US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7614

A family court judge in Kentucky is being told he has to decide whether to recuse himself in gay adoption requests on a case-by-case basis.

Barren and Metcalfe County Judge Mitchell Nance had asked the state’s Chief Justice to approve a new rule that would allow him to recuse himself from all adoption cases involving LGBT adults.

Chief Justice John Minton Jr. denied the request last week, saying a judge cannot recuse himself from an entire class of cases, because a recusal has to be based on facts or circumstances of an individual case.

Nance filed an order last month saying he wanted to be advised by lawyers if they were bringing cases involving gay adults to his courtroom. He would then recuse himself from those cases because he doesn’t think adoption by “a practicing homosexual” could ever be in the best interest of a child.

Heather Gatnarek is a legal fellow with the Kentucky ACLU.

“Frankly, this is very unusual. Recusal exists for when judges have personal interest or personal bias in a case regarding specific individuals,” said Gatnarek. “What Judge Nance has done here is made public his bias towards an entire class of individuals.”

A spokeswoman for Judge Nance said he’s not commenting on the matter.

Gatnarek says Nance still appears to be operating under his own decision to recuse himself.

“The order that Judge Nance entered in April is public record and if it were rescinded or vacated that would also be in the public court record. As far as we know today, it has not been rescinded or vacated.”

The Family Foundation of Kentucky is supporting Judge Nance’s decision to recuse himself from cases where he may have a personal bias.

The Kentucky ACLU and other legal groups have files a complaint with the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission requesting that he be removed from the bench because he is failing to perform his judicial duties impartially.

On May 23 2017 23:34 brian wrote:
it's nice to have the self awareness enough to know he shouldn't preside over cases he has a bias against.

but as the ACLU stated, you're just not a qualified judge anymore.

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Tampa police say the teen arrested for Fridays' double murder says he killed his roommates after being angered by the world's "anti-Muslim" sentiments. Devon Arthurs told them he used to be a neo-Nazi, but had recently converted to Islam.

Police arrested the 18-year-old last week for the shooting death of his two roommates at an apartment complex on Amberly Drive.

According to the arrest affidavit, Arthurs made reference to "Allah Mohammed!" while officers walked him to the patrol vehicle after he was taken into custody for holding three people hostage inside a smoke shop.

Arthurs allegedly told police, "I had to do it. This wouldn't have had to happen if your country didn't bomb my country."

In later interviews, detectives say Arthurs told them that he shot his roommates, 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman and 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk, because they "disrespected" his Muslim faith.

According to Arthurs, he and the two roommates had previously shared a neo-Nazi belief, until Arthurs converted to Islam. Since converting, he became angered by the world's anti-Muslim sentiment and "wanted to bring attention" to his cause.

Donald Trump’s election has led to such a steep rise in fundamentalist Christian evangelizing and religious bigotry in the U.S. armed forces that the matter is reaching the level of a “national security threat,” according to information shared exclusively with Newsweek by an organization that represents and advocates for secular and minority religious views in the military.

The number of complaints from servicemen and -women in the Army, Air Force, Marines and other service branches to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has doubled in number since November 2016, according to lawyer Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who founded the organization.

Many of the recent charges are coming from members of minority religions, including Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims, and from atheists. Among the complaints: military family and marital therapy programs are being infused with Protestant Christianity, which would violate the U.S. Constitution; open anti-Semitism; anti-LGBT statements, posters, symbols and bullying; openly anti-Muslim teachers and Islamophobic attacks; a rise in on-base evangelizing; and increased pressure on recruits or lower-level personnel and service members to convert to fundamentalist Christianity.

“With the advent of Trump as the commander in chief of our armed forces, MRFF has experienced a massive influx of new military and civilian personnel complaints of religion-based prejudice and bigotry, most of them coming from non-fundamentalist Christians being persecuted by their military superiors for not being ‘Christian enough,’” Weinstein tells Newsweek.

He says noncommissioned officers at one Air Force base reported that their superiors told them Trump would make it USAF policy that in order for “disbelieving Jews” to be allowed into the USAF or deemed fit for promotions, they would have to show via objectively established behavior that they were at least honestly “considering the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

At another base, the wife of a combat-decorated Muslim U.S. Naval officer, who was wearing a Muslim headscarf, was surrounded in the commissary and spit upon and cursed as not being a “true American and being a spy and a terrorist.” She was with her children at the time.

In both situations, the targets complained to the MRFF because they feared retaliation if they went through their chain of command. The MRFF then lodged formal complaints with the service branches, and the incidents were addressed, Weinstein says.

The military recently backtracked on an edict requiring thousands of married couples in a marital program called “Strong Bonds” to participate in Protestant prayer sessions. As of 2014, more than 37,000 Army personnel participated in the Strong Bonds program. On May 19, Brigadier General Christian Rofrano told the MRFF via email that the complaints had been heard. “Presently, the Air National Guard leadership is in the process of rescinding and re-issuing its program guidance,” Rofrano wrote.

Numerous other complaints remain unaddressed. For example, 36 Air Force Global Strike Command personnel complained in March about a plan to include prayer among the activities in its “Year of the Family” program. The AFGSC has approximately 31,000 personnel at Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, Louisiana. It is responsible for the nation’s three intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile wings, the Air Force’s bomber force and operational and maintenance support for organizations within the nuclear enterprise.

More than 100 service members also complained in March when Army Major General Julie Bentz, vice director of the multiservice Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, gave a speech at the 56th Annual Kansas Prayer Breakfast, during which she stated, “But my greatest privilege is standing in front of my king and my God, carrying every member of my organization to his throne and asking for his protection, his mercy, his love on each of them and their families and whatever are their concerns and burdens of the day.”

One of those who objected to her statement was a senior military officer who wrote to the foundation, saying, “As someone who’s served more than 25 years in uniform, including one assignment at the very organization to which she is now assigned as the deputy, I just can’t imagine a much more inappropriate or disconcerting message.”

In February, the American Civil Liberties Union and the MRFF challenged the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego over its annual Christmas crèche, arguing that it must allow Jews and other religions to erect religious symbols on its grounds as well. The staff judge advocate declined to review the complaint, judging it “premature.”

The commingling of radical Christianity and the U.S. war fighter has been under way for some time now. In 2007, the Department of Defense’s inspector general issued a report regarding a cadre of ranking DoD officials and officers who “abused their authority” by promoting a video for “Christian Embassy,” a Washington-based, high-level evangelizing outfit with a website designed to make it look like an arm of the U.S. government.

Fundamentalist views are decidedly in the minority in the general population, but they have adherents in some of the U.S. military’s most powerful positions, especially in and around Washington, D.C., and in Colorado Springs, home of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the nation’s nuclear command center.

On May 23 2017 23:45 ShoCkeyy wrote:
http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/256159149-story

Another local home grown "terrorist" that went from one extreme side of the spectrum, to the complete opposite side... Wtf. Like you can't make this shit up.

On May 24 2017 00:01 Mohdoo wrote:
Sometimes its funny to stop for a moment and realize: There are people who see ethical concerns regarding where a penis goes. Its such a ridiculous concept that sometimes I just have to take a moment and think "man, how fucking retarded"

On May 24 2017 00:02 Simberto wrote:


Well, there are some ethical concerns regarding peni that make sense. For example, if the person who the penis is supposed to go into does not what that penis in there.

But in general, i agree with you. It is really weird.

On May 23 2017 21:58 Slydie wrote:


Money talks, Trump is a capitalist. Nothing too different to most other US presidents. I love irony in the fact that Saudi-Arabia essentialy IS in the south what ISIS has tried to build in the north.

That trip might make it harder to play the islamophobia card in the future, though.

On May 24 2017 00:10 ShoCkeyy wrote:
It's utter bullshit, we should just start teaching old Greek, and Roman culture early on. Those people fucked anything that walked.

On May 23 2017 23:45 ShoCkeyy wrote:
http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/256159149-story

Another local home grown "terrorist" that went from one extreme side of the spectrum, to the complete opposite side... Wtf. Like you can't make this shit up.

On May 23 2017 22:47 KwarK wrote:

Islam is as central to ISIS as being white dudes is to the Nazis but nobody insists that every time we talk about the Nazis we call them white Europeans and allude that their being white Europeans is possibly what caused it. And nor should they, most of the Nazis' victims were white Europeans and most of the people who ended up destroying the Nazi regime were white Europeans. Tarring both sides with the same brush would be dumb and spit on the memory of those who died resisting. This is the same. The majority of the people fighting radical Islam are Muslims. The majority of the victims of radical Islam are Muslims.