News and Politics

Microsoft abandons gays

Microsoft Corporation pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state last month after complaints from a single radical right anti-gay leader, according to an article just published in the Seattle paper, The Stranger (the article is on the news stands already, online Thursday).

The radical right activist reportedly told Microsoft it had better pull its support for the gays or anti-gay bigots would launch a nationwide boycott of Microsoft, and guess what – Microsoft caved. A single anti-gay jerk, and Microsoft chose to reverse over ten years of policy and bash gays.

This is outrageous. It’s also incredibly dangerous. For over a decade Microsoft, along with hundreds of other corporate leaders, has endorsed gay rights legislation in the states and nationally. And now, suddenly, because ONE ANTI-GAY ACTIVIST COMPLAINED, they’ve suddenly changed their minds ON A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE. A rather big “oops” after ten years of being in favor of civil rights, don’t you think? (via AMERICAblog)

http://www.nationaldayofreason.org/:

Many who value the separation of church and state have sought an appropriate response to the federally-funded National Day of Prayer, an annual abuse of the constitution. Nontheistic Americans (including freethinkers, humanists, atheists and agnostics), along with many traditionally religious allies, view such government-sanctioned sectarianism as unduly exclusionary.

A consortium of leaders from within the community of reason endorsed the idea of a National Day of Reason. This observance is held in parallel with the National Day of Prayer, on the first Thursday in May (5 May 2005). The goal of this effort is to celebrate reason – a concept all Americans can support – and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship.

At least one thing can bring three major religions together in agreement:

First, the good news. In a Holy City better known for religious strife, the local leaders of Jews, Christians and Muslims have staged a remarkable show of religious unity. The bad news is that their remarkable show of religious unity is against a gay pride festival. At a news conference attended by Israel’s two chief rabbis, the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches, and three senior Muslim prayer leaders, Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi bitterly complained of the out and proud gays:

They are creating a deep and terrible sorrow that is unbearable… It hurts all of the religions. We are all against it.

A Muslim sheik concurred with the rabbi:

We can’t permit anybody to come and make the Holy City dirty. This is very ugly and very nasty to have these people come to Jerusalem

Oliver Willis: You didn’t think you were voting for a government that would decide what the best medical care for you and your family is, and would intervene when it disagreed. But you did. For too long, you’ve been taken in by the conservative movement, when in fact the government was less intrusive, more fiscally sound, and simply more rational when you had progressive leadership.

A culture of life is affordable health care. Being pro-family means tax breaks for working families. Economic growth means the encouragement of small business. America is not about allowing a small band of religious extremists to control the direction of a nation, of asking “how high” when they tell you to jump. That’s the reality of the modern day Republican party and its leadership.

While Bush & congress fight to keep Terri Schiavo alive, despite her being brain dead for 15 years, 6 month old Sun Hudson was allowed to die without a fight when he was taken off life support against his parent’s wishes.

Via ABC 13 News:

A judge on Monday lifted a court injunction that had prevented doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital from halting care they believed to be futile.

“Texas Children’s Hospital is deeply saddened to report that Sun Hudson has died from the affects of thanatophoric dysplasia,” the hospital said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Texas law allows hospitals to end life support in cases such as Sun’s, but requires that families be given 10 days to find another facility to care for the patient. No hospital could be located to take Sun.

The hospital said it made extraordinary efforts to provide the best care for the infant but that there was no treatment available to save him.

Texas Children’s ethics committee reviewed Sun’s case before recommending that life support be discontinued.

Hospital officials recommended the case be taken to court and offered to pay Hudson’s attorney fees “in an effort to ensure that her and her son’s interests have been adequately represented.”

Via Oliver Willis – Like Kryptonite To Stupid:

We have to stop the far religious right and their congressional lackeys (DeLay, Frist & Co.)
because they are destroying America.

Steve Koppelman:

Immediately following the tsunami that killed tens of thousands in December, President Bush issued a statement through his spokespeople from his estate in Crawford, Texas.

In anticipation of Congress passing a bill for the sole purpose of keeping Terri Schiavo on a feeding tube, President Bush cut short a weekend at his Crawford estate and flew back to Washington so he could be around to sign it into law.

In other words, he thinks the life of one brain dead woman who will never wake up is more precious than the lives of thousands of Asians.

I’m completely disgusted by the Terri Schiavo case. This is one of the most offensive instances of the government butting in where it doesn’t belong and turning a family matter into a political cause. The government has no right to be involved in this.

Via Plastic: Most Recent: Plastic::Politics::Politics: Not only do liberals and conservatives have different outlooks, but they may well have different starting points – is it policy or pragmatism that drives politics?

Liberalism, says Chait, is essentially a pragmatic, results-driven philosophy — a particular goal is identified, and then a means of achieving that goal is developed (e.g., taxes are not viewed as inherently good or bad, but merely a means to a particular end). He describes conservatism, on the other hand, as an ideologically driven philosophy that begins with a predetermined notion of what government should look like and only then tries to justify itself by discussing the likely results of certain policies (e.g., taxes are seen as inherently bad, and the consequences of cutting taxes are only a secondary concern). In this sense, he says liberals are much more willing to change their stances on particular policies, focusing instead on the ultimate goal, while for conservatives the policies are the ultimate goal.