The owner of a hardware store in Tennessee has put up a “No Gays Allowed” sign in his window.
Amyx, who is also a baptist minister, said he realized Monday morning that homosexual people are not afraid to stand for what they believe in. He said it showed him that Christian people should be brave enough to stand for what they believe in.
After ruminating on this for the weekend, the best Amyx could do is this lazy-ass handwritten sign? He couldn’t delay his bigoted message by a day or however long it would take to swing by a FedEx Kinkos or borrow someone’s laser printer?
“They gladly stand for what they believe in, why can’t I? They believe their way is right, I believe it’s wrong. But yet I’m going to take more persecution than them because I’m standing for what I believe in,” Amyx said.
Last I checked, he was perfectly free to live a heterosexual lifestyle. Maybe if he’d had a long weekend to think this through, he could have realized how stupid and petty he sounds. I suppose he defines “persecution” as ramifications to one’s actions, in which, yes, he’ll probably lose gay customers and customers who don’t support discriminating against gay people. How does he even think the sale of hardware supplies fits into the gay agenda?
Chris Christie is now the fourteenth declared candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.
“I think the biggest problem with so many people is getting attention, and I’ve never had any problem getting attention,” the New Jersey Republican said in an exclusive interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer. “So I think I’ll do okay.”
The interview was in a diner, which I guess is consistent with Christie’s goal of “connecting” with “real” people. Are any candidates actually trying to connect with “imaginary” people? They are not the most reliable voting bloc.
I can only assume no one has told Christie he can’t win. Or does anyone bother with these discussions anymore? Running for president these days is like having your own photography business. Everyone with access to an iPhone and the Internet is doing it. Unfortunately, most of the candidates are hopelessly out of focus.
If Christie were running in 2012 at the height of his national popularity and Obama was his Democratic challenger, his situation would be different. However, the general consensus — even among the voters who like the guy — is that Christie can be “rude” or “belligerent.” He even famously explained that he “wasn’t a bully,” which reminded me of Richard Nixon’s insistence that he wasn’t a crook. Do you really want to run the hothead against a likely female candidate? Politics is perception, and I can imagine Christie looking like an ass after every debate with Hillary Clinton.
We have a title and a first image for the upcoming Star Trek film I thought no one wanted.
It’s Justin Lin’s first time at the helm of a Star Trek movie and he’s already putting social media to good use. In less than 140 characters, Lin managed to not only reveal the first behind-the-scenes image from Star Trek 3, he also so much as confirmed the threequel’s presumed title, Star Trek Beyond. Now whether the title is formatted this way to appease the hashtag gods or just to continue the trend of eschewing colons (like Star Trek Into Darkness), I’m not entirely sure just yet. We’ll certainly find out more soon, but for now let’s take a look at Lin’s Tweet itself.
The image is not really worth my saving to my computer and uploading, but you can find it at the link I attached above.
I’d prefer the new Star Trek films just used numerals to distinguish them from each other, as well as compelling storylines and engaging characters. Also, I recall a time when going “beyond” was sort of understood with the title Star Trek.
This weekend, Confederate-flag supporters in Alabama held an Irony Free Rally where people said the following with a straight face.
Standing at the bottom of the Capitol’s steps, where 50 years ago Martin Luther King Jr. led a march for civil rights, Tim Steadman said it wasn’t right to remove the flags.
“Right now, this past week with everything that is going on, I feel very much like the Jews must have felt in the very beginning of the Nazi Germany takeover,” he said. “I mean I do feel that way, like there is a concerted effort to wipe people like me out, to wipe out my heritage and to erase the truths of history.”
Mr. Steadman, I’m glad you recognize that the Nazis were the bad guys, based on your viewings of Indiana Jones films. And I suppose you never got around to reading statements Nazis made about the Jews and statements your Confederate heroes made about blacks, but do you really feel like the German Jews who were driven out of their homes, robbed of their property, and hid in attics before eventually being worked to death in concentration camps? Are you sure you don’t feel more like this lady?
Standing next to Steadman was Ronnie Simmons, who wore a t-shirt with the face of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis, who was elected as the first and only Confederate president inside the historic Alabama Senate chamber inside the Capitol in 1861, once lived a block away in the First White House of the Confederacy while Montgomery was briefly the capital.
Simmons said Bentley was a “scallywag,” referring to a term used in the years after the Civil War during the Reconstruction period to describe white southerners who collaborated with northerners.
“It’s alienating the white people in the state of Alabama when you take something down in a historic setting,” Simmons said. “If scallywag Bentley thinks he’s improved race relations in this state, he’s as crazy as a bed bug.”
There are Jefferson Davis t-shirts? I don’t think there are that many Jimmy Carter t-shirts in the South, and his eventual defeat was less ignominious.
Also, people still use the term “scallywag”? That usually only appears in the scripts of movies set in the South that were written by someone whose only exposure to the region was reruns of Dukes of Hazzard.
Sherry Butler Clayton said the flag is a way to honor her relatives tied to the Confederacy.
“I have many, many ancestors,” she said. “A lot of them are in unknown graves up North where they died on the battlefield. A lot of them came back maimed. And it’s just a way. I don’t hate anyone. I love all people. My daughter-in-law is black and I love her and I love her family. So it’s not a black white issue. It’s a heritage issue.”
This is what I call the complete failure of integration. A black person can marry into a white family, and her in-laws can claim to love her and her family (quite the perk, it’s like the racist version of adding your relatives to your cell phone plan), but that doesn’t change their views on issues that affect the black pet… excuse me, the black daughter-in-law.
One woman held a sign that said “Southern Lives Matter,” a variation of the “Black Lives Matter” phrase that became a rallying call after the shootings of unarmed black men in multiple states.
Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem so racist… no, wait, it does. These people seem to forget that they don’t live in Maine or Vermont. They live in a region with a significant black population. The South is not just Scarlett O’Hara. It’s also Martin Luther King. We were chased from our homes by white terrorists shortly after the war. But it won’t happen again.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton announced today that “county clerks can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on religious objections to gay marriage.”
Paxton called the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage “lawless,” and said “I will do everything I can from this office to be a public voice for those standing in defense of their rights.”
My wife and I picked up registration tags for our car last week. Fortunately, the lady who waited on us wasn’t Amish.
Look, Mr. Paxton, you can disagree with a Supreme Court ruling. You can even call it immoral or unconscionable, as we now refer to Dred Scott (oh, and if you compare the marriage equality ruling to Dred Scott, which stated that the black man had “no rights the white man is bound to respect,” then you are a racist buffoon). However, what you can’t do is call it “lawless.” Please check a dictionary. You went to law school, for the love of Madonna! First years learn that laws are not inherently moral but are simply “the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties.”
Also, if you were that concerned about “standing in defense” of the rights of Texas citizens, you could just hire more clerks who don’t have an issue with same-sex marriage or even those who do but actually follow the law as their jobs require. I don’t like guns, so I don’t work for a gun manufacturer.
In 2009, a Louisiana justice of the peace refused to issue a marriage licence to an interracial couple. Even Bobby Jindal, who likes gays about as much as sensible people like him, called for his resignation.
“This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law. … Disciplinary action should be taken immediately — including the revoking of his license,” the Republican governor said.
That was just 42 years after Loving vs. Virginia, but it’d be awfully efficient if we just skipped this obnoxious “standing in front of the courthouse opposing desegregation” step in the process.
Mike Huckabee and other religious conservatives claim their resistance to marriage equality is similar to Martin Luther King’s non-violent resistance to American apartheid. But if you actually look at history, Huckabee’s actions are more in tune with another former governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, who in 1957 defied a Supreme Court decision desegrating public schools and ordered the state national guard to prevent black kids from attending Little Rock Central High School.
Those who would integrate our schools at any price are still among us. They have seized upon the present situation to promote and foment concern and discontent, because of the temporary closing of the schools. They have spread wild rumors and attempted to organize demonstrations. These are the same people and the same forces who have all along been opposed to the majority will of the people of Little Rock and Arkansas.
Last year, I stated during the September crisis that I was not elected Governor of Arkansas to surrender all our rights as citizens to an all-powerful federal autocracy…. It is my responsibility, and it is my purpose and determination, to defend the constitutional rights of the people of Arkansas to the full extent of my ability.…
Some people dread, shrink from, and grow weary of the struggle in which we are now engaged. I grow weary, also, but is there any choice? Once integration is effected totally and completely, will the peace and harmony you desire be attained? If we are to judge by the results elsewhere, anywhere, once total, or near total integration is effected, the peace, the quiet, the harmony, the pride in our schools, and even the good relations that existed heretofore between the races here, will be gone forever….
Huckabee and others might try to run from their own history and hide in the shadow of better men like MLK, but the odiousness of their beliefs will forever anchor them in the past.
Charles Mingus recorded a song in “tribute” to Faubus — an “all-American heel.” And today, I listen to it in “tibute” to Huckabee.
I worked weekends at a grocery store in Greenville, S.C. back in 1991 when this issue of People came out with Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia. Lot of good Christian, Confederate-flag waving customers were horrified that People would sink so low to put an interracial couple on the cover. “Bible says what it says.” “Races were meant to be separate.” “Thank God they don’t have children.” And these were his *supporters* — they were glad he’d been confirmed. It wasn’t anything personal, mind you, it was just their religious beliefs.
It takes a pretty significant “bottle half empty” perspective to consider ten years with Angelina Jolie has something that “all went wrong.” Even if the split is true, it stil seems like a fair deal someone would make with Satan. The Devil shows up for Bradd Pitt’s soul and he’s already packed. “Can’t thank you enough! Now, off to an eternity in the lake of fire? Cool. Can we swing by Starbucks for a Frappucino on the way?”
There have been many unhinged responses to the Supreme Court’s decision today overturning same-sex marriage bans, and this is one of them:
Gov. Phil Bryant said Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage “usurps” states’ long-held rights to self governance and he’s studying the state’s “options.”
“Gov. Bryant will continue to do all that he can to protect and defend the religious freedoms of Mississippi,” spokeswoman Nicole Webb said.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves decried the ruling as “overreach of the federal government” that has expanded under the Obama Administration from the executive to the judicial branches.
This sounds familiar to the passionate resistance white Southern conservatives had to desegregation. That’s to be expected. It’s like Taylor Swift covering Dancing in the Dark — regrettable but no lasting damage was done. It’s not like the Mississippi government plans to do anything crazy.
State House Judiciary Chairman Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, said he’s still studying the ruling, but that one option might be for Mississippi to get out of the marriage business altogether.
“One of the options that other states have looked at is removing the state marriage license requirement,” Gipson said. “We will be researching what options there are. I personally can see pros and cons to that. I don’t know if it would be better to have no marriage certificate sponsored by the state or not. But it’s an option out there to be considered
If Gipson is already considering the option of “(getting) out of the marriage business altogether,” then it’s possible that the ruling has stumped even his keen legal mind. It’s like the lawyer for a restaurant studying the list of health care violations and suggesting, “Screw it, just start selling typewriters.”
On Friday, Gipson said: “What the Supreme Court’s decision does not and cannot change is the firmly held conviction of faith of myself and most Mississippians. We still believe that marriage is defined by God as the union of one man and one woman. As Bible-believing Christians, we will not change or alter our religious convictions to suit the whims of the court or the culture.”
I don’t think this is a “whim” of the court. I know Gipson is still “studying the ruling,” but it really is more in depth than determining where to go for lunch. There are legal opinions and everything.
Jennifer Riley-Collins, director of the Mississippi ACLU, said she hopes “that Mississippi’s officials will embrace everyone and will not attempt to set up barriers to this momentous decision.”
“I pray that the state of Mississippi is on the right side of history this time,” Riley-Collins said. “Aren’t we tired of being last?”
The trailer for the upcoming Self/Less reminds me of the 1966 film Seconds, which was less handsome lead running around with a gun and more deeper exploration of the human psyche. The latter doesn’t really open well these days.
RT @Timodc: In Massie's world, teachers can't be entrusted to decide what books to assign or how to appropriately discuss the existence of… 5 hours ago
serhasacomplaint 
The Failures of Integration…
This weekend, Confederate-flag supporters in Alabama held an Irony Free Rally where people said the following with a straight face.
Standing at the bottom of the Capitol’s steps, where 50 years ago Martin Luther King Jr. led a march for civil rights, Tim Steadman said it wasn’t right to remove the flags.
“Right now, this past week with everything that is going on, I feel very much like the Jews must have felt in the very beginning of the Nazi Germany takeover,” he said. “I mean I do feel that way, like there is a concerted effort to wipe people like me out, to wipe out my heritage and to erase the truths of history.”
Mr. Steadman, I’m glad you recognize that the Nazis were the bad guys, based on your viewings of Indiana Jones films. And I suppose you never got around to reading statements Nazis made about the Jews and statements your Confederate heroes made about blacks, but do you really feel like the German Jews who were driven out of their homes, robbed of their property, and hid in attics before eventually being worked to death in concentration camps? Are you sure you don’t feel more like this lady?
Standing next to Steadman was Ronnie Simmons, who wore a t-shirt with the face of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis, who was elected as the first and only Confederate president inside the historic Alabama Senate chamber inside the Capitol in 1861, once lived a block away in the First White House of the Confederacy while Montgomery was briefly the capital.
Simmons said Bentley was a “scallywag,” referring to a term used in the years after the Civil War during the Reconstruction period to describe white southerners who collaborated with northerners.
“It’s alienating the white people in the state of Alabama when you take something down in a historic setting,” Simmons said. “If scallywag Bentley thinks he’s improved race relations in this state, he’s as crazy as a bed bug.”
There are Jefferson Davis t-shirts? I don’t think there are that many Jimmy Carter t-shirts in the South, and his eventual defeat was less ignominious.
Also, people still use the term “scallywag”? That usually only appears in the scripts of movies set in the South that were written by someone whose only exposure to the region was reruns of Dukes of Hazzard.
Sherry Butler Clayton said the flag is a way to honor her relatives tied to the Confederacy.
“I have many, many ancestors,” she said. “A lot of them are in unknown graves up North where they died on the battlefield. A lot of them came back maimed. And it’s just a way. I don’t hate anyone. I love all people. My daughter-in-law is black and I love her and I love her family. So it’s not a black white issue. It’s a heritage issue.”
This is what I call the complete failure of integration. A black person can marry into a white family, and her in-laws can claim to love her and her family (quite the perk, it’s like the racist version of adding your relatives to your cell phone plan), but that doesn’t change their views on issues that affect the black pet… excuse me, the black daughter-in-law.
One woman held a sign that said “Southern Lives Matter,” a variation of the “Black Lives Matter” phrase that became a rallying call after the shootings of unarmed black men in multiple states.
Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem so racist… no, wait, it does. These people seem to forget that they don’t live in Maine or Vermont. They live in a region with a significant black population. The South is not just Scarlett O’Hara. It’s also Martin Luther King. We were chased from our homes by white terrorists shortly after the war. But it won’t happen again.
Posted by Stephen Robinson on June 29, 2015 in Social Commentary
Tags: Alabama, Confederate Flag, Southern Lives Matter