GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Alabama Wants To Amend State Constitution To Allow Ten Commandments On Public Land

LOL here we go again! Today's Godless Wednesday is about a red state again trying to force religious views on everyone else. The Alabama legislature is considering a state constitutional amendment which would allow the erection (sic) of religious displays on government-owned property in the guise of religious freedom.

Here is the text of the language Alabama voters will see:

Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience. No person shall be compelled to attend, or, against his or her consent, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of religious worship, or to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any minister of the gospel. Property belonging to the state may be used to display the Ten Commandments, and the right of a public school and public body to display the Ten Commandments on property owned or administrated by a public school or public body in this state is not restrained or abridged  [emphasis added]. The civil and political rights, privileges, and capacities of no person shall be diminished or enlarged on account of his or her religious belief. No public funds may be expended in defense of the constitutionality of this amendment. 

The Ten Commandments shall be displayed in a manner that complies with constitutional requirements, including, but not limited to, being intermingled with historical or educational items, or both, in a larger display within or on property owned or administrated by a public school or public body.

The bill (SB 181) passed the state house 66-19 and the state senate (22-3). The amendment has now become an issue in the Alabama gubernatorial race with candidates trying to position themselves as the most in support of enhancing the place of religion in the public square.

It looks to me as if it is masquerading as a religious freedom amendment since it is odd that the phrase "The Ten Commandments" would need to appear three times in an actual religious freedom amendment. What do you think?


Hat/tip to Friendly Atheist.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Theocrat Roy Moore Loses U.S. Senate Race in Alabama

Hmmm, count one electoral win for the godless in Alabama last night. Roy Moore, an unrepentant theocrat who was twice removed from his elected position as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for his refusal to follow the law of the land (once for placing a huge monument to the Ten commandments on state property and once for refusing to enforce the same-sex marriage decision Obergefell v Hodges) lost a special election to Democrat Doug Jones last night.

Born-again and evangelical Christians voted for Moore at the astonishing rate of 80% to 13% while "everyone else" voted 76% to 22% for Jones. How does this voting pattern align with "christian" values?

Other demographics of the vote are also interesting:

This shows that white people overwhelmingly voted for Moore, despite the controversial allegations involving sexual misconduct with minors. It was Black people who were an eye-popping 30% of the electorate and voted for Jones (or against Moore) at the rate of 97 to 3 for Black women and 92 to 7 for Black men.

These exit poll data show the stark differences in the electorate. People under 40 voted for Jones, while people over 40 voted for Moore, but not in as large numbers (and voters over 40 were a large fraction of the electorate, at 75%).

Hat/tip Friendly Atheist

QUEER QUOTE: Hillary Clinton Blasts Roy Moore's Attempts To Obstruct Marriage Equality in Alabama

Our first Queer Quote of 2016 comes from Hillary Clinton who blasted Alabama Chief Judge Roy Moore's bizarre attempt to prevent marriage equality in Alabama. Here's the quote:

“Marriage equality is now the law of the land—including in Alabama. Today’s unconstitutional order reminds us that, despite the Supreme Court's ruling that all Americans have the right to marry the person they love, our work is far from over.  There are still judges who are determined to stand in the way of people's rights.  There are still politicians who argue the Court got it wrong and states should ignore its ruling.  We need to ensure that marriage equality is guaranteed and enforced nationwide.   And we need to fight discrimination against LGBT Americans wherever it occurs.  There are places where you can get married on Sunday and are at risk of being fired from your job or evicted from your home on Monday because you're gay.  That's not how it should be in the United States of America.  As President, I'll fight for the equal rights of all Americans, no matter who they are or who they love.”

Hat/tip to New Civil Rights Movement 

QUEER QUOTE: Federal Judge Issues Order Enjoining Alabama Officials To Issue Marriage Licenses

Federal District Court Judge Callie Granade issued an order enjoining probate judges in Mobile, Alabama from refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite spurious declarations from Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama State Supreme Court that the fact that the United States Supreme Court refusal to issue  a stay on Granade's previous order striking down Alabama's discriminatory marriage amendment caused marriage equality to go into effect on Monday February 9th.

This excerpt from the federal order is today's Queer Quote:

Accordingly, the Court once again makes the following declaration: It is ORDERED and DECLARED that ALA. CONST. ART. I, § 36.03 (2006) and ALA. CODE 1975 § 30-1-19 are unconstitutional because they violate the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Probate Judge Don Davis is hereby ENJOINED from refusing to issue marriage licenses to plaintiffs due to the Alabama laws which prohibit same-sex marriage. If Plaintiffs take all steps that are required in the normal course of business as a prerequisite to issuing a marriage license to opposite-sex couples, Judge Davis may not deny them a license on the ground that Plaintiffs constitute same-sex couples or because it is prohibited by the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the Alabama Marriage Protection Act or by any other Alabama law or Order pertaining to same-sex marriage. This injunction binds Judge Don Davis and all his officers, agents, servants and employees, and others in active concert or participation with any of them, who would seek to enforce the marriage laws of Alabama which prohibit or fail to recognize same-sex marriage. DONE and ORDERED this 12th day of February, 2015. 

Boom!

Hat/tip to Chris Geidner 

NOW THERE ARE 37! Marriage Equality Comes To Alabama!

With the Supreme Court's 7-2 vote to deny their request for a stay on a federal judge's ruling striking down Alabama's ban on marriage equality, the Cotton State becomes the 37th in the union to allow same-sex couples to get married. Only Justices Scalia and Thomas would have approved Alabama's request for a stay.

Same-sex couples are getting married in the majority of the counties in Alabama today, despite attempts by Chief Justice Roy Moore and Governor Robert Bentley to not follow the rule of law as clearly articulated by the federal judiciary. Gee, when has that happened before?

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis

QUEER QUOTE: Alabama LGBT Politician Threatens Hypocritical Legislators With Outing

Patricia Todd has for a longtime been the only openly LGBT elected official in the Alabama state legislature. With a federal judge striking down Alabama's state constitutional ban on marriage equality last week (and on Sunday issuing a 14-day stay on her decision from going into effect to allow the state to fruitlessly appeal to the 11th Circuit) a number of conservative politicians in her state have been spouting a lot of nonsense about "family values" and "defending the sanctity of marriage."

Representative Todd has had enough hypocrisy from politicians opposing marriage equality in the name of family values while breaking their own marriage vows and said these words which are today's Queer Quote.

"I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about ‘family values’ when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have. I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out. It is pretty well known that we have people in Montgomery who are or have had affairs. I just want them to be careful what they’re saying, some of it might come back to stick on them."

I have always been in favor of outing closeted politicians in the interests of media fairness. I think it is also a reasonable tactic when faced with hypocrisy. However, I also know that legislation gets accomplished through relationships with colleagues and Rep. Todd may have made herself less able to work with some colleagues because of these words. But I think it was worth it, and I love these other words she said: "But I know I’m on the side that is going to win and I’m sorry they’re so ignorant."

Sometimes you just gotta tell the Truth!

Hat/tip to Joe Jervis and New Civil Rights Movement

OMG! Federal Judge Strikes Down Alabama's Ban On Marriage Equality

Wow. Look at the map of marriage equality now. By my count there are 38 states that are dark blue (or "sapphire") because they have marriage equality in effect right now. Just visually this makes the point that the Supreme Court will basically be in "mop up" mode when it decides marriage equality cases this term and probably turns the remaining dozen red and yellow states to the uniform sapphire of the rest of the Union.

Today a federal judge in Aabama appointed by Presiudent George W, Bush on the recommendation of both Republican U.S. Senators struck down Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage in a cogent and coherent, 10-page decision and refused to issue a stay. Alabama is in the 11th Circuit, where the Supreme Court has already refused to issue a stay on a federal judge's decision from going into effect (in Florida). So same-sex couples are gonna be getting married in Selma, and soon! Nice historical conjunction with the Martin Luther King, Jr holiday.

Hat/tip to Equality On Trial!

May 17, 2014: Today Is The 60th Anniversary of Brown v Board of Education!

Today is May 17th, the 60th anniversary of the issuance of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education which ruled that "separate but equal" is inherently unequal and unconstitutional, thus ending legal segregation in public schools in the United states.

It was in important moment in civil rights history but note that changes occurred with "all deliberate speed" until right-minded people started organizing protests in earnest and actual public policy change occurred in the 1960s, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Bizarrely, 60 years after Brown many schools in the South are LESS racially diverse now than they were then as this stunning report from The Atlantic makes clear.

HRC Launches $8.5M Campaign To Advance LGBT Equality In Deep South

The largest LGBT political advocacy organization in the United States has announced the launch of Project One America, an $8.5 million, 3-year project to advance LGBT equality in the Deep South states of Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.

There are nine specific goals of Project One America:

1. Empower LGBT people (and straight allies) to come out.
2. Raise the visibility of LGBT people and issues with the general public.
3. Create safer environments for LGBT young people.
4. Build partnerships with faith communities, communities of color, business communities, and conservatives.
5. Create a more inclusive workplace for LGBT people
6. Build support for enduring legal protections that ensure LGBT equality.
7. Expand participation in HRC’s Municipal Equality Index in these three states.
8. Create a more inclusive healthcare environment for LGBT people
9. Equip LGBT people and non-traditional allies as spokespeople

ABC News reports:

The aim is to first change hearts and minds so that people hiding their sexual orientation will be more comfortable about coming out publicly. As that occurs, organizers believe, communities and states will be more likely to adopt laws to prevent discrimination. 

"You overcome all of the objections by having conversations and getting to know your neighbors," Chad Griffin, an Arkansas native and president of Human Rights Campaign, said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

With a checkered history in race relations, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi resisted civil and voting rights for blacks in the 1960s. And unlike other Southern states, the three still haven't enacted legal safeguards to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation in areas like housing and employment. 

Yet surveys have shown the states have roughly the same percentage of gay residents as other states, Griffin said, and Human Rights Campaign has a total of 57,000 members and supporters in the states, which have a total population of 10.7 million people. 

Organizers hope to accelerate change that already has included four Mississippi towns passing non-binding resolutions against LGBT discrimination. In Alabama, a civil rights museum is currently showing a photo exhibit of LGBT youth aimed at promoting acceptance. 

"The pace of progress really has been fast, but you can't leave anyone behind," said Griffin.

As Vice President Biden would say, this is a BFD. I am curious as to what the local LGBT groups in those states feel about HRC coming in and essentially becoming the statewide LGBT group in each of these states. On one hand, they will build capacity for LGBT equality in the targeted states, but I
find it hard to believe that there was no organizing going on in those states (Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi) before this.

This is a risky but encouraging move for HRC. The South is also the region with the largest African-American fraction of the population and HRC is not known as the most racially diverse or
progressive of organizations so there are bound to be some complications and fractures along race and class lines while the work advances.

But I give them much props for trying, and putting their money where their mouth is.

QUEER QUOTE: 8 U.S. States Have Explicitly Anti-Gay Laws

Yale Law Professors Bill Eskridge and Ian Ayres published an editorial today in the Washington Post which compares the official homophobic public policy of Russia with the official homophobia of multiple states in our own country.

Eight U.S. states, and several cities and counties, have some version of what we call “no promo homo” provisions. Before the United States condemns the Russian statute’s infringement of free speech and academic freedom, it should recognize that our own republican forms of government have repeatedly given rise to analogous restrictions. 

It is no coincidence that these examples focus on what must and must not be said to children. An explanatory note accompanying the 2013 Russian legislation makes clear that the statute seeks to protect children “from the factors that negatively affect their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual, and moral development.” Proponents of the U.S. statutes have offered similar justification. And, like Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, the U.S. laws warn gay people and sympathizers to “leave kids alone, please.” 

The underlying ideology of these statutes is the same: Everybody should be heterosexual, and homosexuality is per se bad. This ideology has never rested on any kind of evidence that homosexuality is a bad “choice” that the state ought to discourage. The ideology is a prejudice-laden legacy of a fading era. (In fact, the strategy is daffy: Even if homosexuality were a bad lifestyle choice, state laws are not an effective way to head off such a choice.

The authors include excerpts from the homophobic legislation they are referring to:

“Materials adopted by a local school board . . . shall . . . comply with state law and state board rules . . . prohibiting instruction . . . in the advocacy of homosexuality.” 

“Propaganda of homosexualism among minors is punishable by an administrative fine.” 

“No district shall include in its course of study instruction which: 1. Promotes a homosexual life-style. 2. Portrays homosexuality as a positive alternative life-style. 3. Suggests that some methods of sex are safe methods of homosexual sex.” 

“[I]nstruction relating to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include . . . emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.”

 The second of these is from the Russian law that went into effect last year after President Putin's signature, the others are from actual laws in effect in Utah, Alabama and Texas.

If discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation must receive heightened scrutiny then it is hard to believe these kinds of laws can survive any kind of judicial review.

POLL: The Top 10 Liberal, Conservative States

Gallup has released a list of the Top 10 most conservative and most liberal states in the Union, measured by the percentage of the population who identify as either liberal or conservative. Unsurprisingly, Alabama is considered the most conservative state, with more than half of respondents identifying themselves as "conservative." Tied for second are North Dakota and Wyoming. Just this week, in fact, the Wyoming state Senate rejected any pro-gay legislation that had made it out of committee, even something as basic as including sexual orientation and gender identity in their state's employment discrimination statutes. In fact, none of the 10 most conservative states have employment non-discrimination statutes that include LGBT people.

The list of Top 10 most liberal states is headed by District of Columbia, followed by Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont. Interestingly, California does not make the Top 10 list, and that even the most liberal jurisdiction does not have a majority of respondents identifying as liberal: 40.8% is the high-water mark. Another feature of the top 10 liberal states is that 6 of the 10 have enacted marriage equality, with the other four (Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware and Oregon) on the list of states which are expected to enact marriage equality in the near future, although Hawaii and Oregon have constitutional amendments which declare marriage is between a man and a woman.

Hat/tip to Talking Points Memo

Godless Wednesday: Only "White Christians" Allowed

Hmmm, maybe the reason why some people are godless is so they are not associated with white Christian racists? According to The Friendly Atheist, here is the "explanation"

The organizer of the event, Rev. William C. Collier says that his Church of God's Chosen (Christian Identity Ministries) is not a hate group but adds that he believes "the white race is God's chosen people."

Collier defends why only white Christians are invited.

Note that the location of Christian Identity Ministries is in Beaverton, Alabama.

No further comment required!

POLL: Most AL, MS Republicans Are Racist Idiots

Today is Republican primary election day in Alabma and Mississippi.

Here are some  poll results of questions asked of Republican primary voters in
 Mississippi:

and Alabama:

which indicate that majorities of respondents in those two states do not believe in evolution (66% and 60%) and believe Barack Obama is not a Christian (88% and 86%).

How else can one describe these results but to characterize them as indicators of bigotry and ignorance?

Hat/tip to Dave Weigel of Slate Magazine.

SHOCKER! Alabama Passes Racist Immigration Law

Following up on the controversial passage of Arizona's SB 1070 last year and Republican's assuming control of state houses after the midterm elections, several states have attempted to pass even stricter legislation to "regulate immigration." On Thursday, Alabama's Republican governor Robert Bentley signed what he promises is the nation's toughest anti-immigration law.

The PBS News Hour described some of the more prominent provisions:

In addition to allowing law enforcement officers to arrest and detain anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, Alabama’s measure introduces new rules for educators, would-be landlords, and businesses.


"This signals real momentum on the side of immigration hawks," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in favor of stricter enforcement. Among the provisions of the new law:

• Public schools will have to confirm students’ legal residency status through birth certificates or sworn affidavits.
• Illegal immigrants are banned from attending state colleges. 
• Transporting, harboring, or renting property to undocumented immigrants will be illegal.

The housing aspect is one that Ali Noorani of the immigrant-rights group the National Immigration Forum finds troubling: “This is of special concern to mixed status families – children could be arrested for transporting their undocumented parents, for example. It can also impact churches who are ‘transporting’ immigrants to church or are providing any services that may be considered as ‘harboring.'"

Georgia and Utah have also passed anti-immigration laws this year. Utah's law has already been enjoined in court. Arizona's SB 1070 has also been enjoined and has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Alabama's Latino population has doubled to a high of 3.9% from 2000 to 2010. I wonder how many white people will be arrested by Alabama police in order to have their immigration status tested?

AL Gov Candidate Says Every Single Word Of Bible Is True

His opponent accused Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bradley Burne of not supporting craetionism strongly enough. His response?


He says:

"As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God," Byrne wrote. "As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state."

He went on: "I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true ... My faith is at the center of my life and my belief in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord guides my every action."

And no-Christians in Alabama are supposed to believe if he becomes Governor he will represent their interests as well?