Dating services for anti-Choice Men.

Another day, another RWNJ politician in the US shares fond memories of ...

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, [...] who just received the Henry J. Hyde award for Americans United for Life for his career dating back to his days as a pro-life organizer at Trenton State College in 1972, [...] is also concerned that pro-abortion initiatives are being pushed in Obamacare and in U.S. overseas programs, something he would fight if he succeeds in his bid to become the next chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee next year. “To me the right to life is the most elemental right,” he said.

In receiving his Hyde award, Smith noted that even his wife is deeply involved in the anti-abortion movement, something that brought the two together at Trenton State. He said that when he helped create a pro-life caucus at the school, she joined in but rejected his requests for a date. So he made her treasurer of the group and eventually they became a couple.

*Seduction* tactics from the deeply paternalistic.

Who would have guessed that anti-choicers were limited to such a small breeding dating pool? And that they'd have to resort to bullying tactics to wear down women's resistance and to coerce them into marrying them?

Meanwhile, this study highlights how systemic sexism persists, particularly from men whose views are reinforced by their own traditional marriages.

Mr and Mrs Stephen Fry

About a third of the accounts I follow on Twitter are humorous, witty or snarky.

Many are parodies, either spoofing an actual personnage - usually political - or they're a charming and totally bogus creation.

Take Mrs Stephen Fry for example - please!

Edna has just launched the most divinely outré anecdotal exposé of her life with Stephen. Here's a sample taste:

Wedding anniversaries can be difficult occasions. To celebrate one properly can take weeks of preparation and years of being married to someone.

Of course, even the most meticulous preparation can’t guarantee that everything will run smoothly. One tiny thing can still ruin the occasion – generally the husband. Even my own marriage, perfect though it is, has suffered the occasional hiccup.

One year, I decided to give Stephen a big anniversary surprise. I constructed a huge cake, reminiscent of the one we had for our wedding - only this time it would contain me and not a stripper. It was a monumental creation, standing fully six feet high. It took weeks to make, using eight metres of marzipan, twelve bowls of icing, plus a fair bit of cardboard and several steel joists (more than I usually use when baking a cake, at any rate). Despite its great size I managed to conceal it from Stephen by hiding it somewhere I knew he would never look – the kitchen.

Finally, on the day of our anniversary, after sending Stephen to the corner shop for a pint of milk, I wheeled it out into the living room and carefully climbed inside, ready to leap out and surprise him when he returned. As an extra romantic touch I had also put on my wedding dress (which, I’m proud to say, still fits perfectly – partly due to my having been eight months pregnant with Stephen Junior at the time). And so, with all the preparations in place, I crouched down in the dark, breathing as quietly as I could and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Anyone who has ever been married to a man will recognize herself in some of the moments Mrs Stephen Fry describes.

Like a horse and carriage - with dog (update)

We demonstrated there's little, if any, solidarity among the Lakritzes, the Kays, the Blatchies, the Somervilles except for their common delight of piling on feminism and feminists.

I thought Blob Blogging Wingnut would run to the defense of Sara "My Choice, My Childcare" Landriault.

But then Sara may have been well rewarded for providing the media with a shiny new distraction and thus moving the spotlight away from the Cons' cancellation of the long-form census questionnaire and the violence against peaceful protesters at the G-20.

There's some MASSIVE whining at Blob Blogging Wingnut's place where info from other blogs and news items can be spun to suit HER zygote-zealot-shrieking and Vatican-Taliban-fluffing agenda. SHE tossed off a homophobic screed that concluded with a favourite religious fundamentalist rightwing aphorism: Marriage protects women.

Like the catholic church protects girls and boys from pedophile priests, SUZY CAPS-ON?

Won't someone think of the children?

And why do anti-feminists hate women?

Update: This news item brought to our attention by TWFDS, is likely to cause jubilation for Pope Maledict. Using Stockboy Day's sampling and census-taking techniques, the Vatican Taliban can now declare a church that ordains women goes to the dogs.

BTW, Erika Ritter has produced a well-researched book on the woven mythologies of humans, dogs and religious institutions - The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath.

No Wonder Gays Want to Marry

The issue of equal marriage and I first met in the early 80s. I had a brief but mad crush on a guy in one of my classes who, natch, turned out to be gay. We became best friends though and still are.

Soon after he outed himself to me, he outed himself to the world and got involved in gay activism.

Early 80s. 'Gay plague'. They didn't even know what it was yet.

Several of my pal's friends and acquaintances got sick. And died.

And some died alone. Or surrounded by family members they hadn't spoken to in decades. Some had end-of-life and funeral arrangements made by loathed and loathing relatives.

Because, you see, when you are very sick, hospitals will allow only 'family members' in to see you. And a partner, no matter of how long standing, is not technically 'family' unless you've got that piece of paper saying your union has been sanctioned by the state.

And since then -- as now -- there are vicious homophobes in all walks of life, some sick people and their partners were subjected to smirking cruelty by hospital staff who took this delightful opportunity to bash a gay one more time and exclude his partner from his death bed.

Further cruelties were on offer in all subsequent legalities: funerals, wills, child custody, adoption. (Though not many of my pal's young friends had children.)

So, when my sweetie got bad heart news a few years ago, then more bad heart news a little later, all this came back to me.

We weren't married. And we didn't live together, so did not technically qualify as common-law partners.

Medicine has changed a lot since the 80s. It's much less formal now. When I go with sweetie to an appointment, I'm waved into the consultation room too as a matter of course. They assume we're partners or don't care.

But still, we had no legal connection to each other. So we started talking about getting hitched. In 2006, telling nobody beforehand except for the two friends we brought as witnesses, we slunk off to City Hall and did the deed. (Man, was his mother pissed! But then, she was the main reason we eloped, so she couldn't make a big damn deal out of a wedding.)

In my research into the pro's and con's of marriage, I had run into some details to do with money, taxes, pensions, and whatnot. None of this interested or affected either of us much. It seemed that the only change was that now we have to put the other's first name, SIN, and net (?) income on our tax returns.

I do my own taxes, but sweetie uses an accountant. A couple of times, the accountant has transferred to me charitable donations sweetie made and I've saved a few bucks, which of course I use to take us out to dinner.

Sweetie just phoned. He's at the accountant's who has had a fast look at the paperwork. Sweetie had a bad year financially last year. Me, about the same as usual.

Upshot: I get to claim him as some kind of dependent and get a WHACK of dough back.

Marriage -- Come for the sickness and death privileges. Stay for the financial benefits.

Sex + Donuts = Weird

What is it with donuts?

There were pro-abortion donuts.

Now, there are anti-gay donuts.

Timmy's corporate office reined the idiots in Rhode Island in.

Wedding is off.

Few may be surprised by this turn of events, but it appears as though the Bristol Palin / Levi Johnston engagement is over.

Mercede Johnston claims the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska's governor dumped her brother, Levi, an out-of-work high school drop out. The sister claims Bristol Palin, who took her beau to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., has made it tough for her brother to spend time with his 2-month-old son, Tripp.

"Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible," ... "She [Bristol] tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't him around 'white trash'!" she said.

In December, Levi Johnston's mother, Sherry, was arrested in an undercover drug sting and charged with six felonies involving the pain killer oxycontin.

It always seemed to me that the announcement of their plans to marry, which coincided with the news shortly after Sarah Palin was named McCain's running mate that her daughter was pregnant and unwed, was merely a tactic to silence critics.

If those teenagers had been madly in love and wanting to spend the rest of their lives together, the wedding would have been scheduled to take place before the birth of Palin's grandchild, preferably during the presidential election campaign to take advantage of MASSIVE media coverage.

In fact, it reflects well on Sarah that she didn't pressure the young couple to tie the knot ASAP and let them wait it out to see if their marriage would actually happen.