It’s amazing watching a one-noter like Tom Cotton try to turn every issue back to Iran and our need to blow up Iran and rebuild it as an annex of the American Enterprise Institute. Cotton told Wolf Blitzer that whatever is happening to gays and lesbians in Arkansas, at least they don’t “hang you for the crime of being gay” like they do in Iran.
People defending ‘religious freedom’ laws repeatedly say that the aim isn’t discrimination, but protecting what is in fact one of our most cherished American values – religious freedom. One of the key elements of the Indiana story is that even though many other jurisdictions have these laws, the Indiana one is significantly different, adding key provisions that help individuals and businesses to defy the government’s efforts to protect the rights of others. But there is some truth to the other point. And earlier religious liberty laws did have more of this focus.
As Bush starts flipfloping on the Indiana law, Christie is signing on big time.
Also, Christie still thinks he’s running for president.
Slice contributor Samhita Mukhopadhyay will join The Slice’s editor Nona Willis Aronowitz Thursday at 1 p.m in The Hive (sub req) to chat about the intersection of race, gender, and politics. Mukhopadhyay is a writer and former executive editor of Feministing.com. She’s the author of Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life and contributed this piece on Mindy Kaling and race to The Slice. She is passionate about race, gender politics, technology and the media.
Two handsome older gentlemen and “girlfriends” in search of visas. It has to end well. Welcome to the latest chapter in the Menendez scandal.
McConnell warns foreign countries about President Obama’s UN climate plan.
Here’s a fascinating look at the Victorian origins of that seemingly ultimate 21st century thing, the “personal brand.”
Indiana pizzeria vows to never deliver a pizza to a gay wedding.
As the Indiana debacle unfolds there is an unmistakeable and merited glee from supporters of LGBT rights as they watch the law’s sponsors buffeted by waves of bad publicity and threatened boycotts. As I noted on Monday, Indiana is anything but the first state to pass anti-gay legislation. It’s just that the state’s governor and Republican legislators seem to have stumbled onto one of those tipping point moments when the balance of public sentiment and action doesn’t just shift but shifts dramatically, with the initial shift building on itself. I doubt very much that most of the companies and organizations that have announced boycotts or opposition in recent days thought they would be doing so before Salesforce’s Marc Benioff made his announcement just five days ago.
We talked to a former employer of the lawyer behind California’s “Sodomite Suppression Act.” It was interesting.