication, and I’ll still be married when I get there."

The issue of leaving marriage up to the states is exactly this. Married is married. Period. 

Other people who were discriminated against in marriage on a state by state basis?

Inter-racial marriage (are you paying attention, Clarence Thomas?).

Would it interest Thomas to know that if he flew to Alabama in 1999, he wasn't married, even though he got married in 1987? That's right. A Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America was not considered married in Alabama until 2000. I sure hope he remembers this when he's considering the case before the Court now.

And it's nice that Clinton is trying to get DOMA repealed, since he signed it into law and all.

You can watch President Clinton's entire speech here.

Ahhh, North Carolina... WINNING!

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/united-states/north-carolina-guide/

So, what’s been happening in North Carolina lately? Well, it’s spring, the weather is beautiful and…

Lawmakers Pass Bill To Resume Executions In North Carolina - Because we don't need no stinkin' Racial Justice Act!

North Carolina Hospital's New Slogan 'Cheat Death' Is Destined to Disappoint - because, apparently, BLASPHEMY! Except when we want to cheat death.

North Carolina GOP wants to create state religion, says federal courts have no power to determine constitutionality of anything - once again, proving that when we like it, the Constitution is the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND (2nd Amendment) and any other time? Fuck that old fashioned POS.

Eleven North Carolina Republicans Sponsor Resolution Saying Their State Can Ignore The Constitution

(although North Carolina House Speaker kills legislation to create official state religion) - because obvs, it might be unconstitutional

ALEC-Sponsored Bill To Repeal North Carolina’s Renewable Energy Standard Narrowly Passes Out Of Committee - proving once again who was really elected. ALEC.

North Carolina GOP Wants To Require Background Checks On Welfare Applicants Instead Of Gun Buyers - because 2nd AMENDMENT - YAY!!! And POORS - BOO!!!

North Carolina Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Penalize Parents Of College Student Voters - since we all know those young'uns all vote democrat.

After RNC Calls For Hispanic Outreach, Republican Governor Eliminates Latino Affairs Office - since we all know those brown folks all vote democrat.

You’re Not Helping: North Carolina GOP Gov. Closes State Latino Office

Top North Carolina Republican Introduces Florida-Style Voter Suppression Bill - well of course there shouldn't be voting on Sunday! We're an official Christian State! If you aren't in church, SATAN!!

University of North Carolina Faces Backlash For Its Mistreatment Of Sexual Assault Victims - because she was asking for it anyway.

North Carolina Is Just Now Considering Repeal Of Jim Crow Voter Restriction - y'all might want to hold off on this. As soon as SCOTUS kills the Voting Rights Act, you'll still have Jim Crow!! Yay you, North Carolina! That's one less piece of legislation you'll need to rewrite.

'tha fuck, North Carolina?

Let's see...
Death penalty - yay!... check
Christian nation - yay!... check
Love of environment - boo!... check
Welfare is evil - yay!... check
First Amendment, boo. Second Amendment yay! ... check
Tenthers - yay!... check (except for that 2nd Amendment)
Voter suppression - yay!... check
Misogyny - yay!... check
Racism - yay!... check

By the way, all of these headlines are just from this week.

My, my, my. North Carolina, you sure are busy. Too bad you can’t be more like your colleagues in the House. Now they know how to get shit done.

The USPS: Congress' latest victim

So... Congress can vote to end billions of funds for the less fortunate, "tighten our belts", lay off millions of government employees and crow in glee about it. But God forbid we move to 5 day mail service to save jobs, jobs, jobs and money?

In its latest bonehead move, Congress has voted to not allow the USPS to end Saturday delivery. Per Reuters, "the Postal Service has said that while it would not pick up or deliver first-class mail, magazines and direct mail, it would continue to deliver packages and pharmaceutical drugs on Saturdays."

The USPS, because of Congress' brilliance, is forced to fund pensions today for employees who haven't even been born yet. They've got a $16B deficit. Ending Saturday delivery would save the USPS $2B annually.

Look here, you dumbass Congresspeople.

Just because you're a bunch of stupid old technologically deficient blowhards who never heard of the "INTERNET" and "EMAIL", doesn't mean that the rest of the world doesn't know that ending Saturday delivery wouldn't be the apocolypse. The rest of the world does their banking online, gets and pays their bills online, gets their Netflix porn on their laptops, sends birthday cards and wedding invitations and RSVP to bar mitzvahs via Facebook (NOT that I'm bitter about that or anything).

Is it soooo important that you get your damn junk mail on Saturday? One more thing to recycle (oh wait - you don't believe in caring for the planet - never mind).

Are you that eager to bankrupt the USPS so that you can lay off more government workers and privatize yet another government agency in order to line the pockets of your rich fat-cat corporation buddies?

Oh. Never mind.

#Steubenville, Rape Culture, Devaluing Girls, and Raising Boys

The Steubenville verdict came down on Sunday, with both perpetrators being found “delinquent”, which in Ohio juvenile court is the equivalent of guilty. While I was satisfied with the verdict, the messaging that came out afterward left something to be desired.

First and foremost, the judge. He proclaimed it to be a serious offense, yet sentenced the convicted rapists to 1 and 2 years, including time served. To me, that was the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Add in his statement about social media – this (case) being a lesson on how you record things on social media that are so prevalent today. In other words, if you’re going to rape, don’t be stupid enough to record it and post it on the internet.

Next, a statement by one of the convicted rapists: "I would truly like to apologize. No pictures should have been sent around, let alone have been taken."

In other words, I’m not sorry I did it, I’m sorry I took pictures of it. Oops. My bad.

CNN talked about how sad it was that these boys’ futures, once so bright, were now ruined. Really? HOW ABOUT THE VICTIM’S FUTURE??? And also? Once someone has been convicted of rape, they are rapists. And the victim isn’t the “accuser”, she is the victim. (Not that she wasn’t before either).

The victim-blaming and shaming in the media that proclaimed these good students, these football stars who had scholarship opportunities, these poor boys were convicted of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl. Putting the blame squarely on the victim. She was drunk? What do you expect? Boys will be boys and all.

All of these things make it easy for boys and men (and yes, women - hello CNN!) to excuse rape. To be apologists. To perpetuate a culture that doesn't proclaim rape wrong in every single instance. To allow legislators to claim that if a woman got pregnant she must have consented. Or allows them to introduce legislation protecting rapist’s rights and calling victims of rape “accusers”, while calling victims of other crimes “victims”. That has the media highlighting what could have been for the rapist instead of what could have been for the victim. That has a football coach claiming that “they’re going after our football program” when in fact, rapists were simply arrested and exposed. That allows our culture to put football programs ahead of crime. And makes grown men in teaching positions support rapists rather than victims.

Perhaps the most sad of all: this statement by a friend of the rapists, who stood by, recorded it, and did nothing. "It wasn't violent," he explained. "I didn't know what rape was."

Right there is a huge problem. There is a misconception in this country that rape always looks violent. Done by a stranger who pulls you into a back alley, beats you up, holds you at gunpoint, and “has sex” with you. And if you don't come out of the encounter with bruises between your thighs, a fat lip, a black eye, and a ripped vagina, then you weren't really raped.

While it sometimes happens this way (with the exception of the “has sex with you” part, which is NEVER the case in rape - rape is a crime of power, control & violence, not sex), more often rape is committed by someone the victim knows. Women are raped because they went out with a guy who then expects payment for his trouble. Because they wore skirts too short. Because they had a drink. Because they were out past dark. Because they flirted earlier. Because they changed their mind.

One thing my husband and I have always tried to teach our teenage boys (one now in college, one in high school) from a young age is that at any point, a girl can say no. And while it might be the hardest thing you think you've ever done, if she says no, then you must stop. Also, NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, invites rape. Not being at a party. Not being your girlfriend for a year. Not being drunk. Not flirting and teasing you.

I hate that in this country we have to teach our girls how to avoid rape. I wish the same emphasis was placed on teaching boys and men not to rape. From day one, teach your boys that no at any time means no. That a lack of “yes” also means no. That being unable to express yourself (whether drunk, sleeping, or otherwise incapacitated – like having cerebral palsy) also means no.

I hope and pray that this message has come across clearly to my sons. I hope my sons never utter the words – “It wasn't violent. I didn't know it was rape.” And that they never stand on the sidelines and watch a girl, or anyone, be violated. That they never think a girl “deserved it”. That they understand that in the same way their bodies sometimes confuse them and they aren't quite sure what they want, and they experiment, girls do the same.

Teenagehood is a time of serious learning. And I don’t mean school. It’s a time when young men and women experiment with their feelings, learn about social norms, take those values that you've spent all those years teaching them and actually apply them to real life. They are learning about sexuality. So while they might feel like girls sometimes tease, it’s really that those girls are learning about their sexuality in the same way that boys do. By trial and error. By seeing how far they can go before they don’t feel right. By learning the effect that men and women have on each other.

And yes, sometimes it might feel like deliberate provocation to a teenage boy who is also learning about their bodies and the interactions between men and women. But even if it is perceived as such, the biggest lessons to come out of it all should be autonomy. Self control. And respect.

Our culture is one that devalues women in so many ways. We arrest a woman for breastfeeding on a bench in a mall while she sits under an advertisement showing a woman baring her breasts in sexy lingerie. We value cells more than we do the women within whom the cells are contained. We idolize shows on TV and ads in magazines that put women in skimpy outfits and portray that as the ideal, and then tell women who wear skimpy outfits that they are cheap sleazy whores who are asking to be raped.

Nobody asks to be raped. And Nothing. Nothing gives anyone the right to overpower another person and touch or penetrate them in any way without their explicit consent. And implied consent does not equal explicit consent.

DRUNKENNESS DOES NOT EQUAL IMPLIED OR EXPLICIT CONSENT.
SHORT SKIRTS DO NOT EQUAL IMPLIED OR EXPLICIT CONSENT.
BEING OUT AFTER DARK DOES NOT EQUAL IMPLIED OR EXPLICIT CONSENT.
GOING TO A PARTY DOES NOT EQUAL IMPLIED OR EXPLICIT CONSENT.

You know what else doesn't equal implied consent? If a girl had sex before. Or if a girl previously had sex with you or your friends. Last week, she consented. She is allowed to not consent today.

You know what else doesn't equal implied or explicit consent? Wearing a short skirt. Or coming home from your job on the bus at midnight. Or leaving your window open while you sleep in the middle of summer. Or going out to dinner with someone. Or anything else other than saying yes.

Parents. Teach your children – both boys and girls – what consent is and is not. In the same way that you teach them other values, teach them to value each other’s autonomy. Teach them their wants and desires are not superior to others.

Put them in the other person’s shoes.

If your son was falling down drunk at a party, after dark, while wearing tight jeans that show off his butt and a tight t-shirt that shows off those arm & chest muscles that he worked so hard on in football practice, would it be ok for someone to pull his pants down and fondle him or penetrate him with fingers, with a penis, with an object? No? You mean just because he’s drunk doesn’t mean that he deserves to be penetrated without his consent? Then why is it ok to do it to a girl?

And if that happened to your boy, would it be ok for others to stand by and watch and do nothing except to take video and pictures of the whole thing and laugh about it, and joke about peeing on him? And if those pictures and video were then posted all over the internet, and people from your town and other towns called him a whore? A bitch? A slut? Would it be ok for people who don’t know your son, and those who do, to shame him and say he deserved it?

And if that happened to your boy, would you want the media falling all over themselves to bemoan the lost future of the poor person(s) that violated him?

No? Then why is it ok to do it to a girl?

Quote(s) of the day: How come you guys call us racist? Oh, and sexist?

"For what? For feeding him and housing him?"
~CPAC participant Scott Terry, in response to a speaker saying that Frederick Douglass wrote a letter forgiving his slavemaster

He then went on to complain, "Why can't we just have segregation?"

According to ThinkProgress,

...when asked if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was.

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

CPAC is fast becoming mainstream Republican. While it also includes the crazies like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, the (losing) Republican candidate for President and Vice-President (a prominent Congressional Republican) and several sitting Senators and Congressmen spoke, as well as several names being bandied about for 2016. Speakers included Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Wayne LaCrazysauce, Ted Cruz (who Dianne Feinstein took to school yesterday), sitting WI governor Scott Walker, and Jeb Bush.

Republicans are forever complaining that they are labeled as racist. And deny that they believe women are second class citizens. When such prominent politicians as these don't denounce this type of rhetoric, they implicitly (and frequently explicitly) condone it.

So Republicans, stop with the "You're putting words in our mouths" and the "There is no war on women" and the "We aren't racist! Some of my best friends are black!" and the "Liberal media boohoo!" because you're lying sacks of dog doo.

Quote Unquote: Women, why do you have to be so stupid all the time?

It's why we have call boxes, it's why we have safe zones, it's why we have the whistles. Because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at. And you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around or if you feel like you're in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop, pop a round at somebody."
Rep Joe Salazar (D-Colorado)

While trying to argue against the concealed carry law for Colorado universities, he made this stupid dumbass remark, basically claiming that a woman doesn't know if she's about to be raped (WRONG), and isn't smart enough to understand when it might be appropriate to use a gun against an attacker (WRONG).

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for gun control, and I hate that there's a concealed carry policy at CU, my alma mater. However...

Why is it that every time politicians (read: white men) want to show why something is a terrible idea, it comes at the expense of women in some form or another?

Women are too stupid to understand if they're being raped.

Women are too stupid to understand what they're doing to their bodies.

Native women and lesbians don't deserve protection from getting their ass kicked.

Women should buy insurance against rape-induced pregnancy.

Women would cry rape just because.

Women don't deserve birth control.

Women don't deserve preventive health care services.

Women should remember why they married their abusive husband in the first place. Then all the warm fuzzies would come back and it would be ok for them to beat the crap out of you.

Women don't deserve to be paid the same as men for doing the same job.

Women shouldn't be in combat because they menstruate and make men feel all protective (except when we're beating them, and then it's a-ok). Oh and because POOPING!

Women should never have gotten the right to vote. (to be fair, that was a stupid woman who said that)

Women go to the mall to get Starbucks and abortions. (another stupid woman said that)

Why is it that in order to show why something is a bad idea, you have to blame it on women? Why must women be the root of all evil? (No, don't go spouting off that crap about Eve & the apple - that's bullshit made up by a patriarchal society to justify the subjugation of women.)

Women are not the root of all evil. We give birth to you. We raise you. We teach you right from wrong (though obviously, some of us have failed miserably). We feed you, nurture you. We carry you in our bodies (no, actually you are not an organ) while you change from a cell to a mass of cells to a blob to eventually, once we labor for hours on end, a person.

Why must everything therefore be our fault?

Just once, I'd like for someone to stand up and tell the truth. "I think women are stupid. I think they are inferior. I think we need to take away all their constitutional rights just because."

At least then, we would have something honest to discuss. (Like what a fucktard you are)

Anyway, back to Rep Salazar.

Let me rephrase his argument so that it might be understood by all the other folks out there:

What if a guy wasn't sure if he was being followed and happened to see some guy wearing a hoodie (in Colorado in the winter). He might think that guy was going to kill him. And you feel like someone's been following you around or if you feel like you're in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop, pop a round at somebody. And whoops! You've killed Treyvon Martin.

Dear Florida, This.