CNN, 27 Jun 2022: Supreme Court further erodes separation between church and state in case of praying football coach
No surprise here; the current SCOTUS has been consistently favoring religious interests in every possible circumstance. At least Christian ones! Plus, Robert Reich, and what Thomas Jefferson thought about Constitutional originalism.
How the Supreme Court decision about Roe v Wade suggests that no laws can be made about anything that was not recognized as an issue two or three centuries ago. The US is forever anchored to past standards, it seems. It cannot learn.
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As I’ve observed before, conservatives, especially the Christian ones, seem to be about constraining rights (for others) and expanding rights (for themselves), while liberals are about expanding rights for everyone to the extent they don’t conflict with each other. Why are conservatives so intent on running other peoples’ lives?
The better question might be, why are so many conservative states so anxious to pass laws that restrict the freedoms of many of their citizens? Are that they addled with religious superstition? With magical thinking about the “personhood” of a just-fertilized embryo?
Why do they not care that these laws they’re passing are restricting the religious rights of *others*? Isn’t this religious dictatorship by Christians?
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Another quick post. Ed Yong, the science writer, has a new book out today — in fact my copy is running late, and will be delivered tomorrow — called An Immense World — about how animals perceive the world much differently than do humans. This relates to one of my favorite themes — how what humans intuitively perceive as “real” is actually a small part of reality.
Two links: an interview at Slate; an essay in NYT. Will cover these in detail shortly.
We did a walk yesterday along a path by the Port of Oakland, along the backside of all those huge gantries that are seen from all across the bay, but especially from the Bay Bridge. (Expand the pic, and you can see “Port of Oakland” on the gantry.)
Brief post, since I’m working hard on expanding and refining my Rocketdyne essay. Need to get it done.
NYT, Pamela Paul, 21 June 2022: She Wrote a Dystopian Novel. What Happened Next Was Pretty Dystopian.
Here’s an article that makes good points about the changing demographics of gays and lesbians and transgenders, but for me misses the key reason that the “born this way” argument is irrelevant.
Salon, Julia Serano, 17 Jun 2022: It’s time to rethink “born this way,” a phrase that’s been key to LGBTQ acceptance
