This fool should be held personally liable for the legal costs of defending his ruling, because there is no way he gets this past the courts. At least you’d hope so, but who knows these days. This country enjoys as much religious freedom as can be found on earth, and I don’t know why that isn’t enough for some people. They keep demanding government backstop their religion in spite of the fact the Constitution forbids it.
I've wanted asses like Uthmeier and Walters of Oklahoma and too many others like them to bear the costs of litigation personally for a while, but for what I've seen, it'll never happen. They'll pawn the penalties and court costs onto the state and walk away like it never happened.
Maybe introduce an offence 'misconduct in public office'? This could be applied to situations where a public official gratuitously wastes public money and resources.
Do we really have more religious freedom here? Doesn’t feel like it. These fools just want to practice segregation in their so-called Christian schools and not face any consequences for it.
The short answer is: No, we DON'T. We have Christian Privilege™ all but ensconced in law in too many places, local, state, and federal, and all manner of people wanting to take it further and scrap the Constitution altogether and replace it with Christian Theocracy.
And if I sound especially pissed today, it's because I just watched a brilliantly updated retelling of the story of Tartuffe at the Outcalt Theater in Cleveland's Playhouse Square, and watching the process of the title character pulling his scam on an unsuspecting patrician while his family looks on aghast had my blood boiling after a fashion it hasn't in a while. Predatory Christianity has poisoned my homeland in a way that should terrify anyone who cares about freedom and rights. Whether it's Tartuffe or Trump, they want to strip all of it away so that they get to play in their playground while we get to clean up after them.
And the people who didn’t vote, voted for Jill Stein (where’d she go, back to Russia?) or say they don’t “do politics” I loathe more than the authoritarians in many ways.
I've posted here previously, but here's a reminder:
If you want to vote this year, get your documents in order now. Don't wait. You might need a birth certificate, marriage license, or passport and all of those take time to get. Get them NOW. Later will be too late. Don't lose your right to vote over something so silly as not having a piece of paperwork.
My wife and I both have passports, so we're good to go on that score. And if they REALLY want to get pissy, I have my birth certificate as well, so there, BLEAUGH!
Definitely. Luckily, I never changed my last name after getting married because ew, I’m my own person! I’m sure even more ways will be dreamt up from now until then to suppress more votes. Last mayoral election, I was told at first my “signature” (finger on a touch screen vs a pen) didn’t match up. Tricky Tricksters…
Amen. I also understand that we are a very large and very diverse country, so comparisons to elsewhere are at best messy. Hopefully this disaster we find ourselves in is the spark to bring about real change.
Change. Damned near every election I've seen for at least the past 20 years and likely longer has been about 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘. The problem continues to be that there is no inertia quite like social inertia, and the US is full of it. I've forgotten how many millions of people COULD have voted in the 2024 election and didn't, more than likely giving us Donald Trump again in the bargain. Too many people follow the mold described by fictional newsman Howard Beale when they say, "Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone." There is WAY too much apathy and flat-out LAZINESS in this country for it to survive much longer if enough people opt to avoid the unpleasantness of INVOLVEMENT.
Obviously, we don't avoid it, but I wonder if we and those like us are enough. Sorry for the rant. Tartuffe got my dander up.
I agree. On paper that’s what it says. The reality is that Christian privilege has chipped away at and distorted this simple concept so much it’s hardly recognizable anymore. I don’t feel “free” whatsoever. Bodily autonomy is no longer a thing for many of us. It’s sort of fundamental to everything else.
I have often wondered this myself. What would be the point of having more and more money when you already have more than you can spend? $1 billion in a one percent savings account earns $27,000 per day. Who could spend that kind of money?
I think there are two answers to the question. One, the obvious one,is that this is an addiction. They are addicted to accumulating money just like the most far out junkie is addicted to smack, or the furthest rightest Christian is addicted to God. In short, what I have written about many times: religious megalomania.
But there in lies the clue to the other aspect of billionaires and their never ending hunger. And you also alluded to it. Money is power. But it’s not just the power to do whatever they want, it’s power over other people that’s important. I have more than you do. That means I am more than you.
It makes absolutely no sense to me, but then most addictions don’t make any sense to me. If someone gave me $1 billion, I would keep 20 million for myself and my family and spend the rest of my life giving the other $980 million away. That would be a lot of fun.
There used to be a guy named Percy Ross who wrote an advice column. Percy had more money than God, and you could write to him and ask him for money. If he thought you should have it, he gave it to you. The thing was, Percy also gave you his advice. that was the fun part I think for him.
Are you sure about that, Uthmeier? If that were so, then the government could encourage The Satanic Temple. The government could encourage Islam. Or do you think the official position of the government, from federal down to township, should be that only Christianity counts as religion?
"An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation”
Yes, it appears that that is your position. How, exactly, is the government to elevate Christianity above all other religions without establishing it?
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of who the Establishment Clause applies to. It does not only apply to the federal government, but to all levels of government. That was codified by the 14th amendment, but it was a principle even before that. And the First Amendment's religion clauses served to clarify the rights of the people and the restrictions on the government already set forth in Article VI. "No religious test" means no religion required, no religion preferred, and no religion prohibited. Not just sects of Christianity.
It is a short step from the government encouraging Christianity to requiring Christianity, and from there, it isn't too far to mandate one particular sect. Do you want the Troubles? This is how you get the Troubles.
"When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, 'tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
-- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to the Christian Dr. Richard Price, dated October 9th 1780
As if these jesusfuckers actually read a real history book, I sure most of these Christian fascists got their history from David Barton’s crappy books!
OT: I had allotted 2 days for the Grand Canyon. Turns out 1 was enough. 5 hours of staring at its awesomeness suffices. Today we made plans to visit a town 50 miles away that still has an active stretch of Route 66 and a museum dedicated to dinosaur poop. The Pooseum.
You can really only look for so long if you're not hiking or camping in the area. I'm not sure where you are, but I really liked the watchtower near the east entrance (I think, it's been several years).
I took a raft ride in it when I went in the 90s, no rapids, just a leisurely boat ride. But I am sure those kinds of things are reserved months or years in advance nowadays.
I wouldn't trust the creationists for accurate information. Remember when Curt Cameron (or maybe it was Ray Confort's kid) had an elaborate scale model of the Grand Canyon, but they had the Colorado River flowing the wrong way? : )
Took the helicopter tour back in the late 1980s, it was fantastic. The head phones played 2001: A Space Odyssey. The pilot flew over the jungles of Vietnam in the U.S. Army.
He was crazed, flying close and between the formations.
That will work until a non Christian group want taxpayers dollars to fund their school, then it will become an enforced constitutional ban. The jesusfuckers will then drop the taxpayers funding for all religious schools!
Sooooooo, how do you choose to “encourage” one religion over all others without de facto establishing an official religion? Hmmmmmmm?
The founders did not actually want to encourage any religion, and if you read even the most basic papers by them you could see that. But we are working with the Liar David Barton’s lackeys. If the founders wanted to encourage Christianity, then why didn’t they use the words, Christianity, God, Jesus or Holy Ghost in any of our governmental documents? The constitution would be rife with christianese. But it isn’t. It clearly defines a separation from Christianity and other religions, with any mention of religion being a proscription against encouraging it as a governmental policy.
This isn’t broken brain thinking, this is straight up corruption making a concerted effort to break the rules. It is intentionally flawed logic, not a confusion.
Want taxpayer $$$, Jim-Jim? Then pay your taxes like Romans 13:6-7 tells its followers to do (and why). Won't do that? Then pray for what you want just as your Jesus told you to do. You do trust your deities, don't you?
Frank Zappa mentioned "tax the churches" many times while he was alive, even wrote a song about it back in the early 1980s. He caught a lot of shit about it. The Christians and politicians in the U. S. were outraged, good times and pure entertainment.
I understand the argument that that 1A applied to the federal government and not the states when it was adopted. But at some point SCOTUS decided that individual people were entitled to protection from the imposition of government religion no matter which state they lived in and no matter which level of government was involved. And the 14th (?) amendment is the reason.
Do I have that right?
Are these folk attempting to get SCOTUS to overturn that interpretation?
They have had a mad on about the 14th amendment since it passed , always looking for that one thing that will erase it and let them go back to when only white christain males have any rights.
Once again, we're told that the infinite, omnipotent god of the universe, creator of heaven and Earth and all they contain who fashioned them with a word, the god who hung the Pleiades and fashioned Orion's belt, who parted seas, and stopped the rotation of the Earth... needs Caesar to extort money from people and give it to Him.
It's a sad state of affairs when the individuals appointed to uphold and enforce legal code turn around and insist on picking and choosing which groups of people they will do that for.
All laws should be enforced fairly for everyone at all times. I realize that probably won't happen because this is real life and people are human, but the ideal remains. Mr. Uthmeier is in an office that the very purpose of its existence is upholding the law, and now it seems he wants to play favorites. A reminder, then: People who do not receive reasonable benefit from obeying laws often feel no need to abide by said laws.
Just because you're a white male hetero (I assume, anyway*) Christian Nationalist does not mean it's acceptable to decide to apply the 'special definition' of the laws you're required to uphold. "I don't like this rule, how dare you expect me to enforce it' is the sort of game you'd see in a schoolyard, and it's well past time to grow up.
This fool should be held personally liable for the legal costs of defending his ruling, because there is no way he gets this past the courts. At least you’d hope so, but who knows these days. This country enjoys as much religious freedom as can be found on earth, and I don’t know why that isn’t enough for some people. They keep demanding government backstop their religion in spite of the fact the Constitution forbids it.
I've wanted asses like Uthmeier and Walters of Oklahoma and too many others like them to bear the costs of litigation personally for a while, but for what I've seen, it'll never happen. They'll pawn the penalties and court costs onto the state and walk away like it never happened.
That SO needs to change!
Maybe introduce an offence 'misconduct in public office'? This could be applied to situations where a public official gratuitously wastes public money and resources.
Would be interesting to see if something like that could actually get past a legislature that would be subject to its enforcement!
Do we really have more religious freedom here? Doesn’t feel like it. These fools just want to practice segregation in their so-called Christian schools and not face any consequences for it.
The short answer is: No, we DON'T. We have Christian Privilege™ all but ensconced in law in too many places, local, state, and federal, and all manner of people wanting to take it further and scrap the Constitution altogether and replace it with Christian Theocracy.
And if I sound especially pissed today, it's because I just watched a brilliantly updated retelling of the story of Tartuffe at the Outcalt Theater in Cleveland's Playhouse Square, and watching the process of the title character pulling his scam on an unsuspecting patrician while his family looks on aghast had my blood boiling after a fashion it hasn't in a while. Predatory Christianity has poisoned my homeland in a way that should terrify anyone who cares about freedom and rights. Whether it's Tartuffe or Trump, they want to strip all of it away so that they get to play in their playground while we get to clean up after them.
THIS. HAS. GOT. TO. 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗣.
And the people who didn’t vote, voted for Jill Stein (where’d she go, back to Russia?) or say they don’t “do politics” I loathe more than the authoritarians in many ways.
I've posted here previously, but here's a reminder:
If you want to vote this year, get your documents in order now. Don't wait. You might need a birth certificate, marriage license, or passport and all of those take time to get. Get them NOW. Later will be too late. Don't lose your right to vote over something so silly as not having a piece of paperwork.
My wife and I both have passports, so we're good to go on that score. And if they REALLY want to get pissy, I have my birth certificate as well, so there, BLEAUGH!
Yes! Passport is a good thing to have no matter what these days. We’ve got ours too of course. Everyone should get one if they can afford it…
Have you seen this article?
https://danismart.substack.com/p/theres-a-kernel-of-truth-in-the-save
I'm not sure how valid her points are, but it might be worthwhile keeping an eye on developments.
Definitely. Luckily, I never changed my last name after getting married because ew, I’m my own person! I’m sure even more ways will be dreamt up from now until then to suppress more votes. Last mayoral election, I was told at first my “signature” (finger on a touch screen vs a pen) didn’t match up. Tricky Tricksters…
In this regard, this article might be interesting?
https://danismart.substack.com/p/theres-a-kernel-of-truth-in-the-save
In this regard, this article might be interesting?
https://danismart.substack.com/p/theres-a-kernel-of-truth-in-the-save
You might find this website helpful:
https://voteriders.org/
Have a look at this article https://danismart.substack.com/p/theres-a-kernel-of-truth-in-the-save
Amen. I also understand that we are a very large and very diverse country, so comparisons to elsewhere are at best messy. Hopefully this disaster we find ourselves in is the spark to bring about real change.
Change. Damned near every election I've seen for at least the past 20 years and likely longer has been about 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘. The problem continues to be that there is no inertia quite like social inertia, and the US is full of it. I've forgotten how many millions of people COULD have voted in the 2024 election and didn't, more than likely giving us Donald Trump again in the bargain. Too many people follow the mold described by fictional newsman Howard Beale when they say, "Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone." There is WAY too much apathy and flat-out LAZINESS in this country for it to survive much longer if enough people opt to avoid the unpleasantness of INVOLVEMENT.
Obviously, we don't avoid it, but I wonder if we and those like us are enough. Sorry for the rant. Tartuffe got my dander up.
I don't want change, I want real currency.
Fine, as long as you don't want pennies! 🤪
What would more religious freedom look like? Freedom of religion includes the freedom FROM religion if that is one's choice.
I agree. On paper that’s what it says. The reality is that Christian privilege has chipped away at and distorted this simple concept so much it’s hardly recognizable anymore. I don’t feel “free” whatsoever. Bodily autonomy is no longer a thing for many of us. It’s sort of fundamental to everything else.
It’s not enough for some people because it’s not enough money for some people.
And what little there is should only go to their tribe.
I have often wondered this myself. What would be the point of having more and more money when you already have more than you can spend? $1 billion in a one percent savings account earns $27,000 per day. Who could spend that kind of money?
I think there are two answers to the question. One, the obvious one,is that this is an addiction. They are addicted to accumulating money just like the most far out junkie is addicted to smack, or the furthest rightest Christian is addicted to God. In short, what I have written about many times: religious megalomania.
But there in lies the clue to the other aspect of billionaires and their never ending hunger. And you also alluded to it. Money is power. But it’s not just the power to do whatever they want, it’s power over other people that’s important. I have more than you do. That means I am more than you.
It makes absolutely no sense to me, but then most addictions don’t make any sense to me. If someone gave me $1 billion, I would keep 20 million for myself and my family and spend the rest of my life giving the other $980 million away. That would be a lot of fun.
There used to be a guy named Percy Ross who wrote an advice column. Percy had more money than God, and you could write to him and ask him for money. If he thought you should have it, he gave it to you. The thing was, Percy also gave you his advice. that was the fun part I think for him.
𝐸𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑜 𝐹𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟 (𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑙), 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟.
Are you sure about that, Uthmeier? If that were so, then the government could encourage The Satanic Temple. The government could encourage Islam. Or do you think the official position of the government, from federal down to township, should be that only Christianity counts as religion?
"An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation”
Yes, it appears that that is your position. How, exactly, is the government to elevate Christianity above all other religions without establishing it?
Also, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of who the Establishment Clause applies to. It does not only apply to the federal government, but to all levels of government. That was codified by the 14th amendment, but it was a principle even before that. And the First Amendment's religion clauses served to clarify the rights of the people and the restrictions on the government already set forth in Article VI. "No religious test" means no religion required, no religion preferred, and no religion prohibited. Not just sects of Christianity.
It is a short step from the government encouraging Christianity to requiring Christianity, and from there, it isn't too far to mandate one particular sect. Do you want the Troubles? This is how you get the Troubles.
Once again...
"When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, 'tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
-- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to the Christian Dr. Richard Price, dated October 9th 1780
As if these jesusfuckers actually read a real history book, I sure most of these Christian fascists got their history from David Barton’s crappy books!
OT: I had allotted 2 days for the Grand Canyon. Turns out 1 was enough. 5 hours of staring at its awesomeness suffices. Today we made plans to visit a town 50 miles away that still has an active stretch of Route 66 and a museum dedicated to dinosaur poop. The Pooseum.
You can really only look for so long if you're not hiking or camping in the area. I'm not sure where you are, but I really liked the watchtower near the east entrance (I think, it's been several years).
I took a raft ride in it when I went in the 90s, no rapids, just a leisurely boat ride. But I am sure those kinds of things are reserved months or years in advance nowadays.
Could always book one of the creationist trips, I'm sure they never fill up.
I wouldn't trust the creationists for accurate information. Remember when Curt Cameron (or maybe it was Ray Confort's kid) had an elaborate scale model of the Grand Canyon, but they had the Colorado River flowing the wrong way? : )
We were here on Easter. There had to be YEC tour somewhere. We saw people on a sunset tour. How lame is that? The sun sets with or without a tour.
Took the helicopter tour back in the late 1980s, it was fantastic. The head phones played 2001: A Space Odyssey. The pilot flew over the jungles of Vietnam in the U.S. Army.
He was crazed, flying close and between the formations.
Good times.
Not Wagner?
No, not Betoven either. 😁
Playing the same music!
We did the 25 miles from the southern entrance to the watchtower. Pulled over a lot.
Shit! The Pooseum is closed today.
Their sign says they are #1 for #2. And the sign in the window says they have the world's largest copralite.
I thought that was in the White House?
No, that's the bigliest copralite.
If you fit it with an electric bulb, does it become a copra-light?
💩💡
Meanwhile, 1000 miles east on I 40 the azaleas, dogwoods, and redbuds look fabulous!
Idk, I've heard the Pooseum is pretty shitty.
The puns are hitting the fan.
Things are smelling pretty bad around here.
Whoever said that is full of crap.
That will work until a non Christian group want taxpayers dollars to fund their school, then it will become an enforced constitutional ban. The jesusfuckers will then drop the taxpayers funding for all religious schools!
Sooooooo, how do you choose to “encourage” one religion over all others without de facto establishing an official religion? Hmmmmmmm?
The founders did not actually want to encourage any religion, and if you read even the most basic papers by them you could see that. But we are working with the Liar David Barton’s lackeys. If the founders wanted to encourage Christianity, then why didn’t they use the words, Christianity, God, Jesus or Holy Ghost in any of our governmental documents? The constitution would be rife with christianese. But it isn’t. It clearly defines a separation from Christianity and other religions, with any mention of religion being a proscription against encouraging it as a governmental policy.
This isn’t broken brain thinking, this is straight up corruption making a concerted effort to break the rules. It is intentionally flawed logic, not a confusion.
Hey, Jimbo...
Read your bible. Romans 13:1-5 EXPLICITLY tells followers to obey all secular laws and authorities.
Journey around the sun completed for this year.
🎂🥳🎂🥳🎂🥳🎂🥳
Start over. Do it again. : )
Already underway.
youtu.be/Cs5vUfddkT8
Tax the damn churches already. Enough is enough.
Want taxpayer $$$, Jim-Jim? Then pay your taxes like Romans 13:6-7 tells its followers to do (and why). Won't do that? Then pray for what you want just as your Jesus told you to do. You do trust your deities, don't you?
Frank Zappa mentioned "tax the churches" many times while he was alive, even wrote a song about it back in the early 1980s. He caught a lot of shit about it. The Christians and politicians in the U. S. were outraged, good times and pure entertainment.
Thank God For Frank!
So how are property taxes in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle? It looks as if RCC owned St. James Cathedral takes up a lot of real estate.
And that's just the outside. 😉
I understand the argument that that 1A applied to the federal government and not the states when it was adopted. But at some point SCOTUS decided that individual people were entitled to protection from the imposition of government religion no matter which state they lived in and no matter which level of government was involved. And the 14th (?) amendment is the reason.
Do I have that right?
Are these folk attempting to get SCOTUS to overturn that interpretation?
They have had a mad on about the 14th amendment since it passed , always looking for that one thing that will erase it and let them go back to when only white christain males have any rights.
Once again, we're told that the infinite, omnipotent god of the universe, creator of heaven and Earth and all they contain who fashioned them with a word, the god who hung the Pleiades and fashioned Orion's belt, who parted seas, and stopped the rotation of the Earth... needs Caesar to extort money from people and give it to Him.
(In William Shatner’s voice): “What does God need with money?”
To fuel up his spaceship, of course.
Star Trek V? One of the most appalling wastes of money, time and actors ever committed to celluloid? The sentiment remains true, despite all that.
And how dare Kirk seek proof that this being calling itself God actually is what he claims to be. Turned out to be another charlatan. Thus is it ever.
No, I think Star Trek: The motion picture was worst, it didn’t really have a plot or really anything for character development!
I thoroughly enjoyed the first one. I was ticked off with the 6th one (Vulcan mind rape? Seriously?).
It has helped me find my keys too!
These people continue believing their bible will bail them out of the hell they’re creating
Their god has been MIA for awhile
"They were not. He’s just racist."
Bingo. If jeebus had been a real person, he would have been a POC. Maga White nationalism: chock full of ignorant brain dead clusterfucks.
And those are the Christian fascists good qualities!
First, Uthmeier seems to be conflating religion and good morals which is what we expect from Christians who don't believe anyone counts but them.
Second, the logical conclusion of his argument is that church's should pay taxes. To not do so is unconstitutional.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/996cbf570da7f613adbb878d8e8e3249b38f53755202a2004bb2c722dd3d9682.jpg
Oy. THIS, they call the "Paper of Record?"
I was led to believe that even the Op-Ed pages of major newspapers have editors and fact-checkers.
Doesn’t mean anything when those editors and fact-checkers are raging MAGAts.
Gulf of America. Duh.
It's a sad state of affairs when the individuals appointed to uphold and enforce legal code turn around and insist on picking and choosing which groups of people they will do that for.
All laws should be enforced fairly for everyone at all times. I realize that probably won't happen because this is real life and people are human, but the ideal remains. Mr. Uthmeier is in an office that the very purpose of its existence is upholding the law, and now it seems he wants to play favorites. A reminder, then: People who do not receive reasonable benefit from obeying laws often feel no need to abide by said laws.
Just because you're a white male hetero (I assume, anyway*) Christian Nationalist does not mean it's acceptable to decide to apply the 'special definition' of the laws you're required to uphold. "I don't like this rule, how dare you expect me to enforce it' is the sort of game you'd see in a schoolyard, and it's well past time to grow up.
*According to Wiki, he's got a wife and three kids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Uthmeier
He might still sublet from Mr. Tumnus.