Cathi Herrod Will Not Go Away

Not content to have led the charge on Prop 102 (which enshrines second-class citizenship as the sole birthright of Arizona's queer population) Ms. Cathi Herrod, Arizona's chief Harpy-in-Residence, has just snicked a new notch on the right side of her belt with Arizona's approval of an official anti-abortion license plate after a nine-year fight.

The plates will feature a drawing of a young boy and a young girl in a two-inch box on the left side, with the words "choose life" along the bottom, where regular plates now have the motto of "Grand Canyon State."

Aside from allowing motorists to publicize their views, the arrangement also has financial benefits. Out of the additional $25 the state charges for special plates, $17 goes to the sponsoring organization.

"Proceeds from these licenses will support basically providing alternatives to abortion and promoting life," Herrod said, predicting her organization will be able to sell thousands of the plates.

The proceeds will go to the Arizona Life Coalition, which means they will be distributed among member organizations such as Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Tucson and Phoenix as well as Herrod's own Center for Arizona Policy. Despite the assertion by the AZ Life Coalition that disseminating "accurate information" is required by member organizations, rest assured that the money that will now be funneled to them with the full cooperation and facilitation of the state will help promote the ongoing message that abortion always causes psychological harm to the woman, imperils her future fertility and the health of any future children she might birth, as well as supporting Christian evangelizing of panicked women who happen to find the Crisis Pregnancy Center first in the phone book.

My only solace is that the wording on the plate, "Choose Life," implies--thoroughly inadvertently, I'm sure--that choice should still be the major component of the process, rather than compulsory full-term birth.

The natural response would be to push for a plate reading "Preserve Reproductive Choice," but the state commission created to approve special plates is ready to commit institutional suicide rather than risk being asked to approved the next special-interest plate that comes down the pike--this approval took a federal appeals court judge to force them to wield the rubber stamp--so this may be the last special plate Arizona gets. And that makes Cathi Herrod very happy.

Herrod said the legal fight to get the plates was worth it. "The 'choose life' message affirms the value of every human life," she said. Herrod said that message will "absolutely have a positive impact" on those who see the plates.

You're right about that, Cathi. Seeing one of those plates will absolutely make me want to impact the driver's face with my fist. How awesome would it be if the first one I see is on your car? Answer? It would be totes awesome, at least for one of us.

Well, Knock Me Over with a Feather, Volume Three Thousand and Four

I really need to get out for a hike so I can post some nice pictures and wax lyrical about the natural beauty of Arizona. Because otherwise I'm stuck writing about Cathi Herrod, who is neither, and it hurts me where I live.

A gay commitment ceremony planner in Phoenix has filed a proposal to create "civil partnerships" in Arizona that would entail all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage but leave the magic word "marriage" to the straights. It's the usual list of visitation and inheritance rights, plus marriage-like requirements for financial support of spouse and children, as well as provisions for legal dissolutions mimicking divorce without calling it that. He even included a bit barring the partnership ceremonies from being performed during any religious service in order to calm fears among the more hysterical Christian set that their churches would be co-opted for leather bear weddings every Saturday in June (although that probably means the proposal automatically flunks constitutional muster, but I do appreciate the effort).

Cathi Herrod isn't biting.

Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which backed both earlier ballot measures, said her group will oppose this plan to create what she called "marriage counterfeits."

"Marriage — and the benefits of marriage — should be reserved for one man and one woman," Herrod said.

So another day, another plea for special rights from the people who backed a constitutional amendment that was marketed as only being about protecting sacred sacred marriage from the homos, and goodness me of course isn't about taking anyone's rights away and certainly isn't going to keep anyone from hiring very expensive lawyers to cobble together some documents that don't cover every contingency and may or may not stand up in the face of opposition from conservative ICU nurses or distant Baptist relatives you met once who are more entitled to your property after you die than is your partner of thirty years. Of course it's not about that.

Except, of course, when it is.

%@$#*&^%

I was so fucking stoked for my day this morning, despite waking up probably a dozen times during the night due to various combinations of restless dogs, a sore back, and an unexpectedly cold house--curse the decision to pack up the heavy blankets last weekend--and then I got out of bed and read this in the paper.

Let people of Arizona legally define marriage
Opinion by Cathi Herrod

Cathi Herrod is an attorney and president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative advocacy group based in Phoenix.

Charming. I pounded out my own op-ed response, but as it clocks in at 935 words, the Daily Star won't give it a look. Not that it likely matters much, really. You either believe her crap as gospel or you, well, recognize the crap factor. You use reason or you don't. You appeal to emotion and superstition or you don't. You live and let live or you take every opportunity that is handed to you to beat someone else down, just because you can. One online commenter huffed that since people voted to take away his rights as a smoker in the last election, he's going to vote to take away gay rights in this one. He wouldn't really care either way otherwise, but a man needs to take his revenge where he can get it.

Oh, look. Now we have an hourly update from the Star telling us

A proposed ballot measure to impose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is advancing at the Legislature.

Approvals by House and Senate committees means a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman could be considered by the full chambers as early as next week.

If it passes it would appear on the state's November ballot.

Fucking excellent. Gee, do you think it will pass a legislature dominated not just by Republicans, but by Arizona's own special brand of nutjob Maricopa County "the solution to more school shootings is more guns in schools" Republicans? You think?

I really, really hate this state sometimes.

Arizona Legislature Notices Janet Napolitano is no Longer Governor, Crams Every Previously Vetoed Abortion Restriction into Single Law

The new Arizona law that massively restricts access to abortion and emergency contraception is scheduled to kick in at the end of this month. The first lawsuits were filed yesterday. Most of the provisions were included in bills vetoed at least once by former governor Janet Napolitano, although at least one rather audacious restriction was tossed in for good measure, just because they can.

Among other things, the new law includes a provision that prohibits nurse practitioners from performing abortions, a move expected to shrink services in Southern Arizona to a level at which women will be forced to go to Phoenix for the procedure, said Patti Caldwell, the chief operating officer of Planned Parenthood Arizona. It also allows health-care and pharmacy employees to refuse to take part in any way in abortions or to fill related prescriptions if they have moral or religious objections. [...]

Other provisions of the new law require that minors provide notarized parental consent for an abortion and that a woman make a face-to-face visit with the abortion provider within 24 hours before the procedure or emergency contraception such as the "morning-after pill" can be prescribed.

That last bit is the one that made me choke on my Kashi this morning. A mandatory 24-hour waiting period before EC can be prescribed? When it's a nonprescription medication? Hmm. Nancy Barto says "expanding the law to cover the morning-after pill simply updates existing laws covering abortions," cheerfully continuing to falsely conflate emergency contraception with abortion, which it most assuredly is not. A reading of the text of the House bill suggests the Daily Star got the bit wrong about a waiting period before acquiring EC, since there is no mention of it either there or in the Senate version (although the conscience clause exemption specific to pharmacists not wanting to hand it over still stands). But hang on, there's still more than enough bullshit to go around.

Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, the legislation's sponsor, said all the provisions are good policy to protect the health of women as well as being legally sound. Barto defended the 24-hour waiting period — and specifically the requirement for face-to-face counseling — rather than allowing a woman to get the information over the phone and avoid having to make a second trip.

"This ensures that they get the information that they need and the attention that they get for their own health," she said.

Because lord knows the primary societal effect of the Information Age has been limiting the delivery and comprehension of information to face-to-face interactions. Phone? Internet? It's a wonder people can even order a pizza any more with the intervention of these confounded electrical instruments, much less raise the local constabulary! But wait! It gets even better, where "better" means "completely assfucked sideways with a chainsaw and no lube."

The requirement, however, does not stop there. The law says certain information can be given to women only by the physician who will perform the abortion and not a nurse or other staffer.

Shade your eyes. This one really requires shouting. Because LORD KNOWS THE ONLY DOCTOR CURRENTLY PROVIDING ABORTION SERVICES IN ALL OF SOUTHERN FUCKING ARIZONA FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH A 16-HOUR DAY THAN HOLD FACE-TO-FACE COUNSELING SESSIONS. Can Cathi Herrod, chief harpy of the Center for Arizona Policy, clear this up for us? Of course she can.

"Finally, Arizona is taking care of the needs of women facing the abortion decision, as well as parents and health-care professionals," said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which lobbied for the legislation.

Finally. Up, down. Black, white. Charlie Weis, football genius. Arizona, taking care of women's needs. How nice to be taken care of like this. Throw enough roadblocks up between a woman and one of her options in "the abortion decision" and the decision pretty much makes itself for her, doesn't it? Which, unfortunately, is exactly the point.

The hearing on Planned Parenthood's requested injunction is scheduled for next week. Can you feel the optimism from BoltCorner? Me neither.

Here We Go Again

Here we go again, gearing up to go around again.

In November, Arizona became the first and only state in the nation to turn down a measure defining marriage.

Now Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, says he is counseling Arizona lawmakers to make sure they offer a more acceptable ballot measure next time around — one that doesn't ask voters to deny benefits to couples.

Great. The anti-marriage equality Prop 107 narrowly failed at the polls last November, purely because the campaign against it went to great lengths to avoid all but the most oblique or buried (three or four clicks deep on the website) references to gay people. It was probably too much to hope that the anti-gay side would stand down after that volley failed, content with banning same-sex marriage at the statute level rather than by constitutional amendment. Way too much to hope, as it turns out.

But forces in this state have already said they won't settle for anything less than a constitutional amendment that makes it illegal for even straight couples to enter into civil unions or receive domestic-partnership benefits.

"I strongly disagree with Matt Daniels' comments," said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which authored Proposition 107. "Our goal has been to protect the institution of marriage, not just the name of marriage."

Bullshit. Your goal, Ms. Herrod, has been to kick gay people in the teeth any way you can under the guise of a moralistic "will of the people" ballot measure. If you wanted to "protect marriage" according to the arguments your side has spewed, you'd do better to outlaw divorce, outlaw civil weddings (and perhaps any religious weddings not performed under the auspices of a Christian or Jewish ceremony), and mandate procreation.

Of course, this forces me into the paradoxical position of having to root for a Herrod-formulated proposition to be the one landing on the next ballot, given that version's failure the first time around. If the Center for Arizona Policy puts forth a reworded measure explicitly denying civil unions or benefits only to same-sex couples, while preserving them for straight couples, there's no way it would pass constitutional muster. The downside would be the huge symbolic gobsmack of seeing exactly how many of my fellow citizens would gleefully vote for such a vindictive piece of legislation.

It wouldn't be surprising, but that wouldn't make it any less sad.

The Center for Arizona Policy's mindset is summed up by this passage from their position paper on "Public Policy and the Church:"

Sure, Christians could and should strive to obey God's Word without worrying about everyone else. But if we really believe that God loves everyone, and we know that His revelation about how we should behave would benefit everyone, isn't it the ultimate expression of Christian love to strive to have public policy reflect the perfect wisdom of God's law in every way possible?

So hey, we could go ahead and live and let live, but wouldn't it be so much more loving for us to impose our narrow interpretation of our religion's holy book through legislation compelling everyone in the country to live by the rules we chose for ourselves? Fuck. What truly galls me is when these people insist they're not really Dominionists; it's just that their vision of perfect wisdom to be enforced with the cudgel of the law coincides--amazingly--with a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. And then they howl that by not formalizing Christian religious dicta into American civil law, we're forcing the True Christians to live like us heathens.

Mandating marriage equality does not compel straight fundamentalist Christians to marry someone of their same gender or eschew a church ceremony, any more than legalized abortion compels all pregnant women to go in for a D&C. That's the reality-based version of the world. In their twisted zero-sum version of the world, opening all civil contract law to all competent, consenting adults constitutes the creation of special rights that diminish their own.

I am sick of it all.

Triple Threat Friday!

Goodness me, so much in the paper this morning that needs responding to right now. Because that will fix it. Forthwith, the gays, the immigrants, and the terrorists!

Item the first: Gay Marriage Amendment Dies in Committee.

The House gave preliminary approval Thursday by a 28-27 vote to put the question on the November ballot. But that OK came only after Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, lined up enough votes to tack on a provision to grant certain rights to unmarried couples living together, whether gay or straight.

That move effectively tied the two issues together as a single ballot question, meaning voters who want to make same-sex weddings unconstitutional would be voting for some constitutional rights for gay couples. A spokesman for House Speaker Jim Weiers, sponsor of HCR 2065, said that is unacceptable and that the Phoenix Republican will now kill his proposal.

Senate President and Karl Rove fanboy Tim Bee had another version ready to go, this one limited solely to keeping Teh Gayz out of the wedding market, but after HCR 2065's summary execution no longer "sees the point" in bringing it to a floor vote. You might hope that this would be the anti-marriage-equality camp's last gasp on this issue, given their referendum defeat in 2006 and the governor's recent approval of domestic partner benefits (justified in great part by the need to prevent brain drain and make Arizona more attractive to both companies that might relocate here and the young professionals they employ).

You might also reasonably hope that Alfonso Soriano and the rest of the guys at the top of the lineup might quit swinging at the first pitch unless they can actually make contact. Ain't neither one likely to happen anytime soon.

"We're looking at all options," said Ron Johnson who lobbies for the state's three Catholic bishops. And Cathi Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy said she still believes that there is a way to resurrect the measure.

Ron, Cathi? Tell you what. Take it down and stick it in a hole and come back in three days to see if an angel has rolled back the stone. If there is not an empty tomb but, lo, a stench instead, walk away and turn your considerable energies toward something else. Want it to be biblical? Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. You can start with that one.

Item the second: Pledge Spoken in Spanish; Flag Threatens to Burst into Flames.

For years, Gale Elementary School teacher Anne Lee has had her students recite the pledge in three languages — English, Spanish and American Sign Language — as a learning exercise. The kids start with English.

Do you see a problem? No one had until the son of a Minuteman Mexican Huntin' Squad Civil Defense Corps loon patriot hit second grade. Dad posted the story on multiple message boards and the e-mail barrage began. TUSD's response has been, quite reasonably, wtf?

"It's really not a story," said Cheryl Hill Lander, the district's spokeswoman. "They recite the pledge in English every morning, and they recite the pledge in Spanish. After they recite it in Spanish, then they sign the Pledge of Allegiance."

And Governing Board President Alex Rodriguez, who served in the military, said "it was clear … there was no patriotic disrespect intended."

It doesn't matter to American Dad.

But to Altherr, a 34-year-old landscaper, the disrespect has been made, and the e-mail campaign will continue.

"It's nothing against Spanish," he said. "I would be just as upset if they were making my son say the Pledge of Allegiance in German."

Uh huh. That's why you set up your lawn chairs at JFK every spring, to make sure the NSA folks are checking the German tourists' passports with the rigor befitting a True Patriot.

Item the third: Daily Star Unwittingly Installs Astroturf, One Letter at a Time. Two letters in two days isn't much, but, well, we have two letters in two days with this lovely reminder:

Remind public why we're in Iraq

Re: the March 29 letter "How to end the Iraq War."

I think the idea has merit.

As a supporter of the war, I think that would be a great service provided that just after the information on the soldier is given the media profiles one of the individuals killed on Sept. 11.

The in-your-face approach to the war is needed to remind everyone why our brave soldiers are required to be placed in harm's way. Maybe we could also remind some of your readers what started the entire situation.

Wow, thank you for this! What with the 9/11 Commission Report and the Joint Forces Command's report and St. Rudy of 9/11 dropping out of the race and all, I had completely forgotten that the Iraq war is necessary retribution for Saddam planning September 11 and flying one of the planes himself by remote control while sitting on a copy of Mein Kampf personally signed by Barack Hussein Obama and getting blown by Osama bin Laden. Who was wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt at the time.

Final score, for those keeping it at home: Arizona 2, Rational Thought 1. Better luck today, Rational Thought! Hope the wind's blowing out!

Rage.

Well well well. I was a tad unclear yesterday on the implications of Arizona Senate Bill 1305 (passed the Senate and a House panel, now awaiting a House vote), which amended the current law prohibiting the use of public monies for abortion to include prohibiting the use of public monies (directly or indirectly) for health insurance that covers abortion. Silly starry-eyed me thought this was designed to be a direct response to the federal healthcare reform bill, reiterating times two the Hyde Amendment at a state level so that any future insurance exchanges run through Arizona would force women to purchase a separate abortion rider. And I completely forgot that state employees would be fucked over in the process.

Public employees will no longer be able to get insurance that covers most abortions under the terms of legislation approved Wednesday by a House panel.

Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, told members of the House Committee on Health and Human Services that state law already prohibits using public dollars to terminate a pregnancy except to save the life of the mother.

But Gray said that intent is thwarted by allowing cities and counties to offer health-insurance policies that cover abortion - policies paid for, at least in part, with taxpayer dollars.

Remember, this is the law that allows the state to assist in financing an abortion only when the woman risks death or "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function;" rape is no excuse for relief here. And it's bill sponsor Gray's sniffing attitude toward the latter that enrages me like little else, at least this morning.

That does not include coverage for abortions in case of rape and incest. Gray said those situations can be addressed with prescriptions for the "morning-after pill," a high dose of hormones that can prevent ovulation or keep a fertilized egg from implanting.

Her legislation, though, would preclude coverage for that pill, too.

Gray said that ban should not keep any woman from getting the care she needs because she could simply pay the $300 cost of getting the pill out of her own pocket.

Oh, simply fish three hundred dollars out of your pocket! See how simple that was? Don't forget, though, that Sen. Gray also voted for HB 2564 last year, which enshrined into law a pharmacist or emergency room doctor's ability to tell a rape victim to fuck off when she asks for emergency contraception, so good luck with all that, ladies. There's more from a couple of Gray's cronies, whose names will be familiar to you if you read me or Homer very regularly.

The measure is backed by Cathi Herrod, president of the anti-abortion Center for Arizona Policy. She said that while courts have upheld the right of women to an abortion, they also have said there is no right to demand public funding.

Rep. Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix, defended the move. "The overwhelming number of citizens in our state do not approve paying for abortion," she said.

Well, guess what, Nancy and Cathi. People in this state do all sorts of shit on a regular basis that I don't approve of, but I accept that part of the deal of getting to live in a society that's above the level of band organization means having to chip in for stuff I don't like. Courts have upheld the right of men to smoke cigarettes on private property, so do I get to argue that there's no right to demand public funding for their lung cancer treatment just because I think smoking is nasty? What about women who choose to carry a high-risk pregnancy to term against medical advice and end up with a prolapsed uterus or an infant who needs months in the NICU and 24-hour nursing after that for the rest of its life? Should I have to pay for that? Erectile dysfunction? Should I pay for that?

Short answer, yes. If legal medical procedures are covered even when another person could argue they aren't necessary, preventative, or deserved, then they all have to be. We don't get to decide we won't let publicly subsidized insurance pay for bypasses for people weighing more than 300 pounds because we think they brought heart disease on themselves, or for Cialis because we think when you're done you're done, or for procedures requiring blood transfusions because we think they go against God's design. You don't get to single out one perfectly legal procedure to exclude from coverage because you think it offends the God you've created, and restrict access to the drugs that will reduce the incidence of that procedure you despise, and then haughtily shrug and say that the whores can pay a prohibitive cost out of their own pockets if they want it so badly. You don't get to do that and sniff that you're taking the moral high road. Fuck off with your $300 out of pocket, Linda Gray.

It's really this Let Them Eat Cake attitude that puts me on Team Pie for life, y'all.