Oregon, My Oregon

Aimee Kotek Wilson and Tina Kotek

Andrea Widburg at Am Think, Oregon governor’s same-sex partner claims to be a mentally ill alcoholic

Lots of people have untidy personal lives, but data show that same-sex couples have a higher percentage of issues leading to personal problems (substance abuse, spousal abuse, mental illness, etc.). That’s certainly the case with Oregon’s lesbian governor, Tina Kotek. It recently came to light that Kotek’s “wife,”* Aimee Kotek Wilson, has been acting as a stand-in for Kotek, complete with a taxpayer-funded security detail and that Kotek is spending more taxpayer money to expand Kotek Wilson’s role. While this little scandal rolls, and perhaps to distract from it, Kotek Wilson announced on Tuesday that she’s a recovering alcoholic with an unidentified mental illness.

In 2022, Oregon elected Tina Kotek, a very out-and-proud lesbian, as its governor. According to Kotek’s Wikipedia page, she seems to be a very focused politician: She wants denser housing in Oregon and has worked hard to destroy single-family neighborhoods by getting legislation passed to allow fourplexes in formerly spacious, less-populated neighborhoods. (The Democrats did this in California, too.) It’s not a coincidence that suburbs tend to vote Republican.

 

Flotsam and Jetsam - Don't Bank on the Banks

Yep, we're still mulling over the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (and two other lesser known banks) and their effect on the economy. At According to Hoyt, SVB – A Guest Post by Francis Turner does a pretty good job of explaining the collapse in words non-financial wizards can understand. At CJ, Bro-Bank Blues "It’s easy to blame an out-of-control-tech sector for recent financial failures, but Washington created the monster." At Da Wire, Ben Shapiro: Here’s Why Silicon Valley Bank Collapsed, and he says it really fast. At NYPo, SVB bailout shows ‘capitalism is breaking down,’ Ken Griffin says but then, we haven't had real "capitalism" in years, if ever. Actually, I hate the term "capitalism" and prefer "free market." At the Free Bacon, Silicon Valley Bank Bailout is Socialism for the Rich. Also at Da Wire, ‘Cringe’ Ads Go Viral From Failed Bank That Refused Trump’s Business: ‘A Circus Not A Bank’ ""Who would have trusted their money to these guys after watching this video?"

Is it surprising that Signature Bank failed?

Their executive team spent millions of dollars to produce music videos & TV shows about themselves

Try not to cringe as you watch this: pic.twitter.com/16K70FQq5o

— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) March 13, 2023

Dan Flynn at Am Spec, Silicon Valley Bank Got Woke, Went Broke "Corporate responsibility, huh?" At NYPo wannabe GOP Vivek Ramaswamy candidate says Big Tech wins unfair advantage over American workers in SVB scandal. Breitbart Business Digest, The Bidenflation Banking Crisis. Vicky Taft at PJ Media, The Fault Line in Biden's Bank Failures Runs Through Washington's Greed. At Breitbart, Tom Cotton notes the Biden Administration Won’t Commit to Not Bailing Out Chinese SVB Investors. It's fair, after all, they hold the mortgage on his soul. Matt Vespa at Town Hall highlights The Tweet That Captures the Backlash That Could Come From Bailing Out Silicon Valley Bank: Sean Davis@seanmdav "I’m sympathetic to arguments to protect deposits at banks, but the federal government giving a bailout to Silicon Valley while giving a finger to East Palestine is the stuff that revolutions used to be made of." FEE explains Why We Should Let Bad Banks Fail. "Bad banks need consequences. Let them fail." At Da Caller, Financial Expert Explains Why The Economy Is Collapsing In One Perfect Tweet (below). 

Spencer Brown at Town Hall, 'Rapid Deterioration': Major Rating Service Downgrades U.S. Banking System.  Sundance at CTH, Real Wages Drop Again as Inflation Continues to Outpace Pay Increases

At PJ Media, Matt Margolis has Biden Claims He Had an ‘Epiphany’ on Same-Sex Marriage as a Teen, but We Have the Receipts. You know his ability to lie about his past exceeds that of George Santos.  Also, Bob Spencer, Second-Worst President in History Asks the Worst President to Deliver His Eulogy. Beege Wellborn at Hat Hair, Treasury finally coughs up Hunter Biden's suspicious activity reports. Ace, Treasury Department Finally Agrees to Disclose Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) About the Biden Crime Family's Foreign Revenue Streams; Comer Says There's a Third Biden Who Received Foreign Money. 

The Treasury Department changed the rules, on its own non-existent authority to do so, about releasing SARs to Congress. Pre-Hunter-Biden, pre-"President"-Joe-Biden, if Congress demanded SARs about anyone, the Treasury disclosed them.

But then the Biden Crime Family cheated its way into power and Treasury decided it could no longer risk people's "privacy" by disclosing the reports about their receipts of suspicious foreign payment.

At Breitbart,  J.D. Vance: Railroad Companies Have ‘Gotten in Bed with Big Government,’ Biden Administration Making It More Difficult to Clean up East Palestine Mess. KT at Hat Hair sees House Democrats bail on Homeland Security Committee field hearing in McAllen, Texas.

 Da Caller,  A Soros-Funded Organization Is Helping A Student Org Defy DeSantis’ Higher Education Reforms, so you know who they fear. Rusty Weiss at the PI, NBC’s Chuck Todd Upset That DeSantis is ‘Politicizing’ Communism By Having the Dangers Taught in Florida Schools. At Ricochet, DC Freaks Out Over DeSantis’s Ukraine Comments; Voters Shrug. Althouse reads the NYT, "Declaring this week that defending Ukraine against Russia’s invasion was not a vital interest for the United States, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida cemented a Republican shift..."

"... away from hawkish foreign policy that has played out over the past decade and accelerated with Donald J. Trump’s political rise. Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis — whose combined support makes up more than 75 percent of Republican primary voters in the nascent 2024 presidential contest — are now largely aligned on Ukraine, signaling a sharp break from the interventionist approach that drove former President George W. Bush’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan."

From "DeSantis, Backing Away From Ukraine, Angers G.O.P. Hawks/The Florida governor, who joined Donald Trump in declaring that defending Ukraine from Russia was not a vital interest, drew swift condemnations from establishment Republicans" (NYT).

We lived a long time with Ukraine as an integral part of the USSR, essentially a Russian Empire. It was better when they separated, but it is not essential. I think we should help the Ukrainians as much as possible, but without putting America at risk.

From Da Mail, Mitch McConnell is discharged from hospital and moved to inpatient rehab after falling and hitting his head at a DC dinner. So the Pubs are still down one in the Senate.

Ace reports a Firm Employed by Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee Attempted to Illegally Procure Military Files for Another Republican, "This Republican was also running against a Democrat for a congressional seat. He lost by 1.5%. The firm is the one the DCCC paid $100,000 for just this kind of background dirt -- Due Diligence." Ned Ryun at Am Great thinks Dominion’s Lawsuit Against Fox News Is Unfounded, "Fox simply did what a good news outlet is supposed to do in the face of a controversial, national story: cover it from all sides."

From Twitchy, Tucker Carlson holds a master class in trolling the Left with his new Twitter bio. At BPR, Crazed Keith Olbermann calls for Tucker’s arrest, says ‘Q Shaman’ lawyer had tapes all along. From Da Wire, Proud Boys J6 Case Upended By Hidden FBI Messages Judge Calls ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. At Am Great, the redoubtable Julie Kelly elaborates in A ‘Spill’ of FBI Secrets

In perhaps the most shocking revelations, Miller and another agent discussed emails between Rehl, who has been imprisoned under pretrial detention orders since March 2021, and his then-attorney, Jonathan Moseley. “Found an email thread with Rehl and his attorney, Moseley. The attorney raised some interesting points.”

“Hopefully all related to him pleading out,” Miller replied.

Another defense attorney later noted that “there appear to be missing FBI messages” in the same exchange.

Rather than express outrage at the fact that the FBI was spying on what is commonly considered privileged communications protected by the Constitution, Kelly instead gave prosecutors time to concoct a face-saving strategy—and that they did.

“It appears that the Jencks production to defense counsel may involve a spill of classified information,” assistant U.S. Attorney Joyelyn Ballatine told Judge Kelly. She added that the government needed to “claw back” the entire spreadsheet to review all the messages for allegedly “classified” material.

Justice no longer exists in America. At Da Wire,  Trump Has ‘No Plans’ To Testify In Grand Jury Investigation As Likelihood Of Being Indicted Increases. Even WaPoo admits the case hase major problems.

At the Free Bacon, Student Activists Target Stanford Law School Dean in Revolt Over Her Apology. "Jenny Martinez becomes the target of student ire for saying “I’m sorry” to besieged judge Kyle Duncan." Bob Spencer at Front Page, Stanford Law School Descends Into Barbarism "These people will soon be lawyers, and then, God help us." Jennifer Van Laar at Red State reports Antifa Attacks Charlie Kirk's UC Davis Speech

UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May took the time to record a bizarre video and slander me and our amazing students at TPUSA ahead of our event tonight, so I took the time to respond.

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/iXIBfVd313

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 14, 2023

John Sexton at Hat Hair reports Wellesley College will hold vote on whether to accept trans men as students, Sure,why not? At NYPo, University president on paid leave after Indigenous identity claim: ‘I deeply apologize’ Why paid? LA Times cited at Hat Hair, notes the California ‘Teacher of the Year’ faces 14 charges in child sexual abuse case. "The teacher is charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography and four counts of sexual exploitation of a child. She is also charged with two counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child. Finally, Ma is charged with attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying." At the Summit Transgender Daycare Worker Charged With Sexually Abusing a Baby. Florida's Voice, Florida to revoke Hyatt Regency Miami license after ‘sexually explicit’ show with children. Jazz Shaw at Hat Hair features Confessions of a former trans kid. Sundance at CTH has Speak Up for the Kids! 

Missy Robertson, Kirk Cameron, and Riley Gaines (representing Bethany Hamilton, the surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack) had an appearance at the Hendersonville, Tennessee public library last week. They were to read children’s books they’d written for Brave Books, stories based on faith-based principles.

The staff did everything they could to disrupt the event, and according to Missy, kept the parents and kids in line outside in the freezing rain when they could have formed the lines inside the library.

As Missy says, for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, we must make sure our voices are louder than theirs. I’m quite sure Drag Queens would have been given the red carpet treatment.

Matt Vespa at Town Hall details  How a Former Rolling Stone Editor Embarrassed Dems During Twitter Files Hearing. From Twitchy, Glenn Greenwald DRAGS media using MAGA Trump/Right to push digital censorship (Matt Taibbi assist). David Catron at Am Spec calls it Censorship: The Week Democrats Finally Came Out. "They are now loud and proud about their desire to crush dissent to “save democracy.”

Matt Margolis at PJ Media, We Were Censored for Reporting on Natural Immunity. What's Next?William Sullivan at Am Think looks forward to The Looming Reckoning for COVID Tyrants. I'm not holding my breath.

Why You Never Take Marriage Counseling from a Feminist

She's the one squeezed between the tits on the left.

Stacy McCain, Bad Sex Advice for $250 an Hour

Becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist in California is so easy that even people who are against marriage can do it, as is the case of “sex-positive” therapist Moushumi Ghose. She has a “private practice specializing in sexuality, alternative relationships and lifestyles including kink, polyamory, gender non-binary, lgbt and more.” Not sure what the “and more” might include, but Ms. Ghose identifies as “queer” and has written at length of her opposition to monogamy, so she is theoretically in favor of anything except normal heterosexual relationships.

Do people practicing “alternative relationships and lifestyles including kink, polyamory,” etc., have much need for licensed therapists? And if so, what goes on in such therapy sessions? Does it involve whips and chains? It is difficult to believe there is much demand for Ms. Ghose’s practice, whatever sort of “therapy” it may involve, because kinky freaks are more or less making up the rules as they go along. How can someone say their “gender non-binary” polyamorous partner has violated the rules or that their “alternative relationship” fails to meet their expectations? Exactly what rules or expectations apply in such a “relationship”? . . .

I'm going to stop you right there, Stacy. Eric Hoffer said  “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket”. What we see here is the LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ movement turning into a racket.

Just don't get caught trying to make a business out of gay conversion therapy.

Well, He Won't Be Able to Say He Wasn't Warned

Bad Gamblers and Bisexuality

Have you ever heard of the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine? It’s a comedy. Anyway, this was the news in People magazine last October:

Wedding bells will be ringing soon for Stephanie Beatriz — the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress got engaged to Brad Hoss over the weekend.
“Brad and I hosted our first party together this weekend: his friends, my friends and my sister all came,” the actress, 36, tells PEOPLE exclusively about the surprise proposal. “During the party, Brad pulled me aside. I’m thinking he’s going to tell me how great the party is going, that we make a great team … the usual lovely supportive thoughts he shares with me and really everyone who knows him.”

 I've heard of it, but I haven't watched any.

However, Hoss’s words were a bit sweeter than usual.
“He starts to pull something out of his pocket. My initial thoughts as a member of Bachelor nation is, ‘Oh my goodness, is this the moment where he asks me to marry him in front of a bunch of people?’”
Indeed, Hoss popped the question, and “the words were barely out of his mouth” before Beatriz said ‘yes,’” she adds. “I then started laughing … a lot!”

What would you estimate the odds of success of this marriage to be? Well, how about if I informed you of some more recent news?

Consider the fate of celebrity guys who married bisexual women. Angelina Jolie wrecked Brad Pitt’s life, and Johnny Depp was riding high until he made the mistake of marrying Amber Heard. It doesn’t matter who you blame for those Hollywood divorces; the point is that there is a negative correlation between bisexuality and marital permanence. The odds are clearly against long-term success, and if Stephanie Beatriz’s fiancé thinks he can beat those odds, well, good luck with that.

How many previous lesbian lovers has Stephanie Beatriz had? If her attraction to women is so persistent that she’s “bi till the day I die,” why didn’t she end up with a woman? Shouldn’t we suspect that Brad Hoss is marrying a woman so crazy that no lesbian wanted her? Like, the only woman he can get is one from the “Rejected by Lesbians” pile?
It’s like a bad gambler, shoving all-in on a pair of threes.

On the other hand, he’s 36 and bald, and his acting career hasn’t been very successful. If you’re an unsuccessful actor in Hollywood, probably you don’t have a lot of options, but I can’t imagine that being a desperate bald guy improves the odds of your marriage succeeding.

Eh, it's Hollywood. The chance of both the marriage being serious and her really being bisexual are sufficiently low that I don't think we need worry about it excessively.

Colorado Wants Another Bite of the Cake

Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop

Going back after Masterpiece Cake after the Supreme Court beat them up last time: Colorado Officials Are Once Again Vindictively Prosecuting Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ignoring Supreme Court Decision

Actually, Anthony Kennedy permitted this, by claiming that the Court couldn't reach the merits of the case but could say that the procedure in the original prosecution was biased.

But how can this prosecution be non-biased when the same people are going after him?

Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop fame is suing the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
The Commission commenced new proceedings against Phillips on behalf of a transgender complainant just weeks after he prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Phillips' attorneys say the Commission is engaged in a concerted campaign to destroy him, which is unlawful.
Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who prevailed at the U.S. Supreme Court after declining to create a custom wedding cake for a gay couple, filed a lawsuit in federal court late Tuesday suing the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
...
"The state of Colorado is ignoring the message of the U.S. Supreme Court by continuing to single out Jack for punishment and to exhibit hostility toward his religious beliefs," said Kristen Waggoner, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney who represents Phillips. "Even though Jack serves all customers and simply declines to create custom cakes that express messages or celebrate events in violation of his deeply held beliefs, the government is intent on destroying him -- something the Supreme Court has already told it not to do."

Charlie Craig and David Mullins lost the first case

And here's the new cake that someone looking to file a complaint demanded he bake:

On the same day the high court agreed to review the Masterpiece case, an attorney named Autumn Scardina called Phillips' shop and asked him to create a cake celebrating a sex transition. The caller asked that the cake include a blue exterior and a pink interior, a reflection of Scardina's transgender identity. Phillips declined to create the cake, given his religious conviction that sex is immutable, while offering to sell the caller other pre-made baked goods.
In the months that followed, the bakery received requests for cakes featuring marijuana use, sexually explicit messages, and Satanic symbols. One solicitation submitted by email asked the cake shop to create a three-tiered white cake depicting Satan licking a functional 9 inch dildo. Phillips believes Scardina made all these requests.

And so the Civil Rights Commission is going after him again based on this very complainey complainant.

One can be sure that the CCRC won't be putting it's previous  nasty comments about Philip's that Kennedy based "his decision" on in any new complaints, but they are on record from the previous attempt, and it's a transparent attempt to bring back the suit under a new guise. I'm not an expert in the law, but there should be a way to sue the commissars for mischievous and malicious prosecution. And stick them for 3 X the attorneys fees as part of a RICO case or something.

You might also find Ed Morrissey's take on it at Hot Air amusing: Retaliation? Masterpiece Cakeshop Comes Under Fire From Colorado Officials – Again

Looks like Colorado state officials have decided that the Masterpiece Cakeshop case doesn’t apply to, er … Masterpiece Cakeshop. Despite a ruling at the Supreme Court which established that the state of Colorado had unfairly targeted Jack Phillips for his religious beliefs, the state’s Civil Rights Commission has cited him for another violation. This time, the Christian baker refused to make a custom cake celebrating a gender transition, which the CCRC determined as a violation of the customer’s rights.

Alliance Defending Freedom has signed up once again for the sequel, Masterpiece Cakeshop II: Eclectic Boogaloo. Expect it to premier for Brett Kavanaugh sometime in 2020:
. . .
You know what Colorado desperately needs? Another baker. Is Jack Phillips the only person in the entire state making custom cakes? Is there no other person who can deliver the blue-on-pink experience in culinary art?

Apparently the CCRC doesn’t know of any other bakers for referrals, or they’re really desperate for some regulatory revenge. The complaint started in 2017 as Phillips’ earlier case wended through the appellate circuit, but the final determination was signed on June 28, 2018. That’s just 24 days after the Supreme Court let the CCRC have it with both barrels in its decision to overturn their previous ruling against Phillips. The 7-2 decision held that the CCRC was so obviously and offensively hostile to Phillips that its decision reeked of anti-religious bias and intended to act punitively on that basis. . .

I'm More Interested in His Views on the Wave-Particle Duality

Students criticize hiring of theoretical physicist because he defends monogamy

Aron Wall was not a fan of the 2015 Supreme Court decision that took marriage policy away from the states and federalized same-sex marriage.

The postdoctoral researcher at the University of California-Santa Barbara, who studies “quantum gravity and black hole thermodynamics,” wrote a lengthy blog post three years ago on “the implications of gay marriage for the culture” in light of the ruling.

Citing both his Christian beliefs and the history of homosexual relations across cultures, Wall questioned whether American gay couples would adopt “the norms and practices of heterosexual married couples” in light of research that half of such couples are not monogamous with each other.

His main argument was the value of monogamy:

Like anyone else, what gay people need is to turn to Christ and learn to live in freedom from the harmful fleshly desires which are indeed part of the human condition for everyone. But if they cannot accept this, it is far better that they should live in a committed exclusive relationship, than that they should live the notoriously promiscuous, reckless, and obscene lifestyle characteristic of the cultural venues of the gay community. (Note: I do not identify all gay individuals or couples as being members of this “gay community”; those are different things.)

Without even linking his blog post, The Cambridge News reduced Wall’s thoughtful and nuanced argument to his “promiscuous, reckless and obscene” line and implied it referred to all gay people and couples. It called his views “homophobic.”

Now that the researcher (left) has been hired by Cambridge University’s math department, student activists are claiming the presence of a Christian with typical beliefs on sexuality threatens them.

Wall might not make it to his start date in January, given this rhetoric that his views violate the university’s diversity and inclusion statement.
. . .
Another CUSU officer said that because graduate students’ relationships with their supervisors are “very close,” students may have trouble interacting with someone whose views are “very homophobic”:

The Student Union’s LGBT+ campaign said they were working to ‘gain assurance’ from the maths department they would ensure there are safe spaces for LGBT+ students, and there were plans in place to deal with any discrimination.

Heaven forfend that any Cambridge students, gay or straight, be confronted with the fact that not everybody agrees with them on the subject of gay marriage.

Lesbian Wife Beater Free After Testosterone Defense

Louanne Budgen (pictured right) who subjected her
bride Hayley (left) to a vicious beating

But it's in the UK, so it will be a few years before Judge Ginsburg allows it in the US: Lesbian mum who viciously beat bride walks free after telling court she has high levels of "male hormones"

A lesbian mother who subjected her bride to a vicious beating has walked free after telling a court she has a medical condition which leaves sufferers with high levels of "male hormones."

Louanne Budgen, 33, had a petulant meltdown at wife of 18 months Hayley for leaving a Christmas family gathering early at 9pm so she could put their three children to bed.

Three hours after Hayley left her at the bash, Budgen turned up drunk at the couple's marital home in Radclife, Greater Manchester, asked for money to pay a taxi then dragged the victim from their bed by her hair.

She then punched Hayley in the head 'at least five times' before storming out of their bedroom.

Hayley who is in her 30s suffered pain and minor bruising and called in police following the attack in the moments before Christmas Day last year.

At Manchester magistrates court, Budgen wept as she admitted assault but walked free after she blamed her behaviour on domestic abuse she had witnessed as a child.

She said she also suffers with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which affects the way her ovaries work.

Despite Hayley's initial statement to police, the couple have since reconciled.
. . .
Budgen was ordered to complete a 12 month community order and pay £170 in costs.

District judge Samuel Goozee, told her: "You have clearly had some trauma in your own upbringing and have been exposed to abuse, but you need to understand what you did to Hayley.

I guess only men are strong enough to be expected to be resistant to the effects of testosterone.

Kindly linked at Wombat-socho's "Rule 5 Sunday: Overall Beauty".

But They Told Me It Was Innate!

Professor Explores How K-12 Education ‘Can Help Kids Turn Out Queer’

This news is unsurprising to anyone who pays attention to academia:

A professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) recently argued in favor of using art education to help “kids turn out queer.”
Adam Greteman, who teaches aspiring K-12 art teachers, published an article in the current edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Studies in Art Education titled “Helping Kids Turn Out Queer: Queer Theory in Art Education.”“This article explores the possibilities of queer theory in art education, and I playfully, perhaps provocatively, ask how art education can help kids turn out queer,” he writes, adding that there is a “need” for art educators to “challenge fears around queer topics.”
In his efforts to fight against the “heteronormative realities” of most K-12 schools, Greteman argues that art teachers could impart a “queerer agenda” on students that might “actually help kids turn out queer” [emphasis in original].
Greteman, who identifies as a “queer scholar,” lists a few ways teachers could achieve this, such as implementing “queer art lessons,” embracing a “queerer agenda” in class, and using “queer affirmation” strategies to help gay students feel more included.
He also adds that “the inclusion of LGBTQ artists and the need to include LGBTQ students is at this point a rather straightforward approach” to help queer the curriculum as well. . . .
In 2013, Greteman published an article on how bareback sex should be taught in sex education programs . . .
“My work is influenced by an eclectic array of modes of inquiry, including queer, feminist, and trans theories, pragmatism, Marxism, and post-structural ethics,” Greteman writes in his faculty biography page for the SAIC.

You can read the whole thing. . . .

But it's not like they have an AGENDA or anything. @Toni_Airaksinen https://t.co/JSZ4tqBY4T

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) November 8, 2017

When they were struggling to legalize gay marriage, it was dogma that homosexuality was innate, and not the choice of the homosexual. Now that they've won, they're free to allow that the truth is not so simple. Much of male homosexuality may be innate, but certainly not all, and some people can be swayed to taking it up via persuasion and propaganda. Coming to an elementary school near you!

Not a Parody

Via Maggie's Farm

Reason #5476 Trump Was Elected

The rank hypocrisy on the left on how freedom is supposed to work. A reporter asks UW-Madison students whether dress designers have the right to withhold their services from Melania Trump. Why of course they do! Then he asks if it's OK for a Christian baker to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. The results are illuminating



The kids miss the legal point. Gays are now an officially "protected class" of people. How can a society stay free when some viewpoints are protected and some are not?

Reason #5456 Trump Was Elected

The Chris Cuomo: If a 12-Year-Old Girl Doesn't Want to See a Penis In the Locker Room, That's Either Because of Her "Overprotective Dad" or Her Own Lack of "Tolerance"

@ChrisCuomo @ashworth_chris @Timothyjsims2 2. What do you tell a 12 year old girl who doesn't want to see a penis in the locker room?

— PP (@PurportedPundit) February 23, 2017

i wonder if she is the problem or her overprotective and intolerant dad? teach tolerance. https://t.co/DbxAkrrH7n

— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 23, 2017

The horror is not the realization that an inbred, arrogant cabal is intent on changing human behavior and controlling human thought.

That, I always took it, was a given.

The horror comes from the realization of just how fucking incompetent and dumb they are.

Their answer to a mild discomfort to a very small minority (where to go to the bathroom to feel normal) is to force the discomfort on a larger population because, shut up, bigots!

The social justice war for transgenders is merely a way to keep the LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ outrage machine alive, after they won on gay marriage. Outside the liberal and Clinton archipelago, very few people want to worry about private parts in bathrooms:

Reason #5443 Trump Was Elected

Gay Man Comes Out as Conservative, Loses Friends

When Out magazine assigned me an interview with the Breitbart.com rabble-rouser Milo Yiannopoulos, I knew it would be controversial. In the gay and liberal communities in particular, he is a provocative and loathed figure, and I knew featuring him in such a liberal publication would get negative attention. He has been repeatedly kicked off Twitter for, among other things, reportedly inciting racist, sexist bullying of “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones. Before interviewing Yiannopoulos, I thought he was a nasty attention-whore, but I wanted to do a neutral piece on him that simply put the facts out there.

After the story posted online in the early hours of Sept. 21, I woke up to more than 100 Twitter notifications on my iPhone. Trolls were calling me a Nazi, death threats rolled in and a joke photo that I posed for in a burka served as “proof” that I am an Islamophobe.

I’m not.

Most disconcertingly, it wasn’t just strangers voicing radical discontent. Personal friends of mine — men in their 60s who had been my longtime mentors — were coming at me. They wrote on Facebook that the story was “irresponsible” and “dangerous.” A dozen or so people unfriended me. A petition was circulated online, condemning the magazine and my article. All I had done was write a balanced story on an outspoken Trump supporter for a liberal, gay magazine, and now I was being attacked. I felt alienated and frightened.

I hope New Yorkers can be as accepting of my new status as a conservative man as they’ve been about my sexual orientation.

I laid low for a week or so. Finally, I decided to go out to my local gay bar in Williamsburg, where I’ve been a regular for 11 years. I ordered a drink but nothing felt the same; half the place — people with whom I’d shared many laughs — seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder. Upon seeing me, a friend who normally greets me with a hug and kiss pivoted and turned away.

Frostiness spread far beyond the bar, too. My best friend, with whom I typically hung out multiple times per week, was suddenly perpetually unavailable. Finally, on Christmas Eve, he sent me a long text, calling me a monster, asking where my heart and soul went, and saying that all our other friends are laughing at me.

I realized that, for the first time in my adult life, I was outside of the liberal bubble and looking in. What I saw was ugly, lock step, incurious and mean-spirited.

Still, I returned to the bar a few nights later — I don’t give up easily — and hit it off with a stranger. As so many conversations do these days, ours turned to politics. I told him that I’m against Trump’s wall but in favor of strengthening our borders. He called me a Nazi and walked away. I felt awful — but not so awful that I would keep opinions to myself.

And I began to realize that maybe my opinions just didn’t fit in with the liberal status quo, which seems to mean that you must absolutely hate Trump, his supporters and everything they believe. If you dare not to protest or boycott Trump, you are a traitor.

And that was just the beginning of his awakening to conservatism.

Remember, Trump was for gay marriage long before either Obama or Clinton.

Liberals tolerate free thinking, as long as you stay in lock step with their ever changing agenda.

Reason #5406 We Elected Trump

An excerpt from a  classic rant from Ace: How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom

. . . Because I voted for retribution.

"He's think-skinned and petty!" shrieks the left. "He takes everything personally!"

Good, I say. I want him to take attacks personally and deal out payback. I know I won't be the target, you will be.

"He's unpresidential! He'll destroy the integrity of the office!"

No, that's already happened. Remember, you elected a shit-talking jackass who takes selfies at state funerals when he's not giving stealth middle fingers to his opponents during debates. There is no dignity of the office, not after Clinton and Obama.

"He's a narcissist! He's got totalitarian impulses!"

Yes, he's basically a mirror version of Obama. Except now, he'll be working for what I want. The end justifies the means. You taught me that.

"A sitting president going after the media. OMG!"

Oh, like Obama trashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News? How about when he sent his lackeys to berate news reporters for failure to flatter him at all times. Oh, and NSA spying on the press. That was pretty great, too.

"He won't show his taxes!"

Don't care. Where are Obama's college transcripts, by the way?

"He's a bully! Is this what you want? Someone who uses his power to bully other people?!!!"

And this is where everything funnels down to the very nexus of my change in attitude from "Do unto others" to "I will do unto you what you do unto me."

It's two words: Memories Pizza.

It was that moment that everything changed for me--not only the harassment, fake Yelp reviews and the death threats that forced them to temporarily close up shop--oh, that was bad enough, but the most powerful man on Earth bullying a couple of small town pizza owners from Indiana simply for expressing an opinion on a hypothetical asked of them by a reporter with a malicious agenda? That was when I snapped. . .

Uh huh!

Stacy No Fan of Taylor Swift

#FreeStacy: Email to My Samoan Lawyer: Taylor Swift Is Decadent and Depraved

The #FreeStacy insanity led my old friend to send me an email today:

Totally anecdotal, but I’ve noticed that no matter how many times I visit wattsupwiththat.com, Google Now never puts anything from that site into my “stories to read.” Contrast that to I once clicked on a story about Taylor Swift because my daughter is a huge fan and now she is in my feed constantly. Also, Salon, Slate and Huffpo are always there in abundance even though I never click them.
Also notably absent despite multiple daily visits: theothermccain.

I would like to remind visitors to read this scary article on how Google and Facebook may be, and almost certainly are, affecting our politics and the next election: The new mind control.

Fear and Loathing in the Information Age, so to speak. The whole world has gone crazy, I’m the subject of international news, and Google is conspiring to keep people from reading my blog. This makes perfect sense in 2016, you see, that someone like me would become a First Amendment cause célèbre, a 21st-century Dreyfuss. Was this my career goal when I was a long-haired rock-and-roll freak circa 1983? Of course not. Nobody could ever possibly plan anything as crazy as my life, even if they wanted to, which no sane person ever would. So while the #FreeStacy hashtag campaign continues, I have had some communications with leading legal minds who have become interested in the free-speech issues involved. I’m not the litigious sort, you understand, but some of my lawyer friends are the type who would be happy to go to federal court to seek an emergency restraining order first thing Monday morning, if I just gave the word. But that’s not how I roll. My correspondence with Bert the Samoan Lawyer was just two old college buddies talking. Here’s what I replied:

 A brief intro to the #FreeStacy affair here.

Well, my Samoan friend, did you ever think back in the day that my gonzo methods would have such consequences as this? As I told my kids, “Congratulations, your Dad is a hashtag.” Of course, the #FreeStacy hashtag won’t autocomplete — although the bogus misspelled version does. No “e” in Stacy, as you know, and “blah blah girl’s name blah blah,” said every idiot who wanted to start a fight on the elementary school playground. When the going gets weird, the weirdos get me banned from Twitter.
Do I want to describe my experiences with Google? Not in writing. The NSA and DHS will have to monitor my phone calls if they want that information. Nixon was a piker compared to these Obama goons, and I’ll bet you $20 Sidney Blumenthal has Jack Dorsey on speed-dial.
Face it, Bert, we live in an Age of Fear and, as a concerned father myself, I have to warn you that Taylor Swift is down for The Agenda. Every feminist on Tumblr is certain that Taylor is dating lesbian supermodel Karlie Kloss. As a Neutral Objective Journalist, of course, I’d have to see video proof before I’d believe that bizarre rumor, but if Cara Delevingne can be gay, everybody is gay, and in 2016, any self-respecting feminist would be embarrassed to admit she is heterosexual. These young fellows can’t get their mojo working and, therefore, phallocentric domination is in a steep decline. Oh, what wonderful jargon! But I digress . . .

Hold on a minute. Taylor Swift is a lesbian? Maybe?  Well, there sure a lot of photos with Taylor and Karlie together; not that there's anything wrong with that. It looks like they could wear the same clothes.

If your daughter is a Taylor Swift fan, you may need to intervene, Bert. A sort of “tough love” approach is recommended. Seize her laptop and cellphone and demand passwords for every app she’s got. And if she’s on Tumblr? Bad news, pal — no grandkids for you. Tumblr might as well be called the Crazy Cat Lady Training Academy. Every teenage girl on Tumblr has a mental illness (anxiety, depression, PTSD) and is either a pansexual genderqueer or a nonbinary lesbian. Dye your hair green, pierce your nose, get more tattoos than a sailor and tell your Mom that your pronouns are “xe” and “xer.” This is what it means to be a feminist in 2016, a dystopian nightmare meets pornographic fantasy. If Orwell were writing “1984” now, it would begin: “Dear Penthouse Forum …”

I'll bet Stacy was a David Bowie fan.

Wombat-socho's "Rule 5 Sunday: Animal Magnetism" is ready at The Other McCain.

Monday Morning Language Lesson

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: The Hearts of Space" up at The Other McCain.

A Matter of Conscience

The "outrage du jour" or of the last several jours has been the jailing of Kim Davis, the democratically elected (and Democrat, though you would never know from the MSM coverage) Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Gay marriage isn't one of my issues. While I don't think gay couples are biologically equivalent to heterosexual couples, I don't think it's a hill to die on politically. The damage to marriage in the United States has been done primarily by the welfare state. Any problems caused by gay marriage are like toe nail fungus on an HIV ridden patient.

However, the law does allow for accommodations:

Under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, both public and private employers have a duty to exempt religious employees from generally applicable work rules, so long as this won’t create an “undue hardship,” meaning more than a modest cost, on the employer. If the employees can be accommodated in a way that would let the job still get done without much burden on the employer, coworkers, and customers — for instance by switching the employee’s assignments with another employee or by otherwise slightly changing the job duties — then the employer must accommodate them. 

Some cases where accommodations were made:

1. Nurses who had religious objections to being involved in abortions (even just to washing instruments that would be used in abortions);
2. Pacifist postal workers who had religious objections to processing draft registration forms;
3. A Jehovah’s Witness employee who had religious objections to raising a flag, which was a task assigned to him;
4. An IRS employee who had religious objections to working on tax exemption applications for organizations that promote “abortion, … homosexuality, worship of the devil, euthanasia, atheism, legalization of marijuana, immoral sexual experiments, sterilization or vasectomies, artificial contraception, and witchcraft”;
5. a philosophically vegetarian bus driver who refused to hand out hamburger coupons as part of an agency’s promotion aimed at boosting ridership;
6. and more.

If they can accommodate the "philosophically vegetarian bus driver", I would expect that a reasonable accommodation could be found where an underclerk, or even a judge in the county could sign the forms instead.

We can think of several recent instances of the government failing to enforce the law without any repercussions. it's only my bias that brings immigration law and the IRS handling of non-profits leap to mind. However Remember, The Law Is Only Sacred When It Furthers a Liberal Value

Let’s start with the prevailing hypocrisy surrounding the liberal attacks on Davis, and what it tells us about the state of American political debate and policymaking. Because, as you may have noticed, the rule of law only seems to be sacred when it happens to comport with liberal values.

As far as I can tell, there are only three unassailable Constitutional rights left in United States: The right not to be “discriminated” against. The right to have an abortion. The right to have a gay marriage. In the eyes of a liberals, nothing—not the freedom of association or religion or anything else mentioned in the First or Second Amendment—will ever supersede these consecrated rights. The rest? Well, it’s malleable, depending on the situation.

Back when the Proposition 8 in California outlawed gay marriage was upheld by the state court, several county clerks continued to issue licenses to gay couples. I don't recall liberal opposition to these clerks, let alone agitating for them to be jailed for contempt of court.

Picked up and linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Thanks, Teach!

From Frozen to Dragon Kin

Weirddave at The Ace of Spades takes a look at "Normal" in one of his "Fundamental Concepts" posts

. . . For a moment, let's think of society as a wooden house, and people as the 2 X 4s that that house is built of. The truck from Home Depot drops off a bunk of 2 X 4s, and you set to work sorting them. Most of the boards are straight and true, these you put in one pile. Some of them, however, are not going to be straight or true. They'll be twisted, or curved or short: abnormal in some fashion. These you put in a second, smaller pile. Here's the $64000 question: From which pile are you going to select a board to be used as a template for your house design, the larger pile or the smaller one? If you chose the smaller pile, I don't really want to go into your house when you're done building. It'll likely fall on me.

None of this means that the boards in the second pile are not useful. Some can be trimmed to fit in certain spaces, some will fit perfectly in spots that don't need a straight and true standard 2 X 4. It just means that you don't design the house around the boards that aren't normal.

Now, let's take this concept back to human society.

If someone is gay, they are not normal.
If someone is transgendered, they are not normal.
If someone is poly-amorous, they are not normal.
If someone believes that they are dragon kin, they are not normal.

And so on. You know what? ****drum roll**** So what? Who really cares? There has never been another society in the history of the world that is as accommodating of people who are abnormal as 21st Century Western Civilization. You're gay? Fabulous. Transgender? Sounds like fodder for a movie of the week. Poly-amorous? Just don't do it in the street and frighten the livestock. And so on. Our society is perfectly happy to allow just about any predilection, kink or fetish to be practiced by any individual as long as it isn't harming other people.

The problem is that that wasn't good enough. There is a small but incredibility noisy faction of abnormal people for whom acceptance and toleration wasn't enough. For these people that fact that they were abnormal, for whatever reason, became not a quirk but a malignant hate. They know that they are not normal, but instead of accepting that they were different and moving on, they feel compelled to attack what is normal and try to destroy it.

And this is where the problem starts. Because they are a twisted board, they think the entire house should be designed to be built of twisted boards. If every board were twisted, this would be a great idea, but since 90% of the boards are straight, the resulting house will not be structurally sound. It will collapse.

We have to reign this in or we're finished. . .

And that's really just a medium sized sampling of the entire piece. Read the whole thing. 

I would hasten to add that people are composed of a myriad of traits. Most of us are "normal" in respect to most of them. But almost all of us deviate by a standard deviation or two on a few aspects of our physical or mental condition. This variety is the so called spice of life and makes us individuals. Many of us know (and treasure) where we differ from the herd, but do not need for the whole herd to take on those traits (even if they could) or even value them.

After Winning Culture Battle Progressives Looking for Wounded to Shoot

After their rather complete victory in the Supreme Court last week, with Judge Roberts rewriting the Obamacare to correct what he claimed was some sloppy verbiage, as well as finding a right to gay marriage hiding under the emanations and penumbras of a right to "dignity" also not found in written form, the left has declared total victory and is now looking for survivors of the battle to terminate with extreme prejudice:

State Silences Bakers Who Refused to Make Cake for Lesbian Couple, Fines Them $135K

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian finalized a preliminary ruling today ordering Aaron and Melissa Klein, the bakers who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, to pay $135,000 in emotional damages to the couple they denied service.

“This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage,” Avakian wrote. “It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. Under Oregon law, that is illegal.”

In the ruling, Avakian placed an effective gag order on the Kleins, ordering them to “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs.

“This effectively strips us of all our First Amendment rights,” the Kleins, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, which has since closed, wrote on their Facebook page. “According to the state of Oregon we neither have freedom of religion or freedom of speech.”

Wow, telling them to stop speaking publicly? That's pretty anti-American even for Oregon.

From the new girl at the Washington Post, Catherine Rampell: Americans are entitled to religious freedom, but there are limits

It used to be that budget cuts were the best way to kill a law you hated but lacked the votes to formally repeal. You know, if you can’t beat ’em, defund ’em.

Times have changed. Now the mantra is: If you can’t beat ’em, out-God ’em. . .

Yes, since the dawn of the republic, there have been protections for the free exercise of religion, both in our Constitution and in separate statutes, such as those relating to the military draft and religious pacifists. But religious exemptions to laws have been granted only within very prescribed bounds — including the principle that you’re entitled to religious accommodations only if they don’t burden or harm others, or otherwise create havoc in the legal system.

Freedom of religion was an idea widely embraced by progressives, until conventional Christians started to be threatened by them. Now the idea must by sanitized away.

Washed up gay character actor uses racial slur: George Takei: Justice Clarence Thomas ‘a clown in blackface’ and ‘a disgrace to America’

Actor George Takei called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas “a clown in blackface sitting there on the Supreme Court.”

In an interview with FOX 10 Phoenix, Takei, best known as Capt. Sulu on “Star Trek,” said Thomas “gets me angry. He doesn’t belong there.”

Takei is openly gay, and Justice Thomas wrote in dissent of the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of gay marriage. As part of that dissent, Justice Thomas wrote “human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them.”

The progressive  website "Vox" has decided, here on the 3d of July, that perhaps the American Revolution was a mistake; that we would have been better off under British rule: 3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake

1. Abolition would have come faster without independence
2. Independence was bad for Native Americans
3. America would have a better system of government if we'd stuck with Britain

Because "Global Warming":

In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon tax. Just like that. Passing big, necessary legislation — in this case, legislation that's literally necessary to save the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than presidential systems.

To be sure, one of the bug bears of progressives is taxes. Progressives love taxes, and always want more. The American Revolution was more or less a revolution against excessive taxation by the Brits, as well as against their tyrannical rule in the colonies.

Ed Morrisey takes on the valiant job of Fisking this abortion from top to bottom: Peak Vox: The American Revolution was a mistake, you know

At least this essay from Dylan Matthews is more of an opinion piece, and Dylan’s entitled to his opinions and to write about them, even if they are more or less spun out of pure fantasy. That’s what this is, of course — a series of improbable what-ifs that ignore historical realities and contexts for simplistic assumptions, built around a trollish central argument guaranteed to get clicks. It’s practically old-school undergrad blogging at its most pure, and only needs some Rule 5 imagery to complete the experience.

Via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: Little Round Top & Cemetery Hill", Sultan Knish: No Truce With the Left

. . . By 2024, the Republican gay and tranny candidates will be dismissed as tokens while the media oohs and aahs over a vocal and charismatic campaigner for some other love that dare not speak its name.

And that's the point. It has always been the point.

The left does not care about gay rights. If you doubt that, consider how many of the left's favorite Muslim countries have gay rights. The left has recently divided its campaign passions between gay marriage and defending Iran. Iran denies the existence of gays and hangs them where it finds them.

The USSR treated homosexuality as a crime even while it was recruiting gay men as spies in the West. Cuba, the darling of the American left, hated both gays and blacks. The ACLU backed the police states of Communism. If the left supports an enemy nation, the odds are excellent that it is also a violently bigoted place that makes a KKK rally look like a hippie hangout.

To understand the left, you need to remember that it does not care about 99 percent of the things it claims to care about. Name a leftist cause and then find a Communist country that actually practiced it. Labor unions? Outlawed. Environmentalism? Chernobyl. The left fights all sorts of social and political battles not because it believes in them, but to radicalize, disrupt and take power.

The left does not care about social justice. It cares about power.

That is why no truce is possible with the left. Not on social issues. Not on any issues.

The left is a drunk in a bar trying to pick a fight with you. Trying to convince him that you didn't disrespect him, put something in his beer to make him dizzy or make his feet so heavy won't work. There's no 'agree to disagree' possible here. He's picking a fight with you because he wants a fight.

The left does not care about Bruce Jenner. It does not care about gay rights, equal pay, police brutality or even slavery. Its activists 'care' about those things a great deal right now, but they could easily be persuaded tomorrow to be outraged by telephone poles, shredded wheat or people in green sweaters.

They care mainly about emotional venting and exercising power over others. It's the same phenomenon witnessed during the Salem Witch Trials, the French Revolution or any other mob scene. Except the individual elements of the mob are on social media and have a hashtag.

The outraged social justice warrior was laughing at tranny jokes a few years ago. Now he's ready to  kill over minor verbal missteps. A few years from now he'll be laughing at them again.

In a similar vein, Jonah Goldberg at NRO: You Can’t Compromise with Culture Warriors

It might be too much to think that progressive activists and intellectuals would demobilize after such a “Mission Accomplished” moment. But a reasonable person might expect social-justice warriors to at least take the weekend off to celebrate.

But no. Even when the cookie is this big, the mice want something more. The call went out that there were new citadels to conquer. Within hours of the decision, Politico ran a call to arms titled “It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy: Why Group Marriage Is the Next Horizon of Social Liberalism.” On Sunday, Time magazine had Mark Oppenheimer’s “Now’s the Time to End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions.”

Earlier in the week, as corporations and politicians were racing one another to shove the Confederate flag down the memory hole, a co-host asked CNN’s Don Lemon whether the Jefferson Memorial should be removed from the National Mall because the former president owned slaves. He said no, but that “there may come a day when we want to rethink Jefferson.”

Within hours of the same sex-marriage ruling, the White House was beaming the gay-pride rainbow flag on its facade. This is the White House whose current occupant campaigned in 2008 passionately insisting that his religious faith required him to oppose gay marriage. The president and his party now consider that position to be unalloyed bigotry.

What's Gay Today?

A couple of different stories about gay rights that may, or may not, intersect. First: Data Faked In Study About Gay People Changing Voters’ Minds

A study claiming that gay people advocating for same-sex marriage can change voters’ minds has been retracted due to fraud.

The study was published last December in Science, and received lots of media attention. It found that a 20-minute, one-on-one conversation with a gay political canvasser could steer voters in favor of same-sex marriage. Not only that, but these changed opinions lasted for at least a year and influenced other people in the voter’s household, the study found.

 Yes, I've seen that cited a lot in the media. But it turns out it's just not true.

Donald Green, the lead author on the study, retracted it on Tuesday shortly after learning that his co-author, UCLA graduate student Michael LaCour, had faked the results.

“I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers, and readers of Science,” Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University, said in his retraction letter to the journal, as posted on theRetraction Watch blog.
 . . .
The truth came to light after three other researchers tried, and failed, to replicate it. David Broockman, of Stanford, Joshua Kalla, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Peter Aronow of Yale found eight statistical irregularities in the dataset. No one of these would by itself be proof of wrongdoing, they wrote, but all of them collectively suggest that “the data were not collected as described.”

Science is supposed to be the gold standard journal for the United States, and for an article with falsified data to make it past the rather rigorous review suggests a substantial failure in the process. Likely it was given to reviewers who wanted to believe it was true, and so failed to do due diligence; however, if that is true, it's curious that other researchers tried to duplicate the work and couldn't.

While the ability to replicate a study is an important feature in science, it is one that is not given much heed. Most scientists would prefer to pursue their own ideas, and not feel constrained to re-do the work of others to verify or debunk it. Maybe the granting agencies need to make some mandate that a certain fraction of funding be dedicated to the replication of new results.

Second: Gay-conversion therapy ban to be introduced in House

The push to end so-called “conversion therapy” against homosexuality is expected to gear up Tuesday with the introduction of a House bill to ban the therapy nationally.

The bill comes a few weeks before a consumer fraud lawsuit described as a “David and Goliath” battle over the therapy begins in New Jersey, and in the wake of a request for a federal probe into whether the therapy’s marketing and practices are “deceptive” and “dangerous.”

Opponents of sexual orientation change efforts, such as Reps. Ted W. Lieu and Jackie Speier, both California Democrats, say being homosexual is not a disorder or illness, and efforts to change one’s sexual orientation are wrong and harmful.

Supporters of such therapy counter that it has helped many people successfully reduce or eliminate their unwanted same-sex attractions, and it’s wrong to trample people’s rights to seek the counseling of their choice.

I believe any such ban is an absolute violation of the First Amendment. More than anything else, we should be free to speak, and teach people what we believe.

As to the merits of sexual orientation therapy, I have a mixed view. It would appear that in men, at least, a homosexual orientation is a relatively hard wired phenomenon; there are actual brain features that tend to correlate with it. However, it's not absolutely true; if it were, the US prisons would be ample proof that homosexuals are predisposed to crime.  Among women, sexual orientation appears to be substantially more fluid, as testified by the prevalence of LUGs (Lesbians Until Graduation). Or maybe college is like prison for women?

So, while I suspect that the need for sexual orientation therapy is rather small, and probably not very effective (but then again, which therapy has a quick 100% cure rate, drugs, alcohol, or other psychological ailments?), how can we pass a law against someone seeking and finding help with a problem they perceive?

The only purpose for this law is to pander to the gay "rights" crowd, who in this case are against the rights of gay people to seek treatment.

Gay Rights Activists Assert Rights to Burn Out and Murder Opponents

TV Reporter’s Cheap ‘Gotcha’ Story Incites Hate Mob Against Indiana Pizza Shop

The Democrat-Media Complex has hyped this Indiana RFRA controversy into an LGBT lynch-mob scenario that compares to nothing I’ve seen since the L.A. riots in 1992. Some people seem to have lost their minds over this:

A Concord High School coach has been suspended after she tweeted about arson in relation to a Walkerton pizzeria whose owners told the media they agree with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Jess Dooley, who is the head coach of the girls golf program and also an assistant coach with the softball and girls basketball programs, took to Twitter Wednesday, April 1, to voice her opinion about the RFRA.
She was adding to the conversation about Memories Pizza, a Walkerton restaurant whose owners announced in a television news segment that they would not cater gay weddings.
Her tweet read: “Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down #memoriespizza w me?”

Hey, arson advocacy, public education, to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to, right?

At the risk of inflaming the controversy even more, I'll venture my opinion on the RFRA kerfuffle.

It seems to me there exists a class of business, wedding photographers, bakers of wedding cakes, and perhaps even pizza caterers, where the business is owned by one person, or a family, the work to be done is sufficiently specialized as to be artful, the service is personal and where alternative vendors are readily found, where RFRA and similar laws should rightly protect those owners from being forced to participate in a rite they deem to be offensive. This is not to say I personally deem them offensive, but religious beliefs are just that, beliefs based on faith and not evidence or law.

A supermarket, or phone company like Apple should not enjoy the same protection. No one comes to a supermarket and demand that the manager bring food to the wedding, and effectively celebrate with the congregants; no one asks Steve Jobs (or whoever took his job after he refused to be cured) to come and sit at the brides table, and take photos making him look radiant. But someone might take an Iphone and take the pictures, further enriching Apple without their having been aware of it. It is the height of hypocrisy for Apple to assert it's non-discrimination in way that will never be tested.

There is no need to coerce the cooperation of bakers, photographers, wedding planners etc into providing services to gay couples. If such a need exists, the market will empower people to enter the niche business of gay weddings, and might, under RFRA be entitled to claim freedom to choose to provide services only to gay weddings. You have the right to a wedding. You do not have the right to draft service providers.