"the school’s president Linda A. Livingstone filed a formal request with the Department of Education for an exemption from the Title IX rules, arguing that the complaints against them would force the school to violate its religious beliefs."
In other words, "We're bigoted assholes who can't treat people decently, but we're hiding behind our religious beliefs".
Exactly this. It wouldn't really violate their religious beliefs to take harassment complaints seriously even when the complainant is someone they their beliefs tell them is somehow evil. They do not want to acknowledge this.
What worries me isn't that these people are being hypocrites, it's that they're not - that their beliefs, are, in fact, deeply opposed to stopping harassment of anyone they don't approve of.
You don't understand. The clear, irrefutable meaning of the first amendment is that, this being a christian nation, christians have an absolute right to do anything they like to anyone at all, no matter how heinous. That's precisely what the Fedralist Papers are all about. Or so I''m told by Professor Barton.
Of course, Tex-ass. The blind spot concerning religion, and how the Christian Nationalists insist that following anti-discrimination laws is discrimination against them is insane and should have been considered over with decisions like Piggie Park v Newman, Loving v Virginia, and Brown v Board. Yet here is more Christian Fucking Privilege enshrined into law. Although the Biden administration is light years better than Trump, it is still shit.
There are Christian Nationalists who want to bring back stoning. I would suggest that Jesus' commands to love others would quash these ideas but there's a lot of cherry picking going on among today's Christians.
There is no way one can be a Christian without cherry picking! Condemn gays, but ignore gossips. (Paul) Condemn gays, but enjoy shrimp and ham. (Moses) Condemn gays, but women cut their hair, or talk up in church. (Paul again)
As a non-cisgender person feeling "called" to my ministry, cherry picking was the only way I could survive as an outsider on the inside.
Look where that advice got Jesus: they crucified the shit out of him, then turned him into their imaginary deity, then continued their unabated violence as homage. Christianity is a fucked up cult.
How have I gone this long without knowing Baylor is a Christian school? These problems are never going to go away until Christian institutions either leave the secular world or they learn to play by the rules that everyone else plays by. This story is bad enough until you remember the stranglehold that Christians have over healthcare providers and continuously deny basic healthcare like abortions, sterilizations, and contraception. Oh and while we’re at it let’s not forget the Christian adoption agencies that won’t adopt out to LGBTQ+ couples.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. There is no hate quite like Christian love. If you want to see the true face of hate, . . . hand power to the preachers.
There's a difference between putting an Anti-LGBTQ belief in your statement of faith or preaching anti-LGBTQ messages from the pulpit based on your religion or sharing your bigoted faith with an LGBTQ student vs. continually harassing them in this fashion and it's disgusting that the government refuses to see that.
If a student responds, "ENOUGH" to the nonsense, that should be the end of it. They have refused consent and they shouldn't have to endure any more shit from assholes.
Uh oh, you said the c-word, Eyes are glazing over with incomprehension, brows furrowed in a futile attempt to understand. Prayers uttered to protect them from liberated women.
Yep. There may be some legal gray areas (I'm thinking initial speech or speech not directed at the victim), but 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 is not in it. It's an extremely simple legal concept and doesn't require any content exceptions or discussions at all. You have a right to air your opinions in public. You do not have a right to follow me around telling me them after I've told you to stop.
And it's not that god changed his mind, y'see, it's that the interpretation of the message changed because of what society was ready for or something smart-sounding like that.
And when the Lord Jealous changed his mind, a world got flooded.
He couldn't just make like Thanos and snap his fingers to make the "bad people" go away. Oh no, he had to kill a world except for one old drunk, his family and a zoo.
You aren't wrong, but when it comes to the "against our religion" excuse being used to allow racism against blacks, my money is on Brigham Young. Except for the athletes, of course. (No doubte Baylor would be much the same. Of course you can harass gays...as long as they aren't varsity athletes. Harass one of them, watch how fast you're booted.)
Where 1952 was such a nice year that nothing has happened since. (Sorry. Couldn't resist. That's what's still said of my hometown, which is about 7 miles north of Berkeley. Yeah, in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
Well, so what? Maybe that was even good. Americans had a rather low tolerance for the fascist approach - even rock-ribbed righties like Reagan didn't go for that stuff; nothing but a pure fact no matter how many tantrums the New Left might want to throw or how many songs Joan Baez wrote." - "The Dead Zone"
When I saw the film of “The Dead Zone” - so many years ago! - it was at a suburban mall theater, and when it was time to head home, there was a convoy of tanker trucks passing by on the freeway. We took the long way home.
"The fact that Baylor needed to ask the government if bullying LGBTQ students could be okay in certain situations..."
So if nonbelievers in a public school went to the government and asked if bullying Christian students "in certain situations" was okay, how do you suppose that request would be received? Yeah. Thought so.
And yet Christians are the first to scream PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA! when there is none. Oh, but how eager they are to practice that very persecution of others in this country who aren't part of their anthill.
Christians THINK they are being persecuted because they follow Jesus, when what's REALLY happening is that they're being HELD TO ACCOUNT for not emulating him.
The United States of America, where your humanity is based on where you happen to be standing at the moment.
Abortion is a states rights issue, except women are people and should be afforded bodily autonomy no matter where they live.
LGBTQ+ protections do not spill onto church grounds.
The civil war supposedly ended black slavery according to state, the original states rights claims, only to have civil rights be based on where you lived.
This country is fucked up and getting more fuckery every day.
The states as political entities have long since outlived their usefulness. Originally they were quite literally "states," as in their own little nations. But the 14th amendment ended that. The notion that a person can have more or less rights than their neighbor just across the state line is too lunatic to fathom. The only thing the states are good for now is strictly as administrative units--and often not even that.
A hearty "yep!" to that. The number of huge, important things left up to state or local jurisdiction when the relevant laws should be uniform at the national level is simply ludicrous- guns, cars, medical licensing, access to necessary healthcare (which should be publicly funded to begin with, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms), education... the list goes on and on. We have the freedom to travel anywhere we wish within the country's borders, but cross the wrong 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 border with the wrong thing in your trunk and you've placed yourself in danger of felony charges- and you might not even know it unless you researched every single state you were traveling through.
The EU handles things like this better and they literally 𝘢𝘳𝘦 still independent countries! On this side of the pond, though, we've got our heads shoved up the asses of a bunch of slaveowners who've been dead in the ground for two centuries and change... and every single year we fall farther and farther behind the rest of human civilization.
Things like marriage, age of consent, electric grids should not be left up to the states. Everyone talks about the 10th Amendment, but SCOTUS and politicians, in general, seem to have missed the 9th.
I've said before, are we one nation or 50? You can't have it both ways and trying leads to fucked up situations.
TBF, that can also be one set of laws, incomprehensible. Try reading the statues on indecent exposure. I still can't figure out if it's legal in Texas or Washington to check your mail in just your skin.
“The school disagrees with that interpretation. One official told the Texas Tribune that the exemption “was being mischaracterized as a ‘broad-based exception to sexual harassment.’” Okay, it’s not like sexual harassment in all forms is now tolerated on campus.”
It sounds like that isn’t true at all. It sounds like sexual harassment is allowed as long as you can find an argument based in the Bible for the harassment. The decision focuses on LGBTQ+, but it relies too heavily on allowing religious thinking, which has created a culture of sexual harassment for women and any male who does not completely conform to the most extreme version of masculinity (that all LGBTQ+ people fall under one of those categories). And religious thinking gets to be anything the religious person doing the thinking wants it to be, not just because the Bible is so poorly written to support whatever they want it to, but because the government has already decided that there’s no standards for proving the religious thinking is supported by the foundations of the religion, it just needs to be sincere. Whatever that means.
Yes, this decision does give Baylor (and any other institution that chooses to try it) full reign over tolerating all forms of sexual harassment.
It's open hunt for all women. The culprits would just have to say "We thought she was a lesbian or trans" to get scot free. Congratulations to the department of uneducation to make anyone who doesn't conform to fucked up standards non citizens.
Also, I've been thinking for a while that the "gay panic defense" (which I remember from the 70s and 80s) is making a legal come-back. How quickly do you think the excuse will move from "we thought she was a lesbian so she asked for it (rape)" to "we thought they were LGBT so they asked for it (murder)" and get away with the crime. Not long, I'd bet. Everything new is just the same-old same-old.
I have seen first hand folks going off on cis women who are not feminine enough for being trans, getting called men and shouted at for going to a public bathroom. This happens to athletes all the time, the Williams sisters were called men, Michelle Obama too, all of them for being muscular. Shit, there’s a meme going round claiming Nicole Kidman was a man because I this picture of her her back is straight not curved like real women. A little girl in Canada was verbally attacked by some grandpa for participating in a girls track meet with short hair. It’s already started, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
As we are all aware (I hope), what starts as talk doesn't stay as talk. Which was the whole point of the "gay panic defense" back in the day. A person's very existence as gay was an excuse to murder them, rape them.
As I discussed with Joan once I am a cis woman who have hormones imbalance and need to shave my face. This + my clothing style makes me the opposite of a feminine woman 🙄
The first time any of this entered my brain was early in college ('95ish) when a good friend of mine asked me to walk her to the bathroom, which was just out of sight of where we were studying, because she didn't feel safe. I didn't get it at the time, but I went with her.
The really shitty part is that the "panic defense" never actually went away- it just fell into widespread disuse. Only 16 states and DC have actually passed bans against the practice, and it's only even been in the last decade that it was prohibited 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 in the US (California was the first to outlaw it, in 2014; the most recent addition to the list was New Hampshire, this year): https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/panic_defense_bans
I'd be very surprised if it hasn't already become common again in the MAGAt belt.
Sigh. All true. What's old and discredited is now--well, new and just as discredited. Some interesting stats on the numbers of LGBT people who have left or are considering leaving states with bigoted laws. Louisiana just lost one of only three pediatric cardiac specialists *in the state* because he and his husband saw a state with this sort of legalized bigotry as not a good place to raise their kids. When will these RWNJ bigots begin to understand that their murderous hatred hurts everyone? (Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.)
That's one of the things that stood out to me. Baylor wanted an exemption to the sexual harassment provision of Title IX, not just an exemption to that provision for only the LGBTQ community.
It sounds like Baylor was an unsafe place for women before this bonehead maneuver. 52 rapes by the football team in 3 years? I'm sure it was all 'she agreed to go out with me, she can't change her mind after I bought her dinner.'
I know football causes brain damage, but it doesn't take that many neurons to understand consent.
I’m sorry to say that type of thing is par for the course for all football programs throughout the country. University of Colorado Boulder had the same type of problem when I lived in Colorado. It’s so endemic that it doesn’t make the news.
Sports builds 'character'. Sports builds conformity and submission to authority. That is not my definition of character. Character is doing the right thing even when it's unpopular. Character is supporting those that need it. Character is accepting that the world doesn't revolve around you or people like you.
It can, but it's probably rare. I think the way the majority of sports are set up now, especially those that have professional leagues or maybe even large college followings, have problems. My kids played on just a few teams as kids; some were focused on learning skills, physical education, teamwork, and having fun. Others were...not. But until we as a society start to put less value on professional athletes it will continue. There's too much "win at any cost" and "if I can be good enough, I'll make tons of money" mentality.
These miscreants were raised in an environment of extreme entitlement; women just simply OWE them sex, period, end of story. Buy her dinner and a movie on top of that and by gawd, she'd BETTER put out.
This was why I eventually adopted the "Dutch Treat Only" rule - whenever I went on a date, I always paid my share of everything because (my cover story) "it's more fair that way."
No, I didn't get a lot of second dates. But it beat the hell out of being called the c-word and treated like a hooker trying to get out of a transaction at the end of the evening, because "I spent good money on you!"
And that reminds me of the term “Tortucans”. I’m pretty sure I came across that on the Panda’s Thumb 15 -20 years ago but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. It refers specifically to creationists and more generally to those who are impervious to evidence. Like a tortoise, evidence and facts simply bounce off their exterior.
Big Scalzi fan (his new one "Starter Villain" comes out next month), but I'm ashamed to say I've never read his blog. I thought I made up Leviticans on the spot. Thanks for this.
If he never even mentioned them doesn't that mean he considered them unworthy of notice? What better indication could there be that everyone's free to bash queers as much as they like?
Had he really existed, the dude travelled around with 12 other men and was boffing one of them. He would have known what was up and not been bothered by man-on-man. He certainly knew what the relationship between the Roman Centurion (a Gentile) and his "servant" was when that Centurion asked Jesus to cure his young male lover. Jesus healed the lover long-distance. No condemnation, no nothing.
He spent more time criticizing those who claimed to be his followers yet didn't do what he said.
Nuh-uh, man. They were just friends, exactly like David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, and Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas. There wasn't not none o' them there queers in the world till Hunter Biden pulled them out of his laptop.
Wrong, WRONG, 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚!!! And that applies equally to Baylor University AND the Department of Education. I'm pleased to see that Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has landed on the DoE with both feet, and she and the FFRF should duplicate that action on Baylor as well. Considering that Baylor accepts federal funding, there is no way that any of this should be even remotely happening ... and yet it is.
I honestly feel like revving up my word processor and firing off a note to Joe Biden about this.
Edit: Postscript - Once word of this hits the streets of Waco, Texas, get out of the way ... because I would expect an exodus of LGBTQ+ students from that misguided institution.
Could be ... but it seems to me that there are always a few that think that it isn't so bad, that they like the environment and so on. THIS may be the proverbial bridge too far.
Guidelines for LGBTQ+ students considering enrolling at ANY Christian school, college, or university:
1. DON'T!
1A. Even if their published policies and bylaws clearly state that you will be treated with equal respect and fairness, and that you will not face any harassment or bias, THEY'RE LYING.
1B. Their religion is increasingly de-emphasizing precepts and principles of loving everyone, and prioritizing the practice of hate toward target groups, and YOU'RE THE BULLSEYE.
1C. They're never going to "reform." They're just going to get more vicious against you until they go extinct.
1D. Seriously consider abandoning any and all involvement in religion. It's not your friend, it's your deadly enemy.
What we have here is just another great reason to boot religion out of education. I will admit I'm wondering what the dropout rate for the school will look like, considering the Texas laws on abortion; my guess is they'll claim they don't track how many students they lose to unexpected pregnancy.
Quite frankly, the response they should have gotten should have told them they can either have taxpayer funding OR they can behave like the bigoted jerks they claim their Jesus told them to be, not both. They can be perfectly free to practice their faith however they want, but the government must make rules for everyone and can't allow exceptions. Baylor has already shown they cannot be trusted to actually put a stop to things like rape, why should they be allowed any additional privileges at all? I would also note that as a Baptist school, Baylor should be getting some funds from various Baptist organizations (the SBC springs to mind), which makes me wonder why they need government funds in the first place. Let the Baptists pay for this school if it's so important to have a Baptist university around; I'd have already taken their funding if it were up to me.
I'm sick of hearing about Christian institutions, groups, organizations, and who knows what else getting government money to practice their prejudices on everyone else and then coming back and asking for more. Time to end this.
"the school’s president Linda A. Livingstone filed a formal request with the Department of Education for an exemption from the Title IX rules, arguing that the complaints against them would force the school to violate its religious beliefs."
In other words, "We're bigoted assholes who can't treat people decently, but we're hiding behind our religious beliefs".
Exactly this. It wouldn't really violate their religious beliefs to take harassment complaints seriously even when the complainant is someone they their beliefs tell them is somehow evil. They do not want to acknowledge this.
What worries me isn't that these people are being hypocrites, it's that they're not - that their beliefs, are, in fact, deeply opposed to stopping harassment of anyone they don't approve of.
Given the frequent harassment of people they don’t approve by Christians I expect a lot of people believe exactly that.
Like "beating the devil out of" someone. Where assault is justified as somehow "beneficial" for those awful people we hate.
You don't understand. The clear, irrefutable meaning of the first amendment is that, this being a christian nation, christians have an absolute right to do anything they like to anyone at all, no matter how heinous. That's precisely what the Fedralist Papers are all about. Or so I''m told by Professor Barton.
Hasn't his tenure been revoked yet?
Of course, Tex-ass. The blind spot concerning religion, and how the Christian Nationalists insist that following anti-discrimination laws is discrimination against them is insane and should have been considered over with decisions like Piggie Park v Newman, Loving v Virginia, and Brown v Board. Yet here is more Christian Fucking Privilege enshrined into law. Although the Biden administration is light years better than Trump, it is still shit.
How do you limit this? Is stoning now OK? Where and how do you draw a line? The bible pretty clearly has no line.
There are Christian Nationalists who want to bring back stoning. I would suggest that Jesus' commands to love others would quash these ideas but there's a lot of cherry picking going on among today's Christians.
They all cherry-pick. That's what happens when one's mythology lacks any internal consistency.
There is no way one can be a Christian without cherry picking! Condemn gays, but ignore gossips. (Paul) Condemn gays, but enjoy shrimp and ham. (Moses) Condemn gays, but women cut their hair, or talk up in church. (Paul again)
As a non-cisgender person feeling "called" to my ministry, cherry picking was the only way I could survive as an outsider on the inside.
You're doing your fair share of cherry picking.
I don't agree but each to their own opinion.
You're picking your verse, others pick different verses.
Look where that advice got Jesus: they crucified the shit out of him, then turned him into their imaginary deity, then continued their unabated violence as homage. Christianity is a fucked up cult.
There are people who object to every line of the bible being taken literally.
Some of them appear to be applying that sentiment to this statement by Jesus.
How have I gone this long without knowing Baylor is a Christian school? These problems are never going to go away until Christian institutions either leave the secular world or they learn to play by the rules that everyone else plays by. This story is bad enough until you remember the stranglehold that Christians have over healthcare providers and continuously deny basic healthcare like abortions, sterilizations, and contraception. Oh and while we’re at it let’s not forget the Christian adoption agencies that won’t adopt out to LGBTQ+ couples.
Goes to show how badly Christianity has metastasized throughout our culture, government, and everything else.
This country needs a program like the denazification programs in post WWII Germany, only aimed at Christianity and much more thorough.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. There is no hate quite like Christian love. If you want to see the true face of hate, . . . hand power to the preachers.
There's a difference between putting an Anti-LGBTQ belief in your statement of faith or preaching anti-LGBTQ messages from the pulpit based on your religion or sharing your bigoted faith with an LGBTQ student vs. continually harassing them in this fashion and it's disgusting that the government refuses to see that.
If a student responds, "ENOUGH" to the nonsense, that should be the end of it. They have refused consent and they shouldn't have to endure any more shit from assholes.
Uh oh, you said the c-word, Eyes are glazing over with incomprehension, brows furrowed in a futile attempt to understand. Prayers uttered to protect them from liberated women.
Yep. There may be some legal gray areas (I'm thinking initial speech or speech not directed at the victim), but 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 is not in it. It's an extremely simple legal concept and doesn't require any content exceptions or discussions at all. You have a right to air your opinions in public. You do not have a right to follow me around telling me them after I've told you to stop.
But that's all assholes *do* -- make shit and dump it. You're asking assholes everywhere to ignore their very natures. /s
RE the screenshot:
"Baylor University. Where it's still 1845."
"When them uppity nigras knew their place."
Slavery was a sacred Baptist tradition they justified with their bible.
And it's not that god changed his mind, y'see, it's that the interpretation of the message changed because of what society was ready for or something smart-sounding like that.
Yeah.
And when the Lord Jealous changed his mind, a world got flooded.
He couldn't just make like Thanos and snap his fingers to make the "bad people" go away. Oh no, he had to kill a world except for one old drunk, his family and a zoo.
> "one old drunk, his family and a zoo."
Sounds like my house. 😏
How's your flood insurance?
My agent is Steve Carrel.
Through the roof, most likely, since he lives in the narrow part of Pinellas County, Floriduh.
Which begs the question, why did gawd create evil people in the first place?
Christians never ask why YHVH created his own archenemy and then didn't seem capable of defeating him.
And he knows who's going to sin and deserve eternal torment, yet he creates them anyway. Sadistic bastard.
You aren't wrong, but when it comes to the "against our religion" excuse being used to allow racism against blacks, my money is on Brigham Young. Except for the athletes, of course. (No doubte Baylor would be much the same. Of course you can harass gays...as long as they aren't varsity athletes. Harass one of them, watch how fast you're booted.)
Where 1952 was such a nice year that nothing has happened since. (Sorry. Couldn't resist. That's what's still said of my hometown, which is about 7 miles north of Berkeley. Yeah, in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
The only good thing about the 1950s that I can recall is that most people agreed that Nazis, fascists and Russians were bad guys.
"Brownshirts, Johnny thought, sitting down.
Brownshirts is all they are.
Well, so what? Maybe that was even good. Americans had a rather low tolerance for the fascist approach - even rock-ribbed righties like Reagan didn't go for that stuff; nothing but a pure fact no matter how many tantrums the New Left might want to throw or how many songs Joan Baez wrote." - "The Dead Zone"
Has Mr. King ever been so wrong?
When I saw the film of “The Dead Zone” - so many years ago! - it was at a suburban mall theater, and when it was time to head home, there was a convoy of tanker trucks passing by on the freeway. We took the long way home.
"The fifties were the bad decade." --Gore Vidal
Born in ’57, so I don't remember much about it. I started reading in 1960 when I was 3½, which is about as far back as I can recall.
DM and NOGODZ were born in the early 50's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqACbwLRR2s
"The fact that Baylor needed to ask the government if bullying LGBTQ students could be okay in certain situations..."
So if nonbelievers in a public school went to the government and asked if bullying Christian students "in certain situations" was okay, how do you suppose that request would be received? Yeah. Thought so.
And yet Christians are the first to scream PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA! when there is none. Oh, but how eager they are to practice that very persecution of others in this country who aren't part of their anthill.
Christians THINK they are being persecuted because they follow Jesus, when what's REALLY happening is that they're being HELD TO ACCOUNT for not emulating him.
The United States of America, where your humanity is based on where you happen to be standing at the moment.
Abortion is a states rights issue, except women are people and should be afforded bodily autonomy no matter where they live.
LGBTQ+ protections do not spill onto church grounds.
The civil war supposedly ended black slavery according to state, the original states rights claims, only to have civil rights be based on where you lived.
This country is fucked up and getting more fuckery every day.
The states as political entities have long since outlived their usefulness. Originally they were quite literally "states," as in their own little nations. But the 14th amendment ended that. The notion that a person can have more or less rights than their neighbor just across the state line is too lunatic to fathom. The only thing the states are good for now is strictly as administrative units--and often not even that.
A hearty "yep!" to that. The number of huge, important things left up to state or local jurisdiction when the relevant laws should be uniform at the national level is simply ludicrous- guns, cars, medical licensing, access to necessary healthcare (which should be publicly funded to begin with, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms), education... the list goes on and on. We have the freedom to travel anywhere we wish within the country's borders, but cross the wrong 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 border with the wrong thing in your trunk and you've placed yourself in danger of felony charges- and you might not even know it unless you researched every single state you were traveling through.
The EU handles things like this better and they literally 𝘢𝘳𝘦 still independent countries! On this side of the pond, though, we've got our heads shoved up the asses of a bunch of slaveowners who've been dead in the ground for two centuries and change... and every single year we fall farther and farther behind the rest of human civilization.
Even the EU can't always rein in reactionary states. Hungary, Poland. But yes, they still do a lot better than good ole Uncle Samovar.
We're falling back to catch up with those shithole countries The Orange One talked about.
A-fucking-women.
Things like marriage, age of consent, electric grids should not be left up to the states. Everyone talks about the 10th Amendment, but SCOTUS and politicians, in general, seem to have missed the 9th.
I've said before, are we one nation or 50? You can't have it both ways and trying leads to fucked up situations.
What can't you understand about "fifty nations, indivisible"?
More like "fifty sets of laws, incomprehensible."
TBF, that can also be one set of laws, incomprehensible. Try reading the statues on indecent exposure. I still can't figure out if it's legal in Texas or Washington to check your mail in just your skin.
“The school disagrees with that interpretation. One official told the Texas Tribune that the exemption “was being mischaracterized as a ‘broad-based exception to sexual harassment.’” Okay, it’s not like sexual harassment in all forms is now tolerated on campus.”
It sounds like that isn’t true at all. It sounds like sexual harassment is allowed as long as you can find an argument based in the Bible for the harassment. The decision focuses on LGBTQ+, but it relies too heavily on allowing religious thinking, which has created a culture of sexual harassment for women and any male who does not completely conform to the most extreme version of masculinity (that all LGBTQ+ people fall under one of those categories). And religious thinking gets to be anything the religious person doing the thinking wants it to be, not just because the Bible is so poorly written to support whatever they want it to, but because the government has already decided that there’s no standards for proving the religious thinking is supported by the foundations of the religion, it just needs to be sincere. Whatever that means.
Yes, this decision does give Baylor (and any other institution that chooses to try it) full reign over tolerating all forms of sexual harassment.
It's open hunt for all women. The culprits would just have to say "We thought she was a lesbian or trans" to get scot free. Congratulations to the department of uneducation to make anyone who doesn't conform to fucked up standards non citizens.
Also, I've been thinking for a while that the "gay panic defense" (which I remember from the 70s and 80s) is making a legal come-back. How quickly do you think the excuse will move from "we thought she was a lesbian so she asked for it (rape)" to "we thought they were LGBT so they asked for it (murder)" and get away with the crime. Not long, I'd bet. Everything new is just the same-old same-old.
I have seen first hand folks going off on cis women who are not feminine enough for being trans, getting called men and shouted at for going to a public bathroom. This happens to athletes all the time, the Williams sisters were called men, Michelle Obama too, all of them for being muscular. Shit, there’s a meme going round claiming Nicole Kidman was a man because I this picture of her her back is straight not curved like real women. A little girl in Canada was verbally attacked by some grandpa for participating in a girls track meet with short hair. It’s already started, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
As we are all aware (I hope), what starts as talk doesn't stay as talk. Which was the whole point of the "gay panic defense" back in the day. A person's very existence as gay was an excuse to murder them, rape them.
As I discussed with Joan once I am a cis woman who have hormones imbalance and need to shave my face. This + my clothing style makes me the opposite of a feminine woman 🙄
The fucked up thing (okay one of them) is that a fem cis woman is probably safer in a men's room than a trans woman.
Which is saying something since women are rarely safe in any environment.
The incident I witnessed was in the ladies room and a woman was doing the shouting.
The first time any of this entered my brain was early in college ('95ish) when a good friend of mine asked me to walk her to the bathroom, which was just out of sight of where we were studying, because she didn't feel safe. I didn't get it at the time, but I went with her.
DM has never been harassed in men's bathrooms, whether she wore a dress or pants.
The really shitty part is that the "panic defense" never actually went away- it just fell into widespread disuse. Only 16 states and DC have actually passed bans against the practice, and it's only even been in the last decade that it was prohibited 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 in the US (California was the first to outlaw it, in 2014; the most recent addition to the list was New Hampshire, this year): https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/panic_defense_bans
I'd be very surprised if it hasn't already become common again in the MAGAt belt.
Sigh. All true. What's old and discredited is now--well, new and just as discredited. Some interesting stats on the numbers of LGBT people who have left or are considering leaving states with bigoted laws. Louisiana just lost one of only three pediatric cardiac specialists *in the state* because he and his husband saw a state with this sort of legalized bigotry as not a good place to raise their kids. When will these RWNJ bigots begin to understand that their murderous hatred hurts everyone? (Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.)
Anyone who matters can afford to go out of state to get health care, so what do they care?
More proof that repukelicans are too stupid to think.
That's one of the things that stood out to me. Baylor wanted an exemption to the sexual harassment provision of Title IX, not just an exemption to that provision for only the LGBTQ community.
It sounds like Baylor was an unsafe place for women before this bonehead maneuver. 52 rapes by the football team in 3 years? I'm sure it was all 'she agreed to go out with me, she can't change her mind after I bought her dinner.'
I know football causes brain damage, but it doesn't take that many neurons to understand consent.
I’m sorry to say that type of thing is par for the course for all football programs throughout the country. University of Colorado Boulder had the same type of problem when I lived in Colorado. It’s so endemic that it doesn’t make the news.
I saw something recently that ranked NFL teams by number of players arrested since some date, 2010? Most teams were in the 30-40 range.
Sports builds character.
Sports builds 'character'. Sports builds conformity and submission to authority. That is not my definition of character. Character is doing the right thing even when it's unpopular. Character is supporting those that need it. Character is accepting that the world doesn't revolve around you or people like you.
It can, but it's probably rare. I think the way the majority of sports are set up now, especially those that have professional leagues or maybe even large college followings, have problems. My kids played on just a few teams as kids; some were focused on learning skills, physical education, teamwork, and having fun. Others were...not. But until we as a society start to put less value on professional athletes it will continue. There's too much "win at any cost" and "if I can be good enough, I'll make tons of money" mentality.
This. YES.
I just can't press the thumb up icon here. I want a shocked-button.
The neurons involve in understanding consent were damaged by purity culture long before the culprits started football.
These miscreants were raised in an environment of extreme entitlement; women just simply OWE them sex, period, end of story. Buy her dinner and a movie on top of that and by gawd, she'd BETTER put out.
This was why I eventually adopted the "Dutch Treat Only" rule - whenever I went on a date, I always paid my share of everything because (my cover story) "it's more fair that way."
No, I didn't get a lot of second dates. But it beat the hell out of being called the c-word and treated like a hooker trying to get out of a transaction at the end of the evening, because "I spent good money on you!"
"it just needs to be sincere. Whatever that means."
Maybe we can apply the Pumpkin Patch Test.
I find this a really unfathomable move by the Department for Education. What can they possibly be thinking?
My guess, SCOTUS will force the issue anyway, and we "have bigger battles to fight"
LGBT rights are not important when the rubber hits the road. A lot of people say they support us, but they're not there when it counts.
That makes sense. Perhaps it's a compromise rather than letting it go straight to SCOTUS which would do something even worse.
This kind of compromise never end well. Europe 1933 to 1938.
Well, I'll finally get to meet Joan in the boxcar on the way to camp.
Was a trump appointee behind that move? Just wondering.
Baylor calls itself Christian, but Jesus never said a word about LGBTQs. Religious hypocrites, yes. LGBTQs, no.
Maybe they should call themselves Leviticans.
Since you use the term Leviticans, I’m guessing that you are familiar with John Scalzi’s essay. But for those who are not:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/02/24/leviticans/
And that reminds me of the term “Tortucans”. I’m pretty sure I came across that on the Panda’s Thumb 15 -20 years ago but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. It refers specifically to creationists and more generally to those who are impervious to evidence. Like a tortoise, evidence and facts simply bounce off their exterior.
And I may be misspelling Tortucans.
Is that a Tortoise/Toucan type thing like the CrockODuck?
Big Scalzi fan (his new one "Starter Villain" comes out next month), but I'm ashamed to say I've never read his blog. I thought I made up Leviticans on the spot. Thanks for this.
Great minds! Just cause you weren’t first doesn’t mean you didn’t make it up.
IOW CINOs, christians in name only.
If he never even mentioned them doesn't that mean he considered them unworthy of notice? What better indication could there be that everyone's free to bash queers as much as they like?
Had he really existed, the dude travelled around with 12 other men and was boffing one of them. He would have known what was up and not been bothered by man-on-man. He certainly knew what the relationship between the Roman Centurion (a Gentile) and his "servant" was when that Centurion asked Jesus to cure his young male lover. Jesus healed the lover long-distance. No condemnation, no nothing.
He spent more time criticizing those who claimed to be his followers yet didn't do what he said.
Nuh-uh, man. They were just friends, exactly like David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, and Oscar Wilde and Bosie Douglas. There wasn't not none o' them there queers in the world till Hunter Biden pulled them out of his laptop.
Them kweers wuz hidin' in Hillary's emails!
That sounds like a cue in multiple dimensions:
https://www.zentaur.org/memes/buttery_males.jpg
Another one from that multiverse...
https://tenor.com/view/but-her-emails-hillary-hrc-clinton-gif-8552293
Well anyway, someplace woke.
Samwise and Frodo were just bros.
before hos!
Wrong, WRONG, 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚!!! And that applies equally to Baylor University AND the Department of Education. I'm pleased to see that Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has landed on the DoE with both feet, and she and the FFRF should duplicate that action on Baylor as well. Considering that Baylor accepts federal funding, there is no way that any of this should be even remotely happening ... and yet it is.
I honestly feel like revving up my word processor and firing off a note to Joe Biden about this.
Edit: Postscript - Once word of this hits the streets of Waco, Texas, get out of the way ... because I would expect an exodus of LGBTQ+ students from that misguided institution.
I doubt it. Those in a position to leave have probably already done so.
Could be ... but it seems to me that there are always a few that think that it isn't so bad, that they like the environment and so on. THIS may be the proverbial bridge too far.
Guidelines for LGBTQ+ students considering enrolling at ANY Christian school, college, or university:
1. DON'T!
1A. Even if their published policies and bylaws clearly state that you will be treated with equal respect and fairness, and that you will not face any harassment or bias, THEY'RE LYING.
1B. Their religion is increasingly de-emphasizing precepts and principles of loving everyone, and prioritizing the practice of hate toward target groups, and YOU'RE THE BULLSEYE.
1C. They're never going to "reform." They're just going to get more vicious against you until they go extinct.
1D. Seriously consider abandoning any and all involvement in religion. It's not your friend, it's your deadly enemy.
What we have here is just another great reason to boot religion out of education. I will admit I'm wondering what the dropout rate for the school will look like, considering the Texas laws on abortion; my guess is they'll claim they don't track how many students they lose to unexpected pregnancy.
Quite frankly, the response they should have gotten should have told them they can either have taxpayer funding OR they can behave like the bigoted jerks they claim their Jesus told them to be, not both. They can be perfectly free to practice their faith however they want, but the government must make rules for everyone and can't allow exceptions. Baylor has already shown they cannot be trusted to actually put a stop to things like rape, why should they be allowed any additional privileges at all? I would also note that as a Baptist school, Baylor should be getting some funds from various Baptist organizations (the SBC springs to mind), which makes me wonder why they need government funds in the first place. Let the Baptists pay for this school if it's so important to have a Baptist university around; I'd have already taken their funding if it were up to me.
I'm sick of hearing about Christian institutions, groups, organizations, and who knows what else getting government money to practice their prejudices on everyone else and then coming back and asking for more. Time to end this.