Posts Tagged ‘transgenderism’

As Michigan’s “pronouns” bill advances, free speech is threatened

Posted: July 9, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

“Most times you can’t hear ’em talk, other times you can
 All the same old clichés, is it woman, is it man?
 And you always seem outnumbered, so you don’t dare make a stand.”
 Bob Seger, “Turn the Page.” 

Those lyrics, from legendary Michigan rocker Bob Seger, may turn out to be prescient, because the Michigan House of Representatives, which has a Democrat majority, passed a bill in June that, among other things, will impose a hefty fine or imprisonment, if a person maliciously refuses to use another person’s preferred pronoun. 

The bill, HB 4474, expands on a Michigan law that covers religion, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Newsweek noted that Dylan Mulvaney, a man who claims to be woman, said in a video a while back about people like me who misgender him, “I feel like that should be illegal, I don’t know. That’s just bad journalism.”

No, it’s not. Mulaney, an internet influencer who has done to Bud Light what Eric Idle’s S. Frog character did to Monty Python’s fictional Conquistador Coffee, is wrong, as he is on so many things, What I wrote in the previous paragraph is good journalism because it’s the truth. Sorry, wokesters, but men who “transition” into women do not have ovaries, do not have menstrual periods, and do not undergo menopause. Women who do the opposite do not have testicles, a prostate gland, or Y chromosomes. I could go on, but I don’t have to.

Some people need to simply follow the science. 

Except, maybe soon in Michigan, if its Senate passes HB 4474 and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signs it into law, following the science and speaking out about it might get someone like me fined or worse. 

In her Senate confirmation hearing, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson could not–or in my opinion, would not–define what a woman is. But according to HealthyChildren.org, at around age two, toddlers know the difference between the two genders. Again, follow the science.

The headline of this blog post is colored red. How do I know? Because when I was at the age when I figured out what males and females are, my mother probably said something along these lines to me, “That color is red.” And that information was confirmed to me when I attended kindergarten.

Some things are that simple.

Well, it should be that simple. Transgendered people complain about being bullied. Well, bullying is wrong. I suppose Mulvaney considers it bullying when internet trolls visit his Instagram page and comments, “You’re a man.” Oh, a word for you trolls. Don’t you have anything better to do? Surely there is trash on a roadside near your home that needs to be collected.

On the flip side, in regard to gender, we are at a stage in America when someone says, “Dylan Mulvaney is a man” in mixed company–especially at work–it has to be spoken in whispered tones, sotto voce as the French say. 

Being labeled a transphobe–phobe, by the way means irrational fear–can get many people in trouble on the job. Or maybe soon in Michigan, getting fined or being imprisoned. And it’s not an irrational fear to lose out on a promotion or getting fired for being deemed a transphobe.

I call that bullying. 

As regular readers know, my wife was born in the Soviet Union, in Latvia. At school a number of decades ago, repeatedly, her teachers told her that Latvia, along with Estonia and Lithuania, voluntarily joined the USSR in 1940. Of course, that was a lie. Her parents knew it–and so did every adult in the Baltic States at that time. Yes, that includes the teachers. But my wife didn’t discover what really happened in 1940, beginning with learning of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, until she reached adulthood.

During my wife’s childhood, adults in the Soviet Union were afraid of the repercussions of telling the truth. So my wife’s parents never discussed the USSR seizing the Baltic States with her until Mikhael Gorbachev was the Soviet leader.

In the New York Sun, Dean Karayanis, reminded me that Soviet citizens faced prison if they were caught spilling coffee on a picture of Joseph Stalin. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the author of the Gulag Archipelago, spent eight years in the Gulags for criticizing Stalin in private letters, even though he took the precaution of using a codename for the dictator.

American society isn’t at that more frightening point yet. But Michigan just took a baby step in that direction. 

Or maybe we are there. Remember that Seger song? “And you always seem outnumbered, so you don’t dare make a stand.” Well, I’m making one. Is anyone else with me?

Fortunately, the new Michigan “pronouns” bill will almost certainly be challenged in court on First Amendment grounds. 

Which is another reason why I’m grateful for the 6-3 conservative majority on the US Supreme Court.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

One tiny Christian college is fighting the good fight against  Biden’s transgender insanity

Posted: June 1, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The political left are a rather tyrannical lot.  Their primary function in life is to force everyone else to follow their warped and twisted world view. Their preferred mode of operation is to infect all levels of government with their ideology, then use government force to coerce everyone else to follow their madness. 

Transgenderism is the most perfect example of this.  Progressives have been using government coercion to try and ensure everyone in the United States plays along with this mass psychosis.

It is bad enough when progressives cram this ideology down the throats of ordinary Americans.  It is absolutely unconscionable when they force religious institutions to comply because that would be a very direct violation of the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment.

This headline made me nauseous when is first read it.  It also made be happy because this small college was fighting back: Tiny Christian College Goes on Offensive as Biden Tries Forcing Female Students to Share Dorm Rooms – Even Showers – with Men (westernjournal.com)

In one of his first official acts in the Oval Office, Biden signed an executive order that redefined the terms “sex,” “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

Three weeks later, Biden’s Department of Housing and Urban Development issued new rules requiring schools to open their women’s dormitories — showers and all — to men who “identify” as women.

No exemptions were allowed, even for religious institutions.

The colleges justification for fighting back was right on point.

The Christian college, located in Point Lookout, Missouri, filed a lawsuit against Biden and his administration, arguing that the historical interpretation of the Fair Housing Act confirms that “sex” means biological sex.

The college also argued that not only does the Biden executive order violate the school’s constitutional right to “operate consistently with their religious beliefs,” but also that there should have been a public notice and comment period before such a drastic change was made.

This next quote proves just how far from the original meaning of the Constitution the entire federal court system has shifted.

In September, a three-judge panel from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case and denied a petition for the matter to be heard by the full court.

College of the Ozarks and its law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, responded in February by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

This next paragraph fills me with hope.

Recognizing the high stakes involved in the case, a number of other Christian colleges have submitted friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the suit brought by the College of the Ozarks. Nineteen states and numerous advocacy groups have done likewise.

The mainstream media was wrong about Bud Light: Boycotts work

Posted: May 28, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, culture, media, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

We’re approaching the two-month mark of the Bud Light boycott, which of course began when transgender social media, utilizing his–yes his–goofy 1950s-sitcom ditz schtick to recklessly promote Bud Light beer. 

Immediately, I was confident that this boycott had staying power, despite the increasingly irrelevant mainstream media telling its dwindling audience it did not. As Da Tech Guy himself explained, Anheuser-Busch’s problem is that Bud Light is too easy to boycott. Coors Light, Miller Lite, which taste similar–assuming that light beers have a distinguishable taste–are usually available in the same liquor stores, supermarkets, bars, and restaurants. And they are all priced about the same. 

American megabrewers are selling image and personality. Beer? Not so much. And in a few days, Bud Light, after partnering with Mulvaney, torched its macho brand-building work of four decades in just a few days. “Fratty” is the word used by the now-on-leave marketing head for Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid. Anheuser-Busch’s non-apology from its CEO only fanned the flames. 

Bud Light’s slogan is, “Easy to drink, easy to enjoy.” And it’s easy to boycott.

I have to reach back to Monty Python’s Flying Circus to find a worse marketing campaign. 

Boss (John Cleese character): Now, let’s have a look at the sales chart (indicates a plummeting sales graph). When you took over this account, Frog (Eric Idle character), Conquistador was a brand leader. Here you introduced your first campaign, “Conquistador Coffee brings a new meaning to the word vomit.” Here you made your special introductory offer of a free dead dog with every jar, and this followed your second campaign “the tingling fresh coffee which brings you exciting new cholera, mange, dropsy, the clap, hard pad, and athlete’s head. From the House of Conquistador.”

Yeah, I know, Bud Light’s Mulvaney campaign hasn’t been, so far, as awful for Anheuser-Busch as it was for the fictional Monty Python coffee brand. But sales of the beer continue to slide. Last week, by way of a $15 mail-in rebate, A-B started giving the beer away, because, unlike wine and hard liquor, beer has a brief shelf-life. 

So, yes, boycotts can be effective. 

But we were told by the mainstream media that boycotts don’t work.

Here a few examples of that wrongness:

Six weeks ago, ABC News’ Max Zahn and Kiara Alfonseca cautioned us about boycotts, “However, the campaigns rarely succeed in hurting a company’s sales or influencing its decision making.”

Around that same time, Patrick Coffee (no relation to Python’s Conquistador Coffee) of the Wall Street Journal, while citing other experts, opined that about the Bud Light boycott that “such campaigns often have failed to deliver a meaningful blow.” (Paid subscription might be required to access the link.)

Citing “research,” and of course falling back on “experts,” Becky Sullivan of NPR warned us “that other social media-fueled boycotts were short-lived.”

So where are the finger-waving fact-checkers? Why haven’t these articles been revised?

Meanwhile, Target is facing a boycott over its prominent promotions of “tuck-friendly,” that is, male-genitilia-hiding, swimsuits, as well as arguably promoting the trans agenda to children. It has lost $10 billion in market valuation since a boycott began against Target. 

Such a move is now called “Bud Lighting.”

This won’t be the last time that I say, when you get woke you go broke.

And it won’t be the last time I point out instances where the mainstream media was wrong.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Sullivan Trying to Pull the greatest Fauci of them all

Posted: May 25, 2023 by datechguy in culture
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Michael: You have to answer for Santino, Carlo. You fingered Sonny for the Barzini people.

Carlo Rizzi: Mike, you got it all wrong.

Michael: Ah, that little farce you played with my sister. You think that would fool a Corleone?
Carlo Rizzi: Mike, I’m innocent. I swear on the kids.

Michael: Sit down.

Carlo Rizzi: Please don’t do this to me, Mike. Please don’t.

Michael: Barzini is dead. So is Phillip Tattaglia. Moe Greene. Stracci. Cuneo. Today I settled all family business so don’t tell me that you’re innocent. Admit what you did. Get him a drink. Don’t be afraid, Carlo. Come on, you think I’d make my sister a widow? I’m Godfather to your son. [Carlo gets handed a drink] Go ahead. Drink. Drink. No, you’re out of the family business, that’s your punishment. You’re finished. I’m putting you on a plane to Vegas. Tom? [takes plane ticket] I want you to stay there, you understand? Only don’t tell me that you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence 

The Godfather 1972

That scene above is the first thought that came to my mind when I read Andrew Sullivan’s piece about Transgenderism going to far and hurting the gay movement. His attempt to pretend that his campaigning to redefine the thousands of year old definition of marriage for his own edification and self justification did not lead to the consequences that all of us were warning about twenty years ago insults me.

At best it’s delusional and at worst it’s self serving, all about distancing himself from the destruction this has does to society in just a single generation.

Did he REALLY think that have no consequences, Did he really think that “marriage” would be the only word redefined by his leftist allies? To wit:

The Human Rights Campaign, once a relatively moderate group, replaced “gay” and “lesbian” with the acronym “LGBTQ+” and expanded the word “queer” to describe anyone gay, lesbian, transgender, or even straight who defied heteronormativity. They changed the flag from a simple rainbow, to one that included some races (only black and brown — no Asians or whites) and transgender ideology. Their building in DC is festooned with a massive banner declaring their mission: “Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter.” Their new head is a woman who calls herself “queer,” not lesbian.

Then they quietly changed the meaning of the word “gay” so that it no longer referred to same-sex attraction, but to same-gender attraction; and changed the word “men” to include people with vaginas and uteruses, and the word “women” to include people with dicks and balls. Checkmate for the gays! We are all now just bigots with “genital preferences,” just like the Christianist right used to claim. Just to add to the confusion, hundreds of new “genders” were adopted — because some teens on Tumblr once invented them and queer theorists loved them.

Notice again the use of the made up word “Christianist” as if the idea of following Christ and the teaching of the church that have been constant on this stuff for 2000 years is some sort of ideology.

It gets even funnier as he’s shocked, SHOCKED that fantasy ideal world he thought he would make for himself by redefining marriage would leave him and those like him unaffected.

Gay hook-up apps now include biological women seeking gay men and straight men looking for chicks with dicks. “NO MEN” some profiles now say — on what was once a gay man’s app. There are fewer and fewer exclusively gay male spaces left. Lesbian bars? Almost gone entirely. Lesbians themselves? On their way out. Dylan Mulvaney is exemplary of the new queer order: a femme gay man who had to take female hormones to stay relevant. (Compare and contrast with disco icon Sylvester’s view of gay liberation: “I could be the queen that I really was without having a sex change or being on hormones.” We are going backward, not forward.)

Of course we saw the slippery slope and endured the cry of “bigot” to give that warning that what is now happening would happen and worse, but we were to be ignored at best and attacked as worst . And then comes the biggest lie of all:

Then the queers upped the ante and did something we gays never did: they targeted children.

Really? Tell that to the kids who were not adopted because being Christian and not following your line disqualified faithful Catholics from adoption. We went from: “We just want the right like hospital visits and inheritance” to “Heather has two mommies” in the school libraries. We saw this pushed in the faces of families, kids, schools and entertainment everywhere, except of course in places where Islam has a foothold because as radical as the gay left is and has always been, they’re not suicidal.

He closes his penultimate paragraph with yet another Faucian spin

But I can’t in good conscience stay silent when I spent a lifetime attempting to defend the simple existence of the normie gay from the bigots on the far right and the fanatics on the far left.

Bullshit! You weren’t interested in defending the “existence” of anybody, it was all about redefining norms to your liking. It’s no different from those four hundred years ago who redefined “marriage” because they didn’t like the idea of different races mixing. It’s no different than Fauci redefining “vaccine” for the sake of covering it’s failure to protect people. It’s the same as Democrats ( ironically those who he allied with to push his agenda) who where all about lockdowns and closed schools and masks suddenly insisting they never had supported any of those things now that the consequences of their actions are ravaging society

And now Sullivan in this piece is trying to pull the ultimate Fauci. He had nothing to do with any of this and must now, that the true horror of kids being spayed for fun and profit is not happening quietly where the general public is unaware of it, make a statement?

I may not be a Corleone but I am a Sicilian, and it insults my intelligence that he might think I’d fall for this. Like Burt Lancaster’s Ernst Janning he is trying to convince us that he never thought it would come to kids being nurtured by the thousands for profit, or or the redefinition of “Boy” and “Girl”.

It came to that the first time a Christian was rejected by an adoption agency for being faithful to Christ.

Pray for him.

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