Merry Xmas, Target

National retailer Target is getting it from both sides. In a letter to a former customer who complained about a Target pharmacist refusing to fill a morning-after-pill perscription, Jennifer Hanson at the company's home office wrote:

"Target consistently ensures that prescriptions for emergency contraception are filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer,we also are legally required to accommodate our team members' sincerely held religious beliefs as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

The 1964 Civil Right's act prohibits employer religious discrimination in the workplace, but say's nothing about protecting employees from channeling their moral views onto customers.

Ms. Hanson goes on to say,

"In the unusual event that a Target pharmacist's sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with filling a guest's prescription for emergency contraception, Target policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest's prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner. If it is not done in this manner, disciplinary action will be taken.

So Target has a pharmacist who believes the emergency contraception pill is child murder(religious grounds) and refuses to fill the prescription. Target says the employee has the right under the 1964 Civil rights Act to refuse to fill the prescription. But when this happens, Target then requires the objecting pharmacist to see that the prescription is filled elsewhere, under the threat of disciplinary action, negating the religious objection. I hear the doors to the court room swinging wide open.

As if this isn't enough trouble for Target, right wing evangelistic preacher Jerry Falwell is calling for the boycott of Target stores this weekend because he says they've banned "Merry Christmas" signage through-out all of their stores. Apparently the Christian world hangs on the thread of Target's lack of 'approved' adoration!

Falwell's organization and it's allies have started the "Friend or Foe of Christmas Campaign", an effort to identify anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces. Falwell has empowered Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal orginazation to file suit against those who restrict what Falwell sees as appropriate Christmas language and displays in the public sphere. The 750 lawyers of Liberty Counsel are being joined by 800 lawyers from the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. The Christian Educators Association will be the campaigns 'eyes and ears' in the public schools. John Ashcroft should love this. The next thing on their agenda may be abolishing the Bill of Rights.

So Target's Christmas gift may be finding out that accomodating the right wing Christian taliban on one issue doesn't protect you from their retribution on another of their edicts.

Merry Xmas, Target.


"The greatest of all faults is to be concious of none". -- Thomas Carlyle

Sister Cities

The 13th century patriachs in Haskell County, Oklahoma, again played the Lame Stream Media like a medieval stringed instrument last Saturday and got Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla) to attend and lead the chorus railing at the godless infidels of the 21st century for the reporters. The event was a rally around the ten commandments monument on the grounds of the Haskell county courthouse.

The Tulsa World printed a 3½ column wide by 5½ inches tall color picture of the event with headlines above "Commandments Draw Crowd", and "Haskell county monument supporters gather", below the photo. The Tulsa World didn't give this kind of spread to Oklahoma's Kelly what's-er-name who won one of the TV reality show contest. World staffer Tom Droege wrote as if he was describing a fireworks display using words like, "Igniting applause" and "fired up the crowd". Holy Moley, where was Elmer Gantry when you needed him!

On a serious note, here's a quote from the paper:

"During the rally, one of the pastors said those who disagree with the monument were wise not to show up because the'd be "hanging from the trees.""

This may be just a hollow threat as there were only 76 blacks living in Haskell county, according to the 2000 Census. I imagine those still in Haskell county are making plans to move after they heard about the anonymous preacher's remarks. Who in their right mind would want to visit or live in a county whose religious community wants to hang dissidents?

Stigler, Oklahoma meet Fallujah, Iraq.

Tulsa World, you've been had again.


"The time is always right to do something that is right". -- Martin Luther King, Jr.


Keywords - Haskell county, Ten Commandment Monument, and Tulsa World.

Time to Move On

At least every other day, I get e-mail about "abortion rights" from one group or another. The issue is always the same -- some one or entity is about to take away the right of women to have an abortion. Right now the bullseye is on the back of Judge Samuel Alito, Bush's pick to replace Sandra Day O'Conner on the Supremes.

Excuse me! The battle has already been lost! Roe vs. Wade probably won't be overturned but that is of little consequense in today's reality. Those who oppose women's rights have won in a war of a hundred little 'paper' cuts that have, for all practical purposes, eliminated abortions in many states already.

First, they captured the word 'abortion', demonized it and used it effectively for it's ultimate demise. The advocates of women's rights never got over this fact and this became a fatal flaw in their strategy; letting the other side frame your argument. The Pro Life -- Pro Choice tags are another example of letting the enemy frame the war of words aimed at America's ears.

In the reality based community, the foes of women's reproductive rights have used other court rulings to advance their ideology in state by state. For instance, In 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey that states could regulate abortion so long as it did not place an "undue burden" on the woman; the Court defined an undue burden as one that placed "significant obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion." With that opening, states throughout the country over the past 13 years have passed over 200 regulations that limit in various ways access to abortion.

Here's an example; the list of legal hurdles for women in Mississippi:

1. Mandatory waiting period: A woman may not receive an abortion until 24 hours after a physician has provided her, in person, with: information about the probable gestational age of the "unborn child"; a description of the proposed abortion procedure; the name of the doctor who will perform the procedure, its risks and alternatives; the risks of carrying her pregnancy to term; and a state-mandated lecture.
2. Informed consent/state-directed counseling: A woman seeking an abortion must receive a state-mandated lecture that explains: the legal responsibilities of the father; the medical assistance she may be entitled to if she carries the pregnancy to term; the name of the physician who will perform the abortion; and her right to review state-prepared materials that list the private and public agencies providing counseling and alternatives to abortion, and that describe of the probable anatomical and physical characteristics of a fetus at two-week gestational increments.
3. Parental notification/consent for minors: Both parents must provide written consent before a woman under the age of 18 can obtain an abortion (although, in specific cases the consent of one parent will suffice). However, the minor may obtain a judicial bypass if she can demonstrate that she is mature enough to make the decision for herself or that an abortion is in her best interests.
4. Public funding for abortion: Mississippi allows women eligible for medical assistance to obtain public funds for abortion if there is a fatal malformation incompatible with live birth and a few other circumstatces.
   
5. Rights of conscience protection to healthcare providers: Individuals and entities may refuse to participate in healthcare procedures for reasons of conscience.
6. Abortion clinic regulations: Mississippi has a set of regulations that apply specifically to abortion providers regarding a variety of administrative, personnel, building and facility, and patient care requirements and that make them subject to unannounced inspections by state officials at any time. In addition, in 2004, the state passed a law requiring that all abortions after the first trimester be performed in a hospital or ambulatory surgical facility. That law is unenforceable pending appeal, but a temporary law requires that from July 2005 to July 2006 all abortions after the first trimester must be performed in a hospital, ambulatory surgical facility, or abortion facility that has met the requirements of an ambulatory surgical facility.

Mississippi has only one facility in the entire state providing abortions and the legislature is trying to force the out-of-state doctors who come in to Mississippi to do abortions, to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals. As you can well imagine, legal abortions are pretty rare in Mississippi these days.

Here's the hurdles the state of Oklahoma imposes on a woman seeking an abortion.

1. Mandatory waiting period: A woman may not receive an abortion until 24 hours after a physician has provided her with: information about the probable gestational age of the fetus; the name of the doctor who will perform the procedure; the risks of the abortion procedure; and the risks of carrying her pregnancy to term.
2. Informed consent/state-directed counseling: A woman seeking an abortion must receive a state-mandated lecture that explains: the legal responsibilities of the father; the medical assistance she may be entitled to if she carries the pregnancy to term; the name of the physician who will perform the abortion; and her right to review state-prepared materials that list the private and public agencies providing counseling and alternatives to abortion and that describe the probable anatomical and physical characteristics of a fetus at two-week gestational increments.
3. Parental notification/consent for minors: One parent must be notified 48 hours before a woman under the age of 18 can have an abortion. However, the minor may obtain a judicial bypass if she can demonstrate that she is mature enough to make the decision for herself or that an abortion is in her best interests; or if a medical emergency exits that necessitates an immediate abortion to preserve her life.
4. Public funding for abortion: NO, but Federal law mandates that federal and state Medicaid funds must be available for abortion in cases involving rape, incest and life endangerment to the mother.
5. Rights of conscience protection to healthcare providers: Individuals and hospitals may refuse to participate in abortion procedures.
6. Abortion clinic regulations: Ohio state law requires that all abortions performed after the first trimester be performed in a hospital, but this law is unconstitutional and unenforceable according the Supreme Court's decision in Akron v. Akron Ctr. for Reprod. Health, which held that a second trimester hospitalization requirement constituted an "undue burden."
7. Other: -Oklahoma has a "Baby Moses" law, which allows a mother or legal guardian to anonymously leave an infant at a safe, designated location.

You can search other states across the nation and turn up the same results. For all pratical purposes, abortions have become almost a thing of the past.

As a result, I urge my friends who have fought for women's reproductive rights to focus on their own legislature elections and change the character of these law-making institutions. Secondly, prosecute fully an agenda of forcing those in power to give the same attention to babies once they've left the womb as they do to fetuses in the womb.

"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." -- Robert Ingersoll, 19th sentury writer and atheist.

They're At It Again

This morning the Tulsa World published an article, "Support found for Zoo display," claiming the majority of Tulsans want a creationist display at the zoo along with "other religious symbols"(pictured at right). The article cites a poll they commissioned SoonerPoll.com to conduct October 7 - 10, surveying 500 likely voters in Tulsa. This is the wording of the poll question:

"Earlier this year, a dispute arose at the Tulsa Zoo over the proposed display of the biblical story of creation. Proponents say a biblical view of creation should be shown also because the zoo contains other symbols they say represent other religions. Do you approve or disapprove of efforts to add a display on the biblical story of creation to the Tulsa Zoo?

The author of this article in theTulsa World is Tom Drodge (tom.droege@tulsaworld.com), who forgot to mention that the zoo question was part of a series of unrelated questions asked on one poll done last month. In other words, the Tulsa World commissioned one poll to cover different subjects, and guess who wrote the articles creating an illusion that these questions were asked in different polls? You're right. . . Tom's da man!

On October 23, the Tulsa World published an article about the tree trimming by PSO around their power lines and cited the same poll done by SoonerPoll.com, on the same dates. The clear bias of this article is displayed when Mr. Drodge states, "The majority --46 percent --said the company is trimming too aggressively." Excuse me! When is 46 percent the majority? I'll bet PSO is not a big advertiser in the Tulsa World. They have jointly sponsored the Christmas Parade, in the past.

Then there's this article, "Council conduct criticized," published October 20th, citing the same poll, conducted October 7 - 10. Mr. Drodge again fails to mention the Tulsa World ran at least one article a week criticizing a group of Tulsa City Councilors for thirteen straight weeks before the poll was taken and the Tulsa World editorial page strongly advocated recalling two councilors earlier this year! The recall effort failed. The writer doesn't mention the fact that over half of the poll respondents didn't even know who the city councilors were!

How's this for a fair poll question:

"There is the perception that there has been a great deal of conflict among members of the City Council. Which of the following statements best fits your opinion about the state of the City Council?

1. This conflict is just business as usual.
2. This conflict is hurting the city by preventing growth and development.
3. This conflict is helping the city by raising questions about growth and development.
4. Don't know/refused.
   

Fair and balanced? - - you decide.



Keywords:Tulsa World Tulsa Zoo Oklahoma Polls