No Letters from a Kentucky Jail for Kim Davis

U.S. District Judge David Bunning has proven to be a master of situational control when dealing with the case of Rowan County Clerk (Who Doesn't Understand Her Job) Kim Davis.

Ms. Davis, who was jailed on contempt charges after refusing to do her job and issue marriage licenses to couple of both different and the same sex, was released from jail by Judge Bunning just mere hours before two of the dumber members of the GOP Candidate Clown Car were supposed to visit her while behind bars

This was after Judge Bunning jailed Kim Davis as opposed to fining her daily, so right-wing activists who are threatened by the mere concept of same-sex couples couldn't donate money to pay her fines. At every turn thus far, Davis has been denied her very obvious wish to be some kind of ersatz martyr, suffering for all of us so that we might be spared the idea of two men or two women having a loving, committed relationship sanctioned by the State.

Oh, the horror.

This will likely go on for a while. Because if it isn't Davis pulling this BS, it's a low-level judge in Tennessee refusing to sanction divorces in some muddled protest against same-sex marriage (or as I like to call it...marriage). Stupid is as stupid does, and this country has plenty of stupid to get out of its system.

But the bottom line is that same-sex marriages are legal and people like Davis need to get that through their thick heads. While they're at it, they should also stop using religion as cover for their bigotry. Jesus had this to say about same-sex marriage:

" ... "

Oh yeah. Nothing. But when it came to His Commandment for all of us?

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

Oh yeah! We're supposed to treat each other with love and as equals. As opposed to, say, substituting our bigotry for the law.

If you personally don't like same-sex marriage or certain people or S'mores or 65 Ford Mustangs, I don't give a damn. That's your baggage that you have to handle. But you don't get to impose that crap on other people and then claim "religious freedom" as your excuse for it. Especially when you are a government official and beholden to enforce the law.

Keep your idiocy to yourself.

Why am I Subsidizing Boner Pills?

In the wake of five men on the Supreme Court deciding that corporations, provided they are "closely held", can have religious preferences, the scene is set for some bad things to happen.

First bad thing: this is another "one-off" decision by the conservative wing of the Supreme Court to get a result that following precedent would have denied them. Just like Bush v. Gore, it is an on-the-fly decision tailored to get the result they want. The Hobby Lobby case will not apply to all corporations, and (according to the judges) not even all health care options. Just 16 different kinds of contraception for women who happen to work for "closely-held" corporations.

And yes, it's all of them. One of the arguments after the decision was that the ruling only applied to the four kinds of contraception that Hobby Lobby supporters called "abortifacents". Their use of the term, unlike actual science, is more of a pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo catch-all word wrapped up in the Shroud of Turin. It has less to do with worrying about an egg smaller than the point of a needle and more about their need to go all Helen Lovejoy:



Yes, won't somebody think of the children? Because with decisions like this, our children are going to grow up in a very fucked up society.

Second bad thing: "Closely-held" corporations are a lot more prevalent than you think. According to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, up to 90% of American companies qualify as "closely-held".

The Internal Revenue Service defines a closely held company as a corporation that has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock directly or indirectly owned by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year. It also cannot be a personal-service corporation.

Massive corporations like Mars Inc. and Cargill Inc. actually qualify as "closely-held" companies. Those two companies alone employ over 200,000 people.

Now, will all these companies follow Hobby Lobby and discriminate against women and their health-care choices? Likely not. Least of which because it makes your company look ignorant, backwards and ridiculous.

But now there is a legal stamp of approval to do something like this. It creates a constant sense of concern for women because now they could lose a part of their health care.

Third bad thing: There is no guarantee this stops here. Remember the first bad thing about conservative court members trying to limit this religious exemption? There is no guarantee that will happen. Justice Ginsberg, in a stinging dissent, made it clear that the Court had entered some very dangerous territory.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

"The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

And it has. Now that the Court established that a corporation can have religious beliefs, trying to tell a closely-held corporation run by Jehovah's Witnesses that they have to cover transfusions is going to be a rough sell. And in the end, I don't see how the Court could make them do it because of the Establishment Clause.

In short, because Alito, Scalia and the other three are scared of vaginas, we're going to have a Constitutional crisis sometime in the next 10 years or so over this topic. Thanks a lot, guys.

But really, I just want to know one thing...

Why am I subsidizing boner pills?