Florida Physicians' Freedom to Practice Limited

It's amazing to me how selective conservatives are with "regulations" and "state interference"...besides the obvious issues of gay marriage and abortion, the issue of guns makes conservatives, well, confused about how involved government should be in restricting peoples' rights.

On the one hand, they'll complain that government should "stay out of" health care entirely. On the other hand, they'll ask the government to impose restrictions on physicians. Keep in mind that most of Florida (northern, western panhandle, central) is "lower Georgia" with all the attendant Southern GOP mentality.

Term limits

I'm not sure how I feel about Congressional term limits. At first the idea is immensely appealing: get rid of entrenched politicians who seem most liable to corruption and influence peddling. But can't we do that via the election process? The counterargument seems to be that some people are really good at representing our interests and we should be able to keep them if we want them.

And the hilarity is how Jim DeMint is the principal sponsor of the bill, limiting House Reps to 3 terms (6 years) and Senators to 2 terms (12 years).

...DeMint served in the House from 1999 - 2005 and he's been in the Senate ever since. Think he should step down if he really believed in his own "ideals"? Want to bet whether he will?

Conservatives heart porn

A new interesting study done on the correlation between political conservatism and porn:

• Benjamin Edelman --Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?. Journal of Economic Perspectives 23, no. 1 (winter 2009): 209-220.
• New Scientist summary
• Charles Blow NYT blog summary
  

Eight of the top ten per capita porn consuming states gave their votes to John McCain.

The reason this is funny (to me) is the fact that conservatives and their puritanical style of government are so ironic and hypocritical. When the Religious Right and Rush Limbaugh run your party, you know you have some issues. If the Democrats headlined a former gay porn star at their far-left conference, it wouldn't be nearly as funny as when Republicans do it at their CPAC conference, because of the RR influence.

When the RR has a conference, they choose only "non-porn offering hotels..." at first this sounds like a moral choice (to support businesses who are "more pure") but then you realize it's just so they can't control their urges to watch big manly bear porn. They also can't deal with the raw fact that gay sex is observed in the animal kingdom all the time, so they probably prefer hotels without the Discovery Channel too. Religion is like porn in many ways.

While many religious people will say that things like porn consumption make people "fall away" from the faith, it turns out that porn and faith seem to have no real impact on one another: Edelman found that a 1% increase in churchgoing in a postal zip code was correlated with a 0.1% drop in porn subscription purchases on Sunday...but that purchases through the rest of the week brought up those zip codes to the average (or above).

It turns out that abstinence until late adulthood contributes to sexual dysfunction. Perhaps it's because they spend too much time watching porn to practice the real thing and their expectations are all out of whack with reality ;)

Update on Grassley & ministers investigation

I was reading about additional craziness from John Hagee, and it reminded me of something that I'd written about a while back but forgotten about. First, the article on Hagee divulged much of what I already knew -- that he and his ilk want war with Iran, like, yesterday. Why is it that tying this guy and Parsley around McCain's neck isn't a toxic political millstone? The double standard applied to Rev. Wright and Obama is obvious here.

As I read about Hagee's lavish lifestyle and million-dollar salary, it reminded me of Sen. Grassley's investigation into financial impropriety in "prosperity" churches. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been leading an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee into the finances of six ministries commonly affiliated with "prosperity preaching" with the aim of updating the tax code to appropriately deal with this malfeasance. I admitted a little skepticism at the utility and motives of this investigation when I first read about it. At the time, I said:

I read this the other day and I'm still scratching my head. I mean, I dislike Benny "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" Hinn as much as anyone, and I think the whole lot of those six are probably as corrupt and unethical as it gets. However, I just don't understand the legal power that a Congressperson has to audit the finances of these people.

The IRS? Sure! But Congress...!?!? We'll wait and see if this goes anywhere.

It turns out that three of the six ministries are cooperating, and have until March 31st, according to this press release:

Baucus and Grassley lead the committee with exclusive Senate jurisdiction over tax policy; the ministry inquiry that Grassley launched last November is meant to gauge the effectiveness of certain tax-exempt policies.

“This ought to clear up any misunderstanding about our interest and the committee’s role,” Grassley said. “We have an obligation to oversee how the tax laws are working for both tax-exempt organizations and taxpayers. Just like with reviews of other tax-exempt organizations in recent years, I look forward to the cooperation of these ministries in the weeks and months ahead.”

Grassley wrote to six ministries on Nov. 5, 2007, asking a series of questions on the nonprofit organizations’ expenses, treatment of donations and business practices. The questions were based on presentations of material from watchdog groups and whistleblowers and on investigative reports in local media outlets. One of the six ministries – Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton, Mo. – has cooperated substantially with his request and provided the requested information. Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, has indicated a willingness to cooperate and provided answers to
five of the 28 questions so far.

Representatives for Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church/Paula White Ministries, Tampa, Fla., verbally have indicated to Finance Committee staff that they will cooperate. Baucus and Grassley wrote to them on March 11 to thank them for the verbal commitment and to reiterate the committee’s role.

The remaining three ministries have not cooperated, citing privacy protections or questioning the committee’s standing to request the information. Baucus and Grassley wrote to them on March 11 to describe the committee’s jurisdiction and role in determining the effectiveness of tax policy developed by the committee, distinct from the Internal Revenue Service’s role, which is to enforce existing law. The three ministries are: Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Newark, Texas; Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International / Creflo Dollar Ministries College Park, Ga.; and Eddie L. Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church/Eddie L. Long Ministries, Lithonia, Ga.

The committee’s jurisdiction includes the federal tax policy governing the billions of dollars donated to and controlled by the nation’s tax-exempt groups. The federal government forgoes the collection of billions of dollars to tax-exempt organizations every year.

It doesn't surprise me much about the Copelands or the Dollars. I don't know anything about Long, but I am quite familiar with Copeland and his reputation. I was pleasantly surprised about Hinn -- I figured him for one of those likeliest to resist, rather than cooperate. Randy and Paula White have faced enough personal problems recently with the divorce, so facing additional (scandalous) financial ones was probably a smart decision they made.

While you can read the pseudo-justifications for refusing to cooperate proffered by Creflo and Ken at their own sites, Eddie offers no such attempt at saving face. A little digging finds that some of these jokers are getting paid over $1M salaries. Fuc*ing absurd. Long's church has a gym inside ("Samson's Gym") that offers memberships and massages (all for a large fee, of course) -- the divisions between business and church blurred for these individuals long ago.

Cohen is a dumbass

Somebody get a professional to start writing for the papers again. Please.

Keep in mind that Cohen is slashing at Obama for being disingenuous, all the while he himself is wrong.

(re: Cohen's awful column)

Also:

John Edwards has that great line about the Democratic field being an “embarrassment of riches” and the GOP field just plain being an embarrassment.

I like it.

PS: I'm still a little worried about Obama sometimes, but I really like him on so many issues of ethics and reform, and I so very much want to end the dynasty-oligarchy Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton meme, that I'm willing to overlook some of his centrist nonsense. This stuff will definitely bring him in more Independents & GOPs, but he has to be careful.

Stunning Hypocrisy

You gotta read this. A Southern Baptist executive caught in an undercover sting for soliciting gay sex after preaching against it. More below:

Reminds me of the Bert Thompson affair, (see news article) a Ph.D. writer for the Apologetics Press anti-evolution ministry, who has written such real winners as "An Investigation of the Biblical Evidence Against Homosexuality" and “This is the Way God Made Me”—A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the “Gay Gene”, in a display of stunning hypocrisy, when he was himself fired (but apparently they don't mind publishing his articles still) after being caught in a web of deceipt involving young boys. He also spent about 10 pages of his book, "The Many Faces and Causes of Unbelief", discussing how hypocrisy plays a role in causing unbelief and is one of the most awful of sins that Jesus condemned.

More than a few forums mentioned this, including christianity.com, unforunately the article that Christianity.com sponsored has been removed. But the blogosphere has very little to say. However, the original source news article is still up. See the evowiki as well. It is quite obvious the whole thing has been kept quite "hush-hush". See this blog, or this blog, or this mixed bag of emotions in letters to the editor in response to the original news article, for more. Note, again, that the incredible hypocrisy extends to the Apologetics Press, as they keep those "anti-gay" articles posted on their website, with Thompson's name amazingly still attached to them.

Also reminds me of Roy Clements, and the way the Xian community that trumpeted him as one of the "most gifted Bible expositors of our time" now has totally turned the cold shoulder to him.

There was another really active "former homosexual" who became heavily involved in Christian evangelism specifically reaching out to gays. Turns out, after a few years on the touring circuit and endorsements by Falwell et al, the guy was living a double life, even though he spent almost every day of his life preaching against "the gay sin".

What these people are all missing is that God dislikes seafood (calls it an "abomination") as much as gays. [wink wink]

Mike Rogers (click at your own risk, as there are some racy ads in the sidebars) makes a living at ousting closeted Congressmen/women who vote conservative, anti-gay legislature into effect while leading a double life. Ed Schrock takes the cake as the politicial-closet queer-hypocrite-extraordinaire. Jim West, quasi-conservative who voted against gay rights, is yet another sad hypocrite.

I suppose all the hypocrisy bears witness to the fact that gays are still pretty afraid to live openly in society. That is sad. But I know many "out" persons, and so I think a lot of it has to do with your family and friends being religious/conservative -- how much more likely are you to hide your true self?

I can think of a parallel which is actually applicable to me -- I pretended to believe in god for a while although I no longer did. Atheists and agnostics are more prominent than polls would have you believe, and some of them probably stand behind pulpits every Sunday. You have to wonder how many ministers are also closeted gay or lesbian, working in a conservative church, considering these same points I've made. Hopefully a day will come when people can be who they are without fear, and without hypocrisy.
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Technorati tags: Fundamentalism, Hypocrisy