Showing posts with label george takei. Show all posts
Showing posts with label george takei. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Indiana Doesn't Want You ~ State Faces Business Backlash to Bigotry Law

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Previous Related Post:
Indiana Gov. Pence Signs Law Permitting Gay Discrimination

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Governor Pence of Indiana continues to muddle along inside his Bigoted Bubble, defending the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which he signed into law last week. And the mockery continues on Twitter and really everywhere, with Saturday Night Live mentioning the state during Weekend Update, and another group creating a faux Tourism video promising that Bigots are always welcome in Indiana.













After promising to "clarify" the law in order to stop a nationwide boycott, Pence immediately rolled that back on a Sunday talk show.



From ABC News
Pence described the media coverage and opposition to the law as "shameless rhetoric," saying it strengthens the foundation of First Amendment rights rather than discriminates.
“We're not going to change the law," he said, "but if the general assembly in Indiana sends me a bill that adds a section that reiterates and amplifies and clarifies what the law really is and what it has been for the last 20 years, than I'm open to that."
When ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Pence if the law allowed businesses like florists to refuse to work with gay or lesbian weddings, as critics have said, the governor said the situation has more to do with whether the government is involved.

Actually, during the interview Stephanopoulos asked Pence at least 6 times to answer yes or no if the law allowed discrimination against the LGBT community by business owners, and the governor either didn't answer or waffled, avoiding the fact that the Indiana law provides no protection for gay citizens. See transcript further down the page here.

The mumbling answers amused members of the Indiana press who cover the statehouse there.











From the ABC Transcript:


STEPHANOPOULOS: But I think one of the problems that people have pointed out is that in Indiana, your civil rights laws don't include sexual orientation as a protected class. And even some of the supporters of the bill who were -- who appeared with you when you signed the bill, Eric Miller of Advanced America wrote that, "It will protect those who oppose gay marriage."

He put up this example. He said, "Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage."

(1) So this is a yes or no question.

Is Advance America right when they say a florist in Indiana can now refuse to serve a gay couple without fear of punishment?

 PENCE: Well, let -- let me explain to you, the purpose of this bill is to empower and has been for more than 20 years, George. This is not speculative. The purpose of this legislation, which is the law in all 50 states in our federal courts and it's the law by either statute or court decisions in some 30 other states, is very simply to empower individual when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion.

And, frankly, George, there's a lot of people across this country who -- you're looking at ObamaCare and the Hobby Lobby decision, looking at other cases, who feel that their religious liberty is being infringed upon and -- and The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at the federal level and all the states now, including Indiana, who have it, are simply about addressing that.

This is not about discrimination, this is about...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But...

STEPHANOPOULOS: ...
(2) And so yes or no, if a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?

PENCE: George, this is -- this is where this debate has gone, with -- with misinformation and frankly...

 STEPHANOPOULOS: It's just a question, sir. Question, sir.

 (3) Yes or no?

PENCE: Well -- well, this -- there's been shameless rhetoric about my state and about this law and about its intention all over the Internet. People are trying to make it about one particular issue. And now you're doing that, as well.

The issue here -- The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been on the books for more than 20 years. It does not apply, George, to disputes between individuals unless government action is involved. And in point of fact, in more than two decades, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has never been used to undermine anti-discrimination laws in this country.


STEPHANOPOULOS: . . . (4) Is that true or not?

 PENCE: George, look, the issue here is, you know, is tolerance a two way street or not?

I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about tolerance in this country today having to do with people on the left. And a -- but here Indiana steps forward to protect the constitutional rights and privileges of freedom of religion for people of faith and families of faith in our state and this avalanche of intolerance that's been poured on our state is just outrageous.
You've been to Indiana a bunch of times. You know it. There are no kinder, more generous, more welcoming, more hospitable people in America than in the 92 counties of Indiana.

And yet because we simply stepped forward for the purpose of recognizing the religious liberty rights of all the people of Indiana, of every faith, we at -- we have suffered under this avalanche for the last several days of condemnation and it's completely baseless.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor -- Governor, I...

PENCE: It's not based in any...

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- I completely...

PENCE: -- fact whatsoever.

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- I completely agree with you about the good people...

PENCE: And I think people...

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- (INAUDIBLE).

PENCE: -- are getting tired of it, George. I really do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Perhaps...

PENCE: Tolerance is a two way street.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So when you say tolerance is a two way street, does that mean that Christians who want to refuse service or people of any other faith who want to refuse service to gays and lesbians, that it's now legal in the state of Indiana?

(5) That's the simple yes or no question.

 PENCE: George, the -- the question here is if the -- if there is a government action or a law that an individual believes impinges on their religious liberty, they have the opportunity to go to court, just as The Religious Freedom Restoration Act that Bill Clinton signed allowed them, go to court and the court would evaluate the circumstance under the standards articulated in this Act.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm trying to get that same clarity. And it sounds to me like what you're saying is that someone could use their religious faith as a defense against any kind of a suit brought there.

But let's try to get to that clarification you're talking about.

(6) One fix that people have talked about is simply adding sexual orientation as a protected class under the state's civil rights laws.
Will you push for that?

 PENCE: I will not push for that. That's a -- that's not on my agenda and that's not been the -- that's not been an objective of the people of the state of Indiana. And it doesn't have anything to do with this law.











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Friday, March 27, 2015

Indiana Gov. Pence Signs Law Permitting Gay Discrimination

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Governor Pence, R-Indiana, has signed RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a bill into law that allows so-called "religious" business owners to discriminate against gay people in the name of Free-Dumb. This is causing an uproar, with widespread calls on Twitter to #BoycottIndiana. And how can this be legal anyway? Let the lawsuits begin!

From the Indy Star
"This bill is not about discrimination," Pence said, "and if I thought it legalized discrimination I would have vetoed it."
Senate Bill 101 prohibits state or local governments from substantially burdening a person's ability to exercise their religion — unless the government can show that it has a compelling interest and that the action is the least-restrictive means of achieving it. It takes effect July 1.
Although the bill does not mention sexual orientation, opponents fear it could allow business owners to deny services to gays and lesbians for religious reasons.
Pence signed the bill during a private ceremony in his Statehouse office just before 10 a.m. Thursday. He was joined by supportive lawmakers, Franciscan monks and nuns, orthodox Jews, and some of the state's most powerful lobbyists on conservative social issues.
The event was closed to the public and the press.

Many celebrities and politicians immediately slammed the law:

From George Takei on Facebook
I am outraged that Gov. Pence would sign such a divisive measure into law. He has made it clear that LGBT couples, like Brad and me, are now unwelcome in his state. The notion that this bill was not driven by animus against our community is belied by the record and frankly insulting. I will join many in demanding that socially responsible companies withdraw their business, conferences and support from his state and that LGBTs and our friends and supporters refuse to visit or do business with Indiana. It is a sad day for the Hoosier state, and indeed for the many good people of Indiana, for whom this law now stands as a terrible blight upon that state's reputation.



















Business and Sports owners are also considering a boycott of Indiana:

From the CEO of Apple:



From Fortune Magazine
Mark Benioff, CEO of cloud computing company Salesforce, told Re/code that his company is reconsidering the investments it’s made in Indiana.
“We’re a major source of income and revenue to the state of Indiana, but we simply cannot support this kind of legislation,” said Benioff. He added that Salesforce has already canceled all programs requiring customers or employees to travel to Indiana.


From Think Progress
. . . the NCAA took a strong stance against the law in a statement from president Mark Emmert.
With the men’s college basketball Final Four coming to Indianapolis next weekend, Emmert said he was “especially concerned” about the impact the law might have.
“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in the statement. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees. We will work diligently to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending, next week’s Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill.”
The NCAA, based in Indianapolis, had already faced calls from organizations like Freedom To Marry to condemn the law. Jason Collins, the NBA’s first openly gay player, had already tweeted at Pence earlier this week about the law. An openly gay college rowing coach wrote at OutSports that it should immediately move the men’s Final Four somewhere else.

ESPN's Keith Olbermann urged all sports teams to boycott the state:







Charles Barkley:



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Saturday, August 9, 2014

Stacey "Don't Say Gay" Campfield Voted Out in Tennessee

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Previous Related Posts:
GOP has Crazy Time Over Boston Bombing
Why the dickens does Stacey Campfield Want Tennessee Kids to Play Hunger Games? ~ UPDATE 2: Calls Child a "Prop" - UPDATE 3: Bill Withdrawn!
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God Bless Knox County, Tennessee. They got rid of crazy state senator Stacey Campfield on Thursday in the Republican Primary.

Campfield had several famous snafus over the years that have drawn national attention, mainly because he is really really profoundly stupid.

He wanted to pass a "Don't Say Gay" law for the schools, and toss teachers into jail if they ever mentioned the subject. Plus, he went on the record with his views about AIDS being a disease for people who "have sex with monkeys" and never for heterosexuals. *facepalm*

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Actor George Takei pushed back with "Just Say Takei" Plan

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Then he wanted to tie foodstamps and welfare for families to the grades their children were making in schools. Yeah, because kids having trouble with school shouldn't be able to eat, and neither should their parents and siblings. Are there no workhouses?

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When he came across some little children and their mothers protesting his ideas in the hallways of the Statehouse, he mocked them by saying their parents were using them as "Props." That also made the national news. The Moms were not amused, to say the least. I bet they would love to see Campfield's report cards!

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Campfield also posted what he thought was a humorous picture of a weaponized pressure cooker after the Boston Bombing. He was apparently trying (and failing) to say that it's as useless to ban assault rifles as it is to ban pressure cookers, or something like that - except that most pressure cookers are not weaponized, and people were either dead or in the hospital! He later removed the blog post after uproar ensued. Then he tried to gloss over it with an equally asinine statement about the Sandy Hook Massacre, which he also later moved, but I made a copy of it. Total genius at making a jerk of himself in the most insensitive way possible.

"Here Comes Feinstein Again"

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Inappropriate? Me? Never!
I Just got a call from the media saying they had gotten a few calls (about a blog post I did) saying it was inappropriate after the Boston bombing.
Really?
If my post was inappropriate talking about "crock pot control" then where is the outrage from the left when they push for gun control after the Sandy Hook shooting? Im sorry if I exposed your double standard....
Well, not really.
~ Tenn. State Sen. Campfield responding to media questions about why he posted a tasteless picture of a pressure cooker on his previous blog post

During the election campaign, there was a parody play showing in Knoxville called "Stampfield," making fun of Campfield's positions:



From the Tennessean
Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, who has made national headlines for backing controversial bills and making statements lampooned by late-night comedians, lost his bid for a second Senate term decisively Thursday.
Campfield, a mainstay at the legislature since being elected to the House in 2004, finished with 5,824 votes, just 28 percent of the overall vote, compared to 13,977 votes, 67 percent, for Richard Briggs, a Knox County commissioner.
He was still being an offensive moron even this year:

From The Knoxville Sentinal
Most recently, Campfield made national news when he compared the federal health care law to the forced transportation of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust in a blog post.

"Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign-ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of mandatory sign-ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s," he wrote. The misspelling of "mandatory" appeared in the original text.

Campfield's remark drew swift condemnation and demands for apology from both Democratic and Republican leaders in the state - including the governor.

"Words matter, and to make the comparison to the Holocaust is wrong, inappropriate and insensitive," said Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, a former Knoxville mayor.
Always charming!

After he lost the election, Campfield didn't make a formal statement, but merely put the Frank Sinatra song "My Way" on his blog. By Saturday morning, the video had been taken down due to copyright. Seems like a fitting end - he didn't get his way after all.

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Saturday, January 5, 2013

Pinhead Fail: Bill O'Reilly Explains Asians

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Explaining Psy and Gangnam Style:

Transcript via Lybio.net

Bill O’Reilly: The pony, that’s what he is doing, and he’s jumping up and down and 800 million views is this? What’s going on?

Dr. Keith Ablow: . . . when you approach a billion views on YouTube and surpassed Justin Bieber, perhaps, you’re tapping into something, and I think what this fellow is tapping into is in fact this PSY, he is tapping into the fact that people don’t want any meaning right now, music, the most popular music apparently is that without intelligible words to some extent that simply conveys you to a distant place beat wise, doesn’t try to convince you of anything; that doesn’t try to raise your emotions, it just is sort of like a drug . . .

Bill O’Reilly: Yeah, but but well, wait, wait, wait wait – Elvis Presley could sing, he had a good voice.
Dr. Keith Ablow: Yes.
Bill O’Reilly:His songs had words: Are you lonesome tonight. Okay, all right.
Dr. Keith Ablow:Yes.
Bill O’Reilly: He put on a show, this is a little fat guy from Yongyang or some place the old…
Dr. Keith Ablow: Wearing sunglasses.
Bill O’Reilly: Whatever and he is jumping up and down, there’s no comparison between PSY and you know, they’re are like 16 guys named PSY on Long Island that I can tell you about these, don’t look like him, all right, so there’s no, and the phenomenon I mean you can understand Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, even Justin Bieber I got all that, all right, but this is something more, but I think you may be on to something because this is internet driven and it looks to me like the internet is just a place where people want some kind of numb, they want to numb themselves to some degree.



Until this moment, I didn’t realize “being in Korean” was the same thing as being “without intelligible words.”
~ Entertainment Weekly Popwatch

O’Reilly and Dr. Ablow go on to repeatedly refer to the song as having no intelligible words. Now, remember, we can’t take anything O’Reilly says seriously, but it is hard not to when the comment is so blatantly ignorant of other cultures and countries. The song does have intelligible words–they just aren’t in English. The words are perfectly understandable to people who speak Korean; like PSY, for example.
To continue the racism cultural insensitivity, O’Reilly seems confused about where PSY is from. This is up for debate, because some people think he said Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, and some people think he simply said something racially insensitive such as YingYang. Either way, that isn’t where PSY is from (he’s actually from Gangnam District, Seoul) and calling him fat and making generalizations about his place of origin is unacceptable.
~ Seoulbeats

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On Why Asian Americans in Hawaii Voted for Obama:

Transcript Via Media Matters
BILL O'REILLY (host): Now I have to say, Hawaii is one of my favorite places in the world. It's beautiful.
JESSE WATTERS (Fox News producer): Yeah, it's beautiful.
O'REILLY: But when I'm there I'm under water. I'm not talking to pinheads. But the state is in enormous debt.
WATTERS: They are.
O'REILLY: Alright. They've got a lot of social problems. When you says it's the biggest homeless thing, it's because of the addiction.
WATTERS: Right.
O'REILLY: The addiction is rampant, all over the place, because they don't enforce the drug laws.
WATTERS: No.


O'REILLY: And, you know, I think the one person who said, Look, this is a place where people come to to escape. This is, you know, generally speaking. But you know what's shocking? 35 percent of the Hawaiian population is Asian, and Asian people are not liberal, you know, by nature. They're usually more industrious and hard-working.

WATTERS: But they did vote for President Obama --
O'REILLY: Big time.
WATTERS: -- and if you add the indigenous native Hawaiian population --
O'REILLY: About 20 percent.
WATTERS: -- to the Hispanic population, they outnumber whites by more than two to one.

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Leave it to Bill O'Reilly to thoughtlessly insult 1.3 million people with one sweeping misstatement.
. . . I think O'Reilly's attempt to characterize Hawaii's Asian-American population is most insulting of all. Claiming that Asian-Americans are not liberal by nature because they are ‘hard working and industrious' is the kind of one dimensional and paternalistic attitude that we should have gotten past decades ago.
. . . Bill O'Reilly owes Hawaii and all Asian-Americans an apology. And the next time he visits our state, I encourage him to spend more time getting to know real people, and less time sitting next to the pool and grousing about what he thinks is going on ‘out there.'
~ Response from Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, via KHNL

Bill O'Reilly is absolutely clueless, but he pontificates.
. . . We vote for liberals because we ARE liberal.
~ Distinguished actor George Takei on MSNBC's The Ed Show

Apparently Hawaiian voters all look the same to Bill O'Reilly.
~ Ryan Grenoble on Huff Post

In a shocking turn of events the majority of Asian Americans in the United States do not vote for The Neo-Confederacy, but have instead voted for Democrats.
~ comment by AnyM on Huff Post

Stick to making statements about people you really have an affinity for Bill, old, rich, and conservative white guys. You are on a bullet train to extinction.
~ comment by Cantab in Nashville on Huff Post

I guess O'Reilly gets his data on Hawai'ian drug addiction from Dog the Bounty Hunter. NO ICE IN PARADISE, YO!
~ comment by Pres.Beeblebrox on Wonkette

What is it about Opium dens that make those would-be conservative, slant-eyed, Asian bastards vote for Democrats?
~ comment by Serolf_Divid on Wonkette

I can see BillO at the beach in Hawaii, thinking "The tide goes in, the tide goes out, how does that work?".
~ comment by Ancient_Hacker on Wonkette

Asian people tend to respect education and self-discipline, which is why they aren't conservative in the weird US sense of the word.
~ comment by Kadzimiel on Media Matters

This is the GOP trying to reach out to the Asian American community.
~ comment by MikeyA on Media Matters

Now, Bill a joke - Q: How do you get an Irishman on the roof? A: Tell him drinks are on the house. Ahh, ha, ha, ha. Are you laughing, Bill. That was funny. Oh, was I blindly stereotyping Irishmen? :)
~ comment by EV on Media Matters

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