The Gaming Den

tzor wrote:

mean_liar wrote:From what I read, it was a proposal to fund Planned Parenthood, and the money once it hit them was theirs to spend.

Yes, they fund excellent contraceptive programs... and also abortion-related items.

In the eyes of many pro-life groups funding Planned Parenthood is funding abortion. I know Crissa will strongly disagree with that, but that is a strong belief of the pro-life community.

For the record, I am staunchly pro-choice for medical and social responsibility reasons. With that said...

Assume for a moment there is an organization that provides top-notch counseling and support services to GLBT youth but also is staunchly against GLBT marriage, GLBT adoption of children and believes that GLBT youth can be "cured" through medication, therapy and living a closeted, heterosexual life via something they call "heterosexual immersion therapy".

Would you donate to this organization if their counseling work is outstanding? If a politician argued for public funding for this group would he be seen as properly supporting the GLBT community?

Lich-Loved wrote:Assume for a moment there is an organization that provides top-notch counseling and support services to GLBT youth but also is staunchly against GLBT marriage, GLBT adoption of children and believes that GLBT youth can be "cured" through medication, therapy and living a closeted, heterosexual life via something they call "heterosexual immersion therapy".

Would you donate to this organization if their counseling work is outstanding? If a politician argued for public funding for this group would he be seen as properly supporting the GLBT community?

So is their "top notch counseling and support" "heterosexual immersion therapy", 'medicate', 'don't adopt', and 'don't marry'? Or do you mean that they're providing counseling unrelated to the sexualities of those they service?

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So is their "top notch counseling and support" "heterosexual immersion therapy", 'medicate', 'don't adopt', and 'don't marry'? Or do you mean that they're providing counseling unrelated to the sexualities of those they service?

Yeah good point, I wrote that in a rush. I obviously need a better example, but am still pressed for time. I think my point is made, but my example is a very bad one.

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Do you have a source that says he voted against funding for abortion in the bill we're talking about? I know he voted against funding abortion with funds from the health-care reform bill, but I haven't seen anything else.

There haven't been any other bills, they're just amendments to the current health care debate, as far as I know. There was no funding for abortion in the supplemental spending bill which passed this month.

tzor wrote:In the eyes of many pro-life groups funding Planned Parenthood is funding abortion. I know Crissa will strongly disagree with that, but that is a strong belief of the pro-life community.

And this is why we don't have any common ground. They don't support paying for any comprehensive education, period. Fighting Planned Parenthood is more important to them than the greater portion of work that Planned Parenthood does with women's health care, general health-related education, prevention of STDs and availability of STD treatments as well as subsidized contraception.

None of the pro-life alternatives use fact-based education, support prevention of STDs, or provide health care.

It's basically a ruse, they work to tie the hands of people trying to prevent pregnancy and STDs, writing in requirements for funding such that 'you cannot buy service X from someone who works in the same building that provides service Y.'

Anti-abortion groups are anti-women's rights, anti-contraception, anti-vaccine, anti-preventative health care. Period.

-Crissa

PS: We already use government money to pay for services from organizations which don't believe in gay rights or women's rights. So I'm not sure what your point is...

Lich-Loved wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So is their "top notch counseling and support" "heterosexual immersion therapy", 'medicate', 'don't adopt', and 'don't marry'? Or do you mean that they're providing counseling unrelated to the sexualities of those they service?

Yeah good point, I wrote that in a rush. I obviously need a better example, but am still pressed for time. I think my point is made, but my example is a very bad one.

So, an example might be me giving to the Salvation Army. I believe that their religious work (and discrimination against gays) is actively harmful to those that they're trying to help, but that their relief work far outweighs the harm.

Lich-Loved wrote:Yeah good point, I wrote that in a rush. I obviously need a better example, but am still pressed for time. I think my point is made, but my example is a very bad one.

The problem with hypothetical is the hidden variables that get set to whatever a person wants, to prove a point. In the real world we might be able to observe these values, but a hypothetical lacks any such information. Human decision making runs on fuzzy logic and bayesian probability, but these concepts have a hard time when being introduced to the public policy debate.

Therefore, the only answer to any example is "how much of column A, and how much of column B?"

More good point, thanks Heath.

Yes, the Salvation Army was the organization I was thinking of; I knew one existed but couldn't for the life of me recall which one, so I made an attempt to make an unbiased example (that obviously failed).

Another that comes to mind is the Boy/Girl Scouts of America, which are staunchly anti-gay but do a great deal for kids, especially kids that otherwise do not have a strong role model in their lives.

So, now that we have a couple of real-world examples (to Heath's point) would anyone here that is GLBT or otherwise involved in the GLBT political movement care to comment whether these organizations are worth supporting publicly or how they might view a politician that advocated for funding them publicly? Would such a politician be a boon or bane to the movement?

BSA screws up in that they require the kids to pass their religious test before getting aid; Salvation Army doesn't - for the aid they're giving with federal monies, anyhow.

The BSA right now is seriously screwing up. For instance, they're currently the largest private seller of board-feet of timber... Except that much of the land they own was bequeathed to them in stewardship with requirements that they not cut the trees. Which leads to them being sued in the name of dead people.

-Crissa

CatharzGodfoot wrote:It's true, birth control inevitably leads to abortions. After all, not getting pregnant in the first place almost always leads to a baby getting its brains vacuumed out nine months later.

First of all CatharzGodfoot that wasn't exactly what I was saying, Planned Parenthood gets most of its revenue from abortion services, like it or not, there is a major potential conflict of interest in providing perfectly effective birth control, because downstream every pregnancy avoided is another less potential abortion patient. It's similiar to the old problems of "planned obsolence" with automobile manufacturers. (I should point out that in one instance PP of NY was "giving" out free condoms that had been rated by consumer reports as being very very poor in quality and effectiveness. Was this deliberate or were they simply cheap and trying to get maximum coverage - no pun intended. We will never know the answer.)

But there is a point to my argument that you did notice. There is a mentality that abortions are a "safety net" that can be used in case birth control "fails." But while it may look like a "slippery slope" one still has to push very hard to go all the way from failed contraception to partial birth abortions.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:So, an example might be me giving to the Salvation Army. I believe that their religious work (and discrimination against gays) is actively harmful to those that they're trying to help, but that their relief work far outweighs the harm.

Don't get me started on the Salvation Army; I've got a ton of multi-generational baggage there and I might start to go on a kick praising them all day.

My father told me tales back from WWII; back then the Red Cross were accepting all sorts of donations ... and selling them to the men on the front lines. The Salvation Army gave things to the men without cost, something my father has always remembered whenever we saw those big red kettles. They weren't preachy, they just gave.

They busted their ass in WW1, too. A lot of the personal histories I've read had no end of great things to say about them.

I can't choose:

Democrats aren't in the majority, nor are they Americans:

[url=http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/08/20/cassidy-dems-who-go-it-alone-without-gop-go-it-alone-without-america/ wrote:Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)[/url]]If they go it alone without the Republicans, it also sounds like they want to go it alone without the American people.

(This on the heels of Texas deciding to teach conservative heroes as important historical figures; apparently the liberal majority that created the popular government we have today is just 'else'.


Insurance would be cheaper if it was sold to you by someone out of state and didn't cover anything local:

[url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360923109310680.html wrote:Wall Street Journal[/url]]Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis who has written extensively on this subject, notes that insurance companies operating nationally would compete nationally. The reason a Kentucky plan written for an individual from New Jersey would save the New Jerseyan money is that New Jersey is highly regulated, with costly mandated benefits and guaranteed access to insurance.
Affordability would improve if consumers could escape states where each policy is loaded with mandates. “If consumers do not want expensive ‘Cadillac’ health plans that pay for acupuncture, fertility treatments or hairpieces, they could buy from insurers in a state that does not mandate such benefits,” Mr. Herrick has written.

Of course, there's others that are harder to quote because they make even less sense... Like Free Republic demanding to see the President's penis, apparently in the mistaken idea that muslims don't circumcise, or Hannity considering running for President.

-Crissa

(No, I wouldn't link to Free Republic directly, either. All of this today from pandagon.net, actually.)

Crissa wrote:Like Free Republic demanding to see the President's penis, apparently in the mistaken idea that muslims don't circumcise

That certainly adds to the theory that Republicans are closeted homosexuals.

sigma999 wrote:I wonder if gender-neutral honorifics will ever catch on.

You mean like:

• Your Majesty,
• Your Highness,
• Your Excellency,
• The Reverend, (also) The Right Reverend,
• The Honorable (also Your Honor)
• Doctor
• Professor
• Coach

Can't say that they've lasted more than a few centuries so far

Josh_Kablack wrote:

sigma999 wrote:I wonder if gender-neutral honorifics will ever catch on.

You mean like:

• Your Majesty,
• Your Highness,
• Your Excellency,
• The Reverend, (also) The Right Reverend,
• The Honorable (also Your Honor)
• Doctor
• Professor
• Coach

Can't say that they've lasted more than a few centuries so far

To be fair, the last 5 at least were positions traditionally only held by men.

Sure and now Coach is gender neutral. Hurray.

Josh, you're doin it wrong!

sigma999 wrote:I wonder if gender-neutral honorifics will ever catch on.

You mean like:

• Asshole
• Douchebag
• Fucker
• Shithead
• Bitch
• Dumbass
• Republican

Sure, some of them may have been gender-specific once upon a time, but these days there are many honorifics which enjoy universal gender coverge! Someday I dream that internet fueled foul speech will lead us into a gentler world free of gender biased titles.

One great feature of English is that most of our job titles can be gender neutral. This isn't necessarily a given. For example, in German, every job title must add a suffix if the person is female. Thus, you can't talk about somebody's occupation without mentioning their gender.

More early morning gibberish:

[url=http://cjonline.com/news/state/2009-08-26/jenkins_remark_raises_eyebrows/ wrote:Rep. Lynn Jenkin (R-KS)[/url] (video)]Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington. So don't, you know, lose faith if you are a conservative.

Rep. Jenkin's PR person wrote:There may be some misunderstanding there when she talked about the great white hope. What she meant by it is they have a bright future. They're bright lights within the party.

It might be noted that "Great White Hope" has always been a racist term; and that all of the 'bright lights' she pointed at were, indeed, white.

-Crissa

Hey now, Great White Hope has also been used as a term to make fun of the people who care whether the toughest fighter on Earth is a white dude or not.

Now granted, having someone say they are looking for their own great white hope is either self-mocking or racist, but there is the other option where they aren't serious. Still be humiliating for a member of congress to say though.

-Username17

clikml, the problem is that even though insults are technically gender-neutral, the traits that they are supposed to mock are often associated with a gender.

For example, while bitch is now gender-neutral, when used as an insult it has one of several meanings. A) persistent to the point of painful (Artemis Enteri is being a real bitch about these repeated assassination attempts) B) excessively whiny (Sasuke Uchiha is being a real bitch about his past) C) mean-spiritedly aggressive and/or selfish (Lloth is such a bitch) or D) contemptuously submissive (Volo is Elminster's bitch). B, C, and D tend to be associated with negative feminine traits, so the actual execution is often sexist against females.

Crissa wrote:It might be noted that "Great White Hope" has always been a racist term; and that all of the 'bright lights' she pointed at were, indeed, white.

What happened to all of the hoopla about Piyush "Bobby" Jindal and Michael Steele? Weren't they supposed to be "bright lights" of the Republican Party? Or was the G.O.P just - *gasp* - just trying to pander to people?

I think the fact that those two have become punching bags in the media reduced their status, Ganbare. That and how they can't go a single speech without contradicting themselves or saying something embarrassing to one of the right-wing factions.

-Crissa

Bobby Jindal's stay in the doghouse really isn't deserved (no more than any other ignorant politician) but Michael Steele deserves every bit of ridicule he gets. I think he gets off on it.

Oh, yes it is deserved. Of course, he could be like other Republicans and vote against stimulus funding while telling his constituents what wonderful free money he got them...

-Crissa