Jass Bolger's (false) "struggle"

"I'm hiding the pain of my struggle behind this sincere smile."

According to MLive, "Michigan's House Speaker Jase Bolger says he's 'struggling' with the issue of adding gays to the state's Elliott-Larsen anti-discrimination law which protects citizens in housing, employment, and other areas on religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, familial status or marital status." This is what he had to say on the matter:

“I want to respect gay individuals. I don’t want to send a message as a society that we are intolerant. I think that we need to respect people who are different from us, whether they’re different because they believe differently, whether they’re different because they have different skin color, or whether they’re different because they’re straight or gay."

Wow, Speaker Bolger. If you would have just stopped there. You'd go down in history as a man with the political courage and conviction to do the right thing for the people of Michigan. The man who managed to rise above your party's current obsession with partisan obstructionism. But, no:

"The other side of that equation is I also want to respect people’s religious beliefs. And that’s where the struggle really comes in. I want to respect gay people, I want to respect people who have deeply held religious beliefs. And so legally – as a lawmaker now – you go back and you look at Elliott-Larsen, and it gets very difficult to try to balance those two. And that encapsulates the struggle. The struggle is how do we respect individuals on both sides of this question. I want to respect the individual rights of someone who’s gay. And I also, in doing that, don’t want to force somebody to ignore or violate their religious beliefs.”

Ah, yes. By updating one of the most comprehensive anti-discrimination laws in the country to protect gay people from things like getting fired or kicked out of their apartment for simply being a gay person, you're disrespecting religious freedom. This struggle you're facing! What a conundrum!

The truth is, extending civil protections to gay people does absolutely nothing to infringe on religious liberty. Would legally protecting LGBT people from discrimination make it harder for "deeply religious persons" to perhaps, hide their disdain for homos behind a Jesus shield? Yes it would. But that's a good thing, Jass. That's a good thing.

The number of church leaders, scholars and people of faith who accept the notion that loving gay people and loving Jesus are not mutually exclusive, is growing every single day. Not only that, most came to this conclusion after thoughtful study of Biblical text and deep discussion with their friends, neighbors and pastors. In other words, after struggling with the issue. 

Whereas the "no homo" right-wing Christian crowd is not only dwindling, but causing a substantial number of young people to leave the church and question their faith. Interestingly, this anti-gay interpretation of Christianity is rarely backed up by thoughtful scholarly interpretation of Biblical text. Instead, there's a lot of "feelings" and a willingness to ignore anything that would contradict these "feelings." Which one of these Biblical interpretations is healthier for society and the church itself? The inclusive one that preaches about an all-loving God or the exclusive one that kicks the Boy Scouts out of their church for daring to accept and affirm gay youth? 

I think it's pretty clear. And considering almost three in four Americans believe it’s inevitable that same-sex marriage will be legalized in the United States, your "struggle" with affording gay people basic legal protections seems disingenuous at best and a thwart of the will of the people at worst. You aren't "disrespecting" Christians by amending the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. But you are disrespecting yourself and the people of state of Michigan with your political cowardice and extremist pandering. So I guess we all lose. So it is written.

Law and Order: Hamtramck

Tonio Dace, the 21 year old man responsible for the kidnapping mayhem that took place during the Metro Times Blowout in Hamtramck this past March, has been sentenced to 15 to 45 years in prison.


I would love to feel that "justice is served!" feeling, but instead I am left with a "this is as close to justice as we're gonna get, so I guess I'll take it" feeling. It's a frustration with society and the criminal justice system as a whole, not with this case specifically. To be sure, I believe that Dace should be put away for a long time. But by locking him up, he doesn't disappear. Even if we want to think he and the over 2 million other Americans behind bars are invisible and not our concern.


When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said,"the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice," I think he meant a more "capital J" version of the word, not what passes for "justice" in our current judicial system. Crime brings out our most visceral emotions. It makes us feel indignant, afraid, angry and anxious. But when we use those same emotions to shape our punitive measures, we don't end up with "capital J" Justice: We end up with the highest incarceration rate in the world, deplorable conditions, the death penalty, systematic racial and economic disparity, and a recidivism rate so high we may as well put revolving doors on our jails and prisons.


The term "Department of Corrections" has lost all relevant meaning. We've privatized our prisons and slashed virtually any aspect of this quaint notion of "correcting" from our prison system. We want to see criminals "pay" for their crimes, and affording them any opportunity at rehabilitation strikes us as counterintuitive to punishment. Jobs programs? Continuing education? A library? The public response is often,"No! Let them rot." The problem of course, is they do rot. And soon they'll be out on the streets in your neighborhood again. With new skills - skills they've acquired, not through any kind of job training program, but from other more seasoned criminals. Now they're your neighbor and even more rotten than before. This doesn't even feel like "small j" justice to me. It feels like a giant sham and a dangerously broken system.


So yes, I want to experience that "justice is served" feeling. But I feel like we have a long, long way to go before that's really possible.


Update 7/2: ProPublica put together a great list of investigative reporting on U.S. prisons. Read some of this stuff.

Congratulations Michigan Republicans!

Your heroic efforts against one woman's utterance of the word vagina has brought worldwide attention to our state and all the vaginas therein! If your delicate sensibilities were shaken by the words of Rep. Lisa Brown, I can only imagine you're reeling after yesterday. You had to endure hearing a giant crowd chant the word "cunt" and then listen to that uppity loudmouth Eve Ensler yell about "uninvited penises up our anuses and vaginas"on your precious Capitol steps!* Zoinks! Keep it up you guys, you're really doing an awesome job!

* Oh, and those aren't your precious Capitol steps. They're ours.

Get your Extra Value Meal out of my uterus

How about the Michigan House of Representatives, hmm? They're really using their time wisely getting this state of ours back on track. Unfortunately that track is one that leads not to a progressive future, but right back to the good old days where Roe v Wade was but an unthinkable Blade Runner-like dystopian nightmare, women actually clutched their pearls and good girls kept their legs closed until God told them it was time to make a baby. And they're doing it under the guise of "protecting women's health" with what's being called a "super bill" of anti-abortion legislation. Presumably it gets that name by wearing a little cape as it destroys women's lives. Fantastic.

Because politics is confusing, a lot of folks don't take action when their elected officials do egregious things. Even fairly politically astute people don't know who to contact. But at this point, if you're feeling a little bit pissed about the fact that Michigan's elected officials are more worried about your vagina than your having a job, you might wanna give somebody a call. The next step on this bill's journey will be to the Michigan Senate. According to this article, that probably won't happen until September. So clearly the House's sense of "urgency" to ram these "important laws protecting women" through was totally legit. The good news is that gives you plenty of time to type your address in to this handy website, find out who your Senator is, and call 'em up or even go visit them. Tell them you think House Bill 5711 is bullshit. While you're at it, go ahead and throw a couple of dollars to Planned Parenthood. We need them right now.

I can't help but notice that the same people who freak out about "the nanny state" whenever anybody suggests that perhaps eating six pounds of fast food and a gallon of soda for every meal might be making America the land of the fat and the diabetic an unhealthy choice are the same people who want to prevent gays from getting married and take control of my reproductive choices. It astounds me that these people don't see the contradiction here. If you're for "less government," please stop trying to eat your Biggie fries out of my uterus. In return I'll do my best to not look disgusted every time you break into a full-on sweat walking up the one flight of stairs to your apartment while carrying a White Castle Crave Case. Sounds fair to me.