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Cartoon of the day: Ready for (just about) anything
NATE BEELER © 2013 Cagle Cartoons
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Cartoon of the day — So far so good
STEVE SACK © 2012 Creators Syndicate(Source: theweek.com)
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“She’s completely taken advantage of the sympathy and goodwill of hundreds of thousands of people.” — Ashley Burns, With Leather
On July 22, former University of Nebraska women’s basketball star Charlie Rogers, 33, crawled screaming from her Lincoln, Neb., house naked and bleeding with a cross cut in her chest, slashes all over her body, and anti-gay slurs carved on her arms and abdomen. Rogers, a lesbian, told police that three masked men had broken into her house and assaulted her. An outpouring of support rolled in from the community and gay rights supporters nationwide.Then, on Aug. 21, police arrested Rogers for allegedly staging the brutal “hate crime” herself. If convicted of making a false police report, Rogers faces a maximum of one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
What makes them think she staged the crime herself? Lots and lots of evidence.
(Source: theweek.com)
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Cartoon of the day — Debate lunch break
NATE BEELER © 2012 Cagle Cartoons(Source: theweek.com)
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Have you heard? There’s a Chick-fil-A controversy going on. It all boiled over Wednesday in a froth of activism, commerce, and free-speech arguments. After CEO Dan Cathy told Baptist Press on July 16 that his company is “very much supportive of… the biblical definition of the family unit,” a backlash kicked in. Gay activists urged boycotts and same-sex “kiss-ins” at Chick-fil-A restaurants, and officials in several cities warned the company to keep its distance. Hitting back, conservative Mike Huckabee urged “traditional marriage” backers to swamp the chicken joints on Aug. 1 — which he dubbed national “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” — and they did.
So who’s winning and losing in this grudge match over gay marriage? Here, a brief guide:
WINNERS
- Chick-fil-A — Wednesday appears to have been a huge financial success for the chicken purveyor. Local news stories around the nation reported long lines for chicken sandwiches, and anti-gay-marriage preacher Rick Warrentweeted midday: “@DanCathy just called me. #ChickFilA has already set a world record today, with 7 more hrs to go in the West.” We conservatives may be very bad at boycotts, says William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, but we “are very good at buycotts.” Yes, with numbers like these, I’m sure “somewhere, a Burger King ad man’s toying with the idea of having ‘The King’ declare himself ‘100% pro-life,’” says Allahpundit at Hot Air.
- Mike Huckabee — The success of “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” is a huge win for the former Arkansas governor, who dreamed up the event and used Facebookto convince 660,000 people to participate. Impressive, says Barbara Reynolds at The Washington Post. ”Huckabee has turned the table on the chain’s critics, calling them bigots” for trying to quash free speech, and convincing a huge number of Americans to join his cause.
- Gay-rights advocates — Aug. 1 may have been a banner day for Chick-fil-A, but after two weeks of protests and high-profile saber rattling from pro-gay mayors and celebrities, “the damage had been done,” says Steve Cody at Inc. And, in the larger scheme of things, says Michelangelo Signorile at The Huffington Post,gay-rights activists are winning the battle over corporate support, with global giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Kraft “pushing for LGBT rights across the entire planet.” If a “pipsqueak” like Chick-fil-A, “whose outlets are predominantly centered in red state America” is “the most high profile company the anti-gays have pushing their agenda, I can see where things are headed.”
LOSERS
- Chick-fil-A — Despite the record sales and free publicity, “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day isn’t getting much love from Chick-fil-A” itself, says Elizabeth Flock at U.S. News. From the company’s silent Twitter feed to its public disavowal of any involvement in Huckabee’s protest, Chick-fil-A seems to understand that long after this controversy dies down, many potential customers will still have a bad taste in their mouths. There’s a lesson for every business leader in Cathy’s shoes, says Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times: “It’s best to let your products speak for themselves and keep your big mouth shut.”
- Liberal mayors — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and various other Democratic leaders suggested that they would keep Chick-fil-A from expanding in their bailiwicks, with Emanuel saying that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago’s values.” But “it seems that someone with some knowledge of the Constitution has since spoken with” them, because they’ve all scaled back their statements, says Kashmir Hill at Forbes. Mayors have no right to block businesses based on political or religious beliefs. “Eat mor Constitution, guys.”
- The Berenstain Bears — The fictional bear family created by the late Stan and Jan Berenstain are perhaps the most surprising victims of the crossfire. After the Jim Henson Co. cut all ties with Chick-fil-A over the company’s gay marriage stance last week — and Chick-fil-A pulled the Muppet finger puppets from its kids’ meals, citing “potential safety concerns” — the chicken chain started giving out Berenstain Bears books instead. Although some of the books are Christian-themed, “the Berenstain family doesn’t appear thrilled to be associated with Chick-fil-A either,” says Isolde Raftery at NBC News. This promotion has been in the works for more than a year, the Berenstains said in a statement, and “the Berenstain family does not at this time have control over whether this program proceeds or not.”
(Source: theweek.com)
- Chick-fil-A — Wednesday appears to have been a huge financial success for the chicken purveyor. Local news stories around the nation reported long lines for chicken sandwiches, and anti-gay-marriage preacher Rick Warrentweeted midday: “@DanCathy just called me. #ChickFilA has already set a world record today, with 7 more hrs to go in the West.” We conservatives may be very bad at boycotts, says William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, but we “are very good at buycotts.” Yes, with numbers like these, I’m sure “somewhere, a Burger King ad man’s toying with the idea of having ‘The King’ declare himself ‘100% pro-life,’” says Allahpundit at Hot Air.
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Brave’s Merida, the celebrated first female hero of a Pixar film, is a tomboy. She’s a skilled archer, she fights, she detests girly clothes, rejects all her male suitors, and explicitly expresses that she does not want to get married. So, asks Adam Markovitz in a controversial article at Entertainment Weekly, “Is Merida gay?”
It isn’t just that the character bristles at “traditional gender roles” that raises suspicion, Markovitz says. It’s the timing of Brave’s release to coincide with major parades in New York and San Francisco in honor of LGBT Pride Month, which he thinks was an intentional decision. The argument sparked a firestorm of commentary.
Is Merida a thinly disguised gay character, and, if so, does it matter?
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Nabisco’s proudly gay oreo
Nabisco’s polarizing advertisement of a rainbow cream oreo — which says, in part, “Proudly support love!” — received some 220,000 likes and over 36,000 comments on Facebook, both positive and negative.
Liberal customers are thrilled. Conservative consumers, not so much(Source: theweek.com)
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Between the Salvation Army’s bell-ringing Santas and thrift-store empire, people often forget that the international group “is actually a Christian church organization with many conservative tenets and a military-style structure,” says Zach Ford at Think Progress. And recently, Maj. Andrew Craibe, the media relations officer for Australia’s southern territory, reminded us of that fact by agreeing on-air with two gay radio hosts that the Salvation Army believes gay people “should die.” The group quickly scrambled to clarify Craibe’s remark — after all, the Salvation Army’s mission is to “preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination” — but this is hardly the Salvation Army’s first run-in with the gay community.
Here, a look at the influential charity’s challenging history with homosexuality and gay rights:
- 1865 — Former Methodist minister William Booth founds the Salvation Army in London, giving his religious mission a military structure and trappings, including its own flag, military-style uniforms, hymns, and ranks
- 1880 — The Salvation Army sets up shop in the U.S., Australia, and Ireland
- 1986 — The Salvation Army collects signatures for a petition to stop the New Zealand legislature from decriminalizing homosexuality. The Homosexual Law Reform Act passes anyway.
- May 1, 2001 — An internal document from the Salvation Army says the charity has a “firm commitment” from the Bush administration for a national regulation shielding it and other religious charities from city and state laws barring discrimination against gays and lesbians, The Washington Post reports. The Salvation Army never discriminates in who it serves, says senior official George Hood, but being forced to hire gays “really begins to chew away at the theological fabric of who we are.”
- July 11, 2001 — The Bush administration turns down the Salvation Army’s request
- 2004 — The Salvation Army threatens to leave New York City if Mayor Michael Bloomberg enforces a new ordinance requiring all groups with city contracts to offer benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. Bloomberg, who opposed the ordinance, doesn’t enforce it.
- Feb. 14, 2006 — The New York State Court of Appeals upholds Bloomberg’s right to ignore the ordinance, leaving future enforcement decisions to the discretion of whomever is mayor
- July 2006 — The New Zealand branch of the Salvation Army apologizes over any remaining “hurt” from its prominent role in trying to stymie the Homosexual Law Reform Act 20 years earlier
- Nov. 21, 2011 — Bil Browning at The Bilerico Project promotes a drive encouraging gay-rights supporters to give their holiday donations to other charities that don’t “actively discriminate against the LGBT community”
- June 21, 2012 —Maj. Andrew Craibe, the Australian Salvation Army spokesman, goes on the radio program Salt and Pepper, where gay hosts Serena Ryan and Pete Dillon ask him about his organization’s assertion in its officialSalvation Story: Salvationist Handbook of Doctrine that practicing homosexuals “deserve to die.” “So we should die,” Ryan tells Craibe, who replies: “You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.”
- June 23 — In a statement, the Salvation Army “sincerely apologizes” for Craibe’s “miscommunication” and the “serious misunderstanding” of the group’s beliefs. The scripture in question “is not referring to physical death, nor is it specifically targeted at homosexual behavior,” says Maj. Bruce Harmer of Salvation Army Australia. Instead, the church believes that “no human being is without sin, all sin leads to spiritual death (separation from God),” and that “it would be inconsistent with Christian teaching to call for anyone to be put to death.”
- 1865 — Former Methodist minister William Booth founds the Salvation Army in London, giving his religious mission a military structure and trappings, including its own flag, military-style uniforms, hymns, and ranks
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![Most commentators see Newsweek’s provocative new cover as a cynical rebuttal to rival newsweekly TIME’s breast-feeding head-turner last week. (Newsweek editor Tina Brown reportedly responded to TIME’s cover by saying, “Let the games begin.”)
But Andrew Sullivan, the openly gay writer who penned the cover story, means it seriously — in a figurative way — much like what Toni Morrison meant when she called Bill Clinton the “first black president” in 1998: He just gets it.
Thanks to Obama’s fraught relationship with his mixed race, Sullivan writes, “he intuitively understands gays and our predicament — because it so mirrors his own.” Still, first gay president?
Is this the kind of thing that kept Obama from fully “evolving” on gay marriage for so long? Best opinions:
Obama can’t be happy about this one: It’s sad that the once-mighty newsweeklies are stooping to “stunt covers” like this to sell magazines, says Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media. But give “Tina Brown credit for one thing — albeit not necessarily intentionally.” Newsweek and TIME have been running near-“messianic” covers of Obama almost nonstop since 2008, and now “at least Tina has put up a cover that will give Obama plenty of derision in flyover country.”
In 2012, this barely registers as shocking: Even a few years ago, Newsweek proclaiming Obama “the first gay president” would have been “a rainbow-wrapped gift” for any Republican challenger, says Rick Klein at ABC News. But “for once Democrats aren’t worried about the image [the cover] projects.” Obama and Mitt Romney both know that, demographically if not politically, Democrats are winning the culture wars. And if nothing else, this cover promises another week “where the Obama economy was not front and center.”
Gay marriage won’t change anyone’s vote: Actually, like Romney, “Obama no doubt wishes the same-sex marriage question would fade into the background, so that issues more important to most Americans — say, the economy — could become the focus of campaign 2012,” says Brad Knickerbocker at The Christian Science Monitor. People have already made up their minds on gay marriage, and Obama isn’t winning over those who oppose it. But people’s views of the economy matter a lot, and on that front he has a lot of persuading to do. Bottom line: “Whether or not Obama is ‘the first gay president’ may make little difference come November.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m41395bobv1qdjbb7o1_500.png)
Most commentators see Newsweek’s provocative new cover as a cynical rebuttal to rival newsweekly TIME’s breast-feeding head-turner last week. (Newsweek editor Tina Brown reportedly responded to TIME’s cover by saying, “Let the games begin.”)
But Andrew Sullivan, the openly gay writer who penned the cover story, means it seriously — in a figurative way — much like what Toni Morrison meant when she called Bill Clinton the “first black president” in 1998: He just gets it.
Thanks to Obama’s fraught relationship with his mixed race, Sullivan writes, “he intuitively understands gays and our predicament — because it so mirrors his own.” Still, first gay president?
Is this the kind of thing that kept Obama from fully “evolving” on gay marriage for so long? Best opinions:
- Obama can’t be happy about this one: It’s sad that the once-mighty newsweeklies are stooping to “stunt covers” like this to sell magazines, says Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media. But give “Tina Brown credit for one thing — albeit not necessarily intentionally.” Newsweek and TIME have been running near-“messianic” covers of Obama almost nonstop since 2008, and now “at least Tina has put up a cover that will give Obama plenty of derision in flyover country.”
- In 2012, this barely registers as shocking: Even a few years ago, Newsweek proclaiming Obama “the first gay president” would have been “a rainbow-wrapped gift” for any Republican challenger, says Rick Klein at ABC News. But “for once Democrats aren’t worried about the image [the cover] projects.” Obama and Mitt Romney both know that, demographically if not politically, Democrats are winning the culture wars. And if nothing else, this cover promises another week “where the Obama economy was not front and center.”
- Gay marriage won’t change anyone’s vote: Actually, like Romney, “Obama no doubt wishes the same-sex marriage question would fade into the background, so that issues more important to most Americans — say, the economy — could become the focus of campaign 2012,” says Brad Knickerbocker at The Christian Science Monitor. People have already made up their minds on gay marriage, and Obama isn’t winning over those who oppose it. But people’s views of the economy matter a lot, and on that front he has a lot of persuading to do. Bottom line: “Whether or not Obama is ‘the first gay president’ may make little difference come November.”
(Source: theweek.com)
- Obama can’t be happy about this one: It’s sad that the once-mighty newsweeklies are stooping to “stunt covers” like this to sell magazines, says Ed Driscoll at Pajamas Media. But give “Tina Brown credit for one thing — albeit not necessarily intentionally.” Newsweek and TIME have been running near-“messianic” covers of Obama almost nonstop since 2008, and now “at least Tina has put up a cover that will give Obama plenty of derision in flyover country.”
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All sarcasm aside, it’s an extremely sad night for all families in North Carolina. It’s not just families headed by or including lesbian, gay or bisexual members who will be hurt. A real blow has been dealt to their legal options for protection and support, it’s true. But all North Carolinians — in living with a constitution which legalizes discrimination, and which creates two sets of rights for two sets of citizens — are hurt in the cycle of a false notion of superiority and inferiority. Pro-equality Fortune 500 companies will be less likely to settle there, hurting the economic options for totally gay and totally straight North Carolinians alike. And they’ll be hurt for at least a generation, if not generations, with this constitutional amendment.
—Steven Thrasher at The Village Voice
North Carolina voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment on Tuesday that makes marriage between a man and a woman the only kind of union recognized by the state.
Here a look at what the vote means for the state and the country
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The second you see your son dropping that limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch.
— The words of a North Carolina pastor named Sean Harris, who was caught on tape telling members of his flock to punch their sons if they show signs of being gay. Harris has since apologized for his comments, saying he was making a misguided attempt to be funny. -
On Wednesday, protesters “glitter bombed” Mitt Romney, fresh off his victory in the Florida primary. For those unfamiliar with the term, glitter bombing is the act of throwing glitter and/or confetti at a political target to bring attention to gay and women’s rights. It has been called an act of assault by some, and the “most fabulous form of protest ever” by others. Of course, Mitt is hardly the first GOP politician to “taste the rainbow.” Here, a look back — with accompanying video clips — at 6 of the most notable glitter bomb targets
(Source: theweek.com)
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Reject homosexuality or get fired: In an attempt to purge its staff of gay employees, Shorter University, a Baptist college in Georgia, is requiring staff members to sign a document rejecting homosexuality. Shorter President Don Dowless says people who don’t comply could lose their jobs.
