beam me up scottie
beam me up scottie's JournalMeanwhile in the bible belt the ACLU is fighting a city's ban on drag shows.
by ryan williams-jent
September 17, 2017 5:56 PM
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee is threatening suit ahead of a vote on an ordinance banning drag shows in the city of Portland, Tennessee.
As HuffPost reported, drag has recently become part of the nightlife in Portland, Tennessee, a town of about 12,000 just outside Nashville. Kyle and Raymond Guillermo, Jr. of Elite Productions have been holding drag nights at Envy, a Portland restaurant and bar since August.
Following a sold-out show on September 5th, town officials began the notion of of classifying drag shows as a form of adult-oriented business that may be erotic (in) nature. Local measures prevent adult-oriented business within most of the citys limits.
Guillermo told the Tennessean that the ordinance was a response to a drag show his company had organized on August 12th, noting that afterwards he had received hate mail. People are trying to get us out of Portland, he said. We are drag queens, we are not taking our clothes off. We are not cabaret.
Courts have held that government can impose some reasonable restrictions on adult entertainment, the ACLU of Tennessee said in its statement. However artistic expression is not sexual or erotic in nature simply because it involves male or female impersonators and, therefore, it cannot be regulated like adult-oriented businesses.
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and expression, no matter what you are wearing, the chapters legal director Thomas H. Castelli said. Its discriminatory and unconstitutional to single out male and female impersonators in a bid to shut down their speech. If members of the city council are uncomfortable with the drag show, they do not need to attend the performance. But they cant ban it.
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/ryanjent/aclu_of_tennessee_threatens_suit_ahead_of_city_s_ordinance_banning_drag_shows?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=PM&utm_content=ACLU+of+Tennessee+Threatens+Suit+Ahead+of+Citys+Ordinance+Banning+Drag+Shows
https://twitter.com/aclutn/status/908805537269272576
Thank Cthulhu for the ACLU.
*Posted in the Atheists and Agnostics group, the most sinful and most hosted group on DU
Freethought of the Day: Margaret Sanger
On this date in 1879, Margaret Sanger (née Higgins), was born. Watching her mother die at age 48 of tuberculosis after bearing 11 children changed not only the course of Margaret's life, but world history. As a young child, Margaret was introduced to the power of the Catholic Church when the local priest locked the doors of the town hall to prevent agnostic Robert Ingersoll from speaking in Corning, N.Y. Margaret wrote in her autobiography of the spellbinding experience of hearing Ingersoll speak in the woods instead. She herself would later personally repeatedly experience being locked out of public halls, even countries, under Catholic pressure. Her experience doing obstetrical nursing of the poor in New York City as a young mother herself galvanized her conviction that women had the right to control fertility. Sanger's turning point was witnessing the death of patient Sadie Sachs from a second illegal abortion. When the 28-year-old mother had pleaded with her doctor for birth control, he had responded: "Tell Jake to sleep on the roof." Sanger researched contraception (coining the term birth control), while editing a monthly newspaper, The Woman Rebel (1914). Its purpose: to challenge the 1873 Comstock Act classifying contraception as "indecent articles" and preventing dissemination of contraceptive information. Facing 45 years in prison when indicted under the Act, Sanger fled the country, leaving behind a book, "Family Limitation." It sold 10 million copies while Sanger continued research in England and the Netherlands. When she returned to the United States, she was rearrested. Then her young daughter, Peggy, died of pneumonia in November 1915. Devastated, Sanger went on a headline-making speaking tour to challenge the charges, which were dropped in 1916. She opened the first birth control clinic that year, which was raided, and spent the next two decades educating physicians about birth control and overseeing the creation of birth control clinics around America. In 1934, she brought the lawsuit that finally overturned much of the repressive Comstock Act. Over her lifetime, she was jailed eight times, brought diaphragms to the United States and distributed them, helped develop contraceptive jelly, founded Planned Parenthood, and commissioned the creation of the birth control pill. Doing more to free women than any other individual, she was hailed as the "heroine" of history by H.G. Wells and named "Woman of the Century" by a U.S. magazine the year of her death. D. 1966.
https://ffrf.org/news/day/14/09/freethought/#margaret-sanger
No gods - No masters
Sen. Bernie Sanders: ending DACA "one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made"
Sanders is the son of an immigrant and also co-sponsored the DREAM act.https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/904525457055469568
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/904526566205661184
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/904526738671230977
Agreed, I'm not interested in watching politicians pander to their religious base.
Politicians making a big deal out of praying in public just validates the myth that this is a Christian nation.
In God we trust? More like in God we conquered.
Carl Sagan saw this coming a long time ago.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."
- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Sure it is, you tried to make this about Bernie but your analogy failed..
Every time a Dem is criticized here we get to watch round after round of BUT WHAT ABOUT BERRRRRRRNNNNNNNIIIIIEEEEE?
It's hilarious. In fact I think we need to create a drinking game for it, like the one where we all drink if Susan Sarandon is brought up.
Maybe Bernie Bingo. Or Bernie Boogeyman.
Hmm, have to give that some thought.
Appreciation thread for Donkees!
I don't get back here often but I want you to know you have my respect and gratitude for your contributions to DU.
I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do.
Here's Bernie advocating universal health care on the house floor in 1991:
In addition to cosponsoring John Conyers' house bills Bernie also introduced two previous Medicare for All bills in the Senate, once in 2011 and again in 2013.
Just in case anyone thinks he hadn't been promoting this issue since he was first elected.
Go Bernie and Kamala!
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