Shrieeekkk! Religious groups denied standing for court challenge.

Fundamentalist christian neocon groups persevere in their belief that they have the right to butt in whenever they want in order to expound their own brand of gynophobic ideology. But they're wrong to assume that their religious rightwing arguments should be allowed to run roughshod wherever they want to stick their oar.

An Ontario judge has turned down a request from two religious groups and a conservative women's group to take part in a constitutional challenge of the country's prostitution laws.

Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of the Ontario Superior Court said that the groups would be liable to turn the trial into a soapbox for spiritual views, which would be out of place in a strictly legal proceeding. Judge Matlow said that the groups struck him as being unaware that the challenge "does not provide a political platform where interested persons are permitted to speak in order to advance their personal views, beliefs, policies and interests at large."

The ruling came as a blow to the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada and Catholic Civil Rights League ...

CUPE has produced a thoughtful and respectful background paper on the labour rights of sex workers.

The first step is decriminalization; the activists who launched the legal challenge want to strike down the laws that prohibit sollicitation, in essence any form of communication

... for the purposes of prostitution, living off the avails of prostitution and keeping a common bawdy house. The challenge will focus on whether prostitution laws violate a constitutional guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person by exposing sex workers to danger.

From the CUPE document:

This is why sex workers’ rights advocates call for the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work. Decriminalization means the repeal and/or the reform of laws that differentiate sex workers from other workers and that regulate the sex lives of consenting adults.

Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. Legalization means the creation of a new set of laws regulating how sex workers live and work. In legalized systems, some workers are issued licenses that permit them to work and the police mandate is “prostitution control.” Laws enforced by the police and social service agencies that prescribe health checks and the registration of health status, and determine where sex workers can and cannot live and work, violate sex workers’ Charter and labour rights and should be opposed.

The comments that follow the G&M article offer the usual range of rational observations, relevant information and moralizing rightwing crotch-sniffing busy-body opinion.

The Lavender Menace

Stonewall was a moment charnière in the gay liberation movement as Montreal Simon and Slap Upside The Head wrote last month.

For lesbians, a different type of watershed moment took place for the US women's liberation movement when Betty Friedan was quoted about

... the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement. Friedan, and some other straight feminists as well, worried that the association would hamstring feminists' ability to achieve serious political change, and that stereotypes of "mannish" and "man-hating" lesbians would provide an easy way to dismiss the movement. Under her direction, NOW attempted to distance itself from lesbian causes – up to omitting the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis from the list of sponsors of the First Congress to Unite Women in November 1969.

Friedan's remarks and the decision to drop DOB from the sponsor list led lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown to angrily resign her administrative job at NOW in February 1970. On March 15 1970, straight radical feminist Susan Brownmiller quoted Friedan's remarks about the "lavender menace" and dismissed her worries as "A lavender herring, perhaps, but no clear and present danger" in a New York Times Magazine article.

While those events are long past, there are christian fundamentalist haters who still fan the flames of gynophobia with regard to lesbians. For example, this blogger with impeccable hater connections to a number of religious rightwing political astro-turfing organizations, is an unabashed cheer-leader for the testerical actions of Marshall G. Abbott, aka "Deputy Sheriff Pepper".

Blob Blogging Wingnut: Shut up, Roeder. Just shut up.

LuLu at Canadian Cynic: What’s the big deal?

Shrieeekkk! Blob Blogger Wingnut is accusing mainstream media such as the Associated Press, of covering the minutiae of Scott Roeder's lonely life behind bars in order to attack the pro-lies, abortion criminalizing, The Fetus©™ fetishizing movement.

This is what got HERSELF's knickers all in a knot.

DAMMIT JANET! encourages Scott Roeder to blab as much as he likes and wants to. Especially to the press.

Yes, Thompson would have loved this

A very funny piece from Paul Begala, titled 'Sarah Palin Turns Pro'.

I wish Hunter S. Thompson had lived to see this.

As Hunter said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Sarah Palin makes Mark Foley, the congressman who sent filthy emails to pages look almost normal. She makes David Vitter, the senator who was hanging out with hookers, look almost boring. She makes Larry Craig, caught hitting on a cop in a men's room, look almost stable. She makes John Ensign, the senator who was having an affair with a staffer, look almost humdrum (and compared to the rest of the GOP whack-jobs, he is). And she makes Mark Sanford, the governor with the Latin lover, look positively predictable.

It was an almost impossible mission, but in resigning from office with 17 months to go in her first term, Sarah Palin has made herself the bull goose loony of the GOP.

It continues in like manner.

Wimmins, they are so unpredictable

This is gonna be so much fun.

By-bye Governor - Hell-o Runner.

The US media are buzzing about the anticipated confirmed announcement by Sarah Palin that she won't seek re-election for a second term as governor of Alaska - in order to concentrate on her run at the nomination for presidential candidate for the Republican Party? Some in Alaska will be happy to see her and her micro-management strategies leave. For example, some might hold her accountable for the loss of two dedicated public servants in the state department of Health and Social Services: Director Beverley Wooley and the state's chief medical officer, Jay Butler.

Wooley said her office did get direct criticism from the governor's office regarding the wording of a press release on teen pregnancy. The governor didn't like a quote from one of Wooley's staff so the quote was removed.

Wooley said she never had a policy discussion with Palin on any health topic, and they never met one-on-one. ... [She] says she was forced out of office because Gov. Sarah Palin felt she wasn't in step on social issues. ...

The division has about 550 employees and a budget of $100 million. It includes nurses and epidemiologists, health facility inspectors and keepers of birth and death records. Its staff members run health laboratories and try to prevent diseases like HIV and diabetes. The key source of tension was legislation that would have required girls under age 17 to get parental consent for an abortion, Wooley said Thursday. ...

Wooley said she also intended to answer questions from legislators and said she would rely on data, not anyone's personal beliefs. Whether she personally agreed with the governor is beside the point, Wooley said.

She intended to refer to studies from states that already had passed similar legislation, she said. Some of the research shows that, with parental involvement requirements, girls tend to get abortions later in their pregnancy, which is riskier and more expensive, she said. Other research shows fewer girls get abortions, which abortion foes like Palin likely would applaud. Wooley cautioned that the studies are small and not definitive because such laws are still fairly new.

"You let those facts speak for themselves. And truly, people will interpret those facts differently based on their own personal history and experience," Wooley said.

This interview in Runner's World with Palin is informative, with regard to her running style.

Update: Palin has resigned from her office, effective July 26.

Added by fern hill: AKMudflats is burning up. Just now, there were 205 comments, but subsequent pages wouldn't open. I'm going to check back later.